Kansas Jayhawks hope to shake basketball doldrums in 2nd Big 12 game on Sunday at UCF
The Kansas Jayhawks basketball players were downright dejected after a one-point loss to West Virginia on New Year’s Eve at Allen Fieldhouse.
KU has won 321 games and lost just 19 times at the fieldhouse during the 22-year Bill Self era.
“We’re down. We’ll bounce back, but we’re down,” Self said after exiting a sullen locker room following KU’s first loss in a conference opener in 34 years.
So how does an admittedly “ticked off” Self boost player morale heading into the second game of a marathon 20-game Big 12 slate? The Jayhawks (9-3, 0-1) visit UCF on Sunday at 3 p.m. Central Time.
Self was asked if, in an attempt to get his players’ “swag” back, he merely has to “remind” the Jayhawks that they once were the preseason (and early-season) No. 1-ranked team in the country — a team that knocked off Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State and North Carolina State in the nonconference portion of the 2024-25 season.
“Yeah, that’s all you’ve got to do is remind somebody to do it and then it automatically happens,” Self said. “It’s amazing: ‘Hey, there’s dust that you can actually sprinkle on your head these days — candles — all that stuff.’
“My personal opinion is the coach’s job is to do everything he possibly can to do as you say (bring back the “swag”), but there’s a point in time where the ultimate responsibility also calls on individuals to give themselves the best chance to be able to play at the level and the confidence and the aggressiveness that you think the magic dust provides. So I think it falls on the coaches, but I also think it falls primarily on individuals as well.”
The coach believes his team’s anemic 20-point first half against West Virginia could have been avoided had the Jayhawks played with energy from the start on New Year’s Eve.
“Doesn’t energy create offensive rebounding?” Self asked rhetorically. “Doesn’t energy create pace? Doesn’t energy create how fast you run in transition? Doesn’t energy dictate where you pick up defensively?
“If the game plan is to make them feel us every possession, they never felt us the first half one time.”
Perhaps in an attempt to uplift spirits, Self brought up a past KU team during Thursday’s six-hour practice session.
“I told the team in 2022, the most hyped game we had that year was when Kentucky came to town,” Self said.
Leading up to that game, Self and assistant coach Kurtis Townsend were stationed at a hotel in Indianapolis. They were attending a hearing regarding KU’s NCAA infractions case (which ultimately resulted in minor penalties).
“Our guys practiced without us to prepare for Kentucky,” Self said. “We played that game hoping the atmosphere in the crowd would be enough to carry a team that wasn’t as prepared.”
No such luck. Kentucky defeated the host Jayhawks 80-62 on Jan. 29, 2022.
“We played a team plenty good enough to win a national championship,” Seld recalled. “They had us down 18 at half and we never got closer than 15. It was a beat-down. I said after the game, ‘Kentucky can win the national championship.’ They were fantastic with Oscar (Tshiebwe) and everybody.
“What happens is the team that won the national championship was the team that got beat by 20 and the other team lost in the first round. Sports is crazy. Stuff like that happens. It doesn’t make it any better when it happens at that moment, but that’s where we are now,” he added.
That 2021-22 Kentucky team that annihilated KU in Lawrence lost to Saint Peter’s 85-79 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. KU, meanwhile, went 6-0 in the postseason, finishing a championship season with a record that stood 34-6 overall and 14-4 in the Big 12. Kentucky finished 28-8.
The moral of Self’s story to his players is it’s a long season, and though the Jayhawks may be trending downward, the ship could get righted in a hurry. That 2022 KU team, embarrassed at home by Kentucky, won the national title.
“When we go on the road they are hard games,” Self said. “We’ll have to be a different mindset than what we’ve shown the last two road games (losses to Missouri and Creighton) and the last home game. I think we will, but it still doesn’t guarantee success. I’m ready to see what team shows up Sunday.”
A year ago, in its first year in the Big 12, UCF (10-2, 1-0) defeated KU 65-60 in Orlando in the second game of the 2023-24 conference season. KU had defeated TCU 83-81 in Lawrence leading up to that game.
“They were freakishly athletic last year,” Self said.
This year’s Knights are riding high, too, having won six in a row — including Tuesday’s 87-83 victory at Texas Tech, a notoriously tough place for opponents to win.
Jaylin Sellers and Darius Johnson, who returned to UCF this season, scored 18 and 17 points, respectively against KU last year. The Jayhawks had trouble scoring in Orlando last season: Hunter Dickinson had just 12 points and KJ Adams 10, while Kevin McCullar, who is now in the New York Knicks NBA organization, led the way with 16.
“Sellers (he played 14 minutes at Texas Tech) has only played in two games (because of injury), and he was their leading scorer last year,” Self noted. “They’ve got three others (Keyshawn Hall, 15.8 ppg; Jordan Ivy-Curry, 15.7; Johnson, 15.5) averaging 15 (points). That means they are pretty good offensively.”
After Sunday’s visit to UCF, KU plays host to Arizona State at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Allen Fieldhouse.
This story was originally published January 4, 2025 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Kansas Jayhawks hope to shake basketball doldrums in 2nd Big 12 game on Sunday at UCF."
