KU’s Bill Self amazed at outstanding college basketball games during ‘Feast Week’
College basketball certainly has delivered a series of delectable nonconference games during “Feast Week.”
Kansas Jayhawks coach Bill Self marveled over that during a Friday news conference held in advance of Saturday’s game between No. 1 KU (6-0) and unranked mid-major Furman (7-0) of the Southern Conference.
Tipoff is 5 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse (streaming on ESPN+).
“When have we had a period of time this early in the season where there’s been this many games against high level competition? It’s been awesome and I think it’s what our sport needs,” Self said. “Certainly it allows us to have a little bit of a presence in a football-dominated time.”
Self’s Jayhawks participated in one of the best games of the week dubbed “Feast Week” by ESPN. That would be Tuesday’s 75-72 victory over No. 11 Duke in the Vegas Showdown at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“I think it’s been fantastic. It’s not just Maui,” Self said of a sensational Maui Invitational that featured two-time defending national champ UConn losing to Memphis 99-97 in overtime. The No. 2-ranked Huskies also fell to Colorado in a 73-72 nailbiter and to Dayton, 85-67.
That tourney was won by Auburn, which defeated Iowa State, 83-81; North Carolina, 85-72 and Memphis in the title game, 90-76. Memphis beat Michigan State in Maui, 71-63.
In the Battle4Atlantis in Bahamas, West Virginia defeated Gonzaga 86-78 in overtime and Oklahoma topped Arizona 82-77, with Louisville and OU reaching Friday’s title game. Louisville stunned Indiana 89-61 in the first round.
“There have been so many high-level games that I don’t remember us having this early in the season,” Self said, also pointing out Baylor’s recent 99-98 double-overtime win over St. John’s. “It gets my attention and makes me also think, ‘Oh my gosh, certain teams haven’t even found their stride yet. Wait until they find their stride.’ It’s going to be a monster league (Big 12),” Self added.
Iowa State of the Big 12 bounced back from its two-point loss to Auburn in Maui with an 89-84 win over Dayton and 99-71 win over Colorado in the Cyclones’ final two games in paradise.
“I don’t know what lessons are learned from this year’s Maui,” Self said, “other than the fact anybody can be had on any day.”
Self on Friday reiterated that one of the Jayhawk players turned in one of the best individual performances during Feast Week: senior forward KJ Adams, who had eight points, three blocks, three steals, three assists and two rebounds while also playing suffocating defense on Duke sensation Cooper Flagg in a 33-minute stint on Tuesday.
“We saw first hand how a guy can dominate a game and score eight points and get two rebounds,” Self said of Adams. “The same things we tell them (Jayhawks) every day in practice … if you just played half as hard as him (Adams), if you just did this and that ...
“You could see (watching film of KU-Duke) how easy it was for players to score on others compared to how players scored on him and how it didn’t have anything to do with anything other than competitiveness.
“Obviously he is athletic. It’s also being in the right spot, playing to scouting report, things like that. KJ was basically the most talked about guy in the game with all those good players out there after getting eight points and two rebounds. To me that is a great lesson to the rest of the players on what really wins. Because usually people equate winning to who scored the most points. That’s not what equated to winning in that particular game,” Self stated.
Duke freshman Flagg scored 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting in 38 minutes.
“His presence period,” Self said of Adams. “He impacted possessions in ways you don’t even know until you watch the tape. You say, ‘Well, they had this. He bluffed at that and took that away.’ When you show that to the players and say, ‘Why did we have a good possession here?’ a large part was that KJ covered for everybody’s mistake on this one possession.”
Saturday’s game marks KU’s second and final game of the Vegas Showdown. Furman defeated Seattle, 61-56, on Tuesday in Las Vegas to keep its undefeated season alive at 7-0.
This story was originally published November 29, 2024 at 2:07 PM with the headline "KU’s Bill Self amazed at outstanding college basketball games during ‘Feast Week’."
