Kansas Jayhawks seek return of ‘defensive mojo’ during Saturday’s game at Baylor
Since holding TCU to 61 points total — 26 in the second half — on Jan. 22, Kansas has surrendered 92 points to Houston and 87 to UCF in a pair of Big 12 men’s basketball games at Allen Fieldhouse.
“We need to get our defensive mojo back,” KU assistant coach Norm Roberts said on Thursday’s Hawk Talk radio show. “We have to have a defensive presence,” he added.
This is the same KU team that held Cincinnati to 40 points total — 15 in the second half — on Jan. 11 in Cincy and Arizona State to 13 points in the second half and 55 total on Jan. 8 at Allen. In the game before that, KU held UCF to 48 points — 23 in the final half — in the Knights’ arena in Orlando, Florida.
On Tuesday, UCF’s Keyshawn Hall scored 34 points on 9-of-19 shooting (5-of-7 from 3-point range). In all, the Knights went 14-of-36 from beyond the arc in falling to the Jayhawks, 91-87.
“I would say we need to get back to guarding how we guarded three weeks ago. We are not guarding the same way. That was very evident the other night against UCF,” KU coach Bill Self said.
Tipoff for a Big 12 battle between the No. 11-ranked Jayhawks (15-5, 6-3) and the unranked Bears (13-7, 5-4) is 3 p.m. with a live telecast on ESPN.
“We did guard pretty well against Houston, if you look at the shots they made and how they were guarded, compared to the shots that we missed and got good looks,” Self said.
Houston scored 66 points in regulation, however the Cougars clicked for 13 points in each of the OT sessions en route to a 92-86 double-OT win over the Jayhawks last Saturday.
“We scored a lot of points the last couple games. I know everybody’s excited about all the points, but we’ve got to get back to where we’re shutting people down and not allowing them to score,” assistant Roberts said on Hawk Talk. “They (BU Bears) are a team that is smaller than they’ve been.
“They switch almost everything. They try to play fast and they shoot a lot of 3s. They’ve got a couple bigs who can play away from the basket. It’s going to be key we guard the 3-point line obviously, play through ‘Hunt’ (Dickinson) Our shot selection needs to be good. We’ve got to get stops defensively especially when you are playing in someone else’s place.”
Baylor, which has won four in a row over KU in Waco, enters Saturday’s game averaging 80.4 points per contest on 46.2% shooting. The Bears have hit188 of 507 3s for 37.1%.
In Big 12 games only, BU has averaged 72.4 points a game on 42.3% shooting. The Bears are 77-of-222 from 3 for 34.7%.
Meanwhile, KU has heated up from beyond the arc of late.
KU hit 10 of 21 threes in its win over UCF and nine 3s in 25 attempts against Houston.
“Well, 10-for-21 that’s really good,” Self said. “But you had the whole team go 0-for-3 minus two guys going 10-for-18.”
Zeke Mayo was 6-of-10 from 3 and David “Diggy” Coit 4-of-8. Rylan Griffen was 0-for-2 and and AJ Storr 0-for-1 for the Jayhawks.
“We’ve got to be more consistent on that,” Self said. “I think the thing that bothered me most was that they (Knights) made 14 (3’s in 36 attempts). And I really felt like of the of the 14 they made, we probably did a decent job defensively only on half of those. They still threw in some bombs, but, but there were some open looks too.”
Baylor, which has dropped three of its last five games, is led by guardVJ Edgecombe, a 6-5 freshman sensation from the Bahamas, who averages 18.6 points in nine conference games. He is 23-of-48 from 3 for 47.9%. He also averages 4.7 rebounds with 28 assists to 20 turnovers and 18 steals in league competition.
“He was projected in the latest mock draft to go fourth,” Self said of Edgecombe in the 2025 NBA Draft.
The Bears have three other double-digit scorers in Big 12 action.
Norchad Omier, a 6-7 senior transfer from University of Miami, averages 14.1 points on 51.2% shooting with 9.3 rebounds and 10 blocked shots. Robert Wright, a 6-1 freshman guard, averages 11.9 points with 33 assists to 15 turnovers. Jeremy Roach, a 6-2 senior transfer from Duke, averages 11.3 points.
“Obviously they’ve been nicked up. I talked to Scott (Drew, BU coach) two or three weeks ago and he told me that their top eight players have been together eight times the whole year, for practice, not even games,” Self said.
“Langston Love has been out for a significant period of time,” Self added of the 6-5 junior guard who has played in just one Big 12 game because of an ankle injury. “Roach has been in concussion protocol.”
Roach and Love are listed day-to-day.
“They’ve got good guys. Wright has emerged as one of the best point guard prospects in the country. The big fella from from Miami, obviously, we played against him a couple of years ago, but he’s as impressive a transfer portal guy as there is from a numbers standpoint,” Self added.
KU will return home to meet Iowa State at 8 p.m., Monday, at Allen Fieldhouse.
This story was originally published January 31, 2025 at 9:53 AM with the headline "Kansas Jayhawks seek return of ‘defensive mojo’ during Saturday’s game at Baylor."
