Why Bill Self was upset, not pleased, after KU basketball beat No. 13 Baylor
The fact his shorthanded Kansas Jayhawks were able to defeat the No. 13-ranked Baylor Bears — while playing without first-team All-America candidate Kevin McCullar — did not put a smile on the face of KU coach Bill Self on Saturday night at Allen Fieldhouse.
“This is probably the least happy I’ve been after a win because that’s not how you play basketball,” Self, KU’s 21st-year coach, said.
The No. 4-ranked Jayhawks — who allowed two wide-open, possible game-tying 3s that BU missed in the last 10 seconds — held on for a 64-61 victory over the Bears.
KU, which did snatch 17 steals (most in a conference game since KU had 19 against Colorado in 2007) and force 21 turnovers, improved to 19-5 overall and 7-4 in the league, while BU fell to 17-6, 6-4.
“That’s certainly not the intellect in which you are supposed to play. So I’m disappointed we can make those four or five plays that we made in the last minute that put us in harm’s way to actually lose the game,” Self stated.
KU, which led by 11 points with 6:37 left, held a 62-57 lead with 3:59 to play when Dajuan Harris went down with an ankle injury. Harris, who Self said “got it pretty good, but he’s a pretty tough kid so we’ll see if he can come back (Monday at Texas Tech),” returned at 2:05 with KU up 62-59.
Harris hit a crucial bucket at 1:35 to up the lead to 64-59. Nick Timberlake, who hit two 3s and had a key steal and slam dunk while starting in place of McCullar, fired an errant pass to Hunter Dickinson (15 points, seven boards) for a turnover at 14.2 seconds.
(Self indicated McCullar is questionable for Monday’s game at Texas Tech because of a bone bruise in his knee.)
Jayden Nunn missed a wide-open 3 from the corner with eight seconds left, then Timberlake bricked a free throw with a three-point lead and five ticks left. Ja’Kobe Walter missed another wide open 3 before the final horn went off that could have forced overtime.
“They got exactly what they wanted because we couldn’t get matched up 5-on-5, switch a simple high ball screen,” Self said of BU’s two missed 3s in crunch time, which came shortly after Harris’ successful floater that Self called “the biggest shot of the game.”
“They (Nunn, Walter) were wide open. Nick overhelped, then we didn’t get matched up off a free throw. It shouldn’t have been that difficult to guard. We let them dribble right into a 3 in the scoring area,” Self lamented.
Thus to some it felt like KU escaped rather than won a huge league contest.
Asked to assess Timberlake’s play in his 31-minute start in place of McCullar Self said: “We won. I’ll just leave it at that. We won.”
Self told his troops before the game losing McCullar and also a depth piece in Jamari McDowell, who was out with the flu, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“I talked about (how) it’s a great opportunity for someone to step up and get some confidence and it’ll be the best thing for us come March,” Self said. “I put every positive spin on it I possibly could.”
Asked if his talk worked, Self said: “The way I feel right now, hell no. I thought at the moment, ‘I’m hoping they believe it.’’’
KU had just seven available scholarship players.
“The final game plan was to try to play seven. If we had to go eight or nine, it’d have been Jank or Wilder,” Self added of walk-ons Michael Jankovich and Wilder Evers, who did not play.
“Try to rotate those guys a little bit just to get our guys enough rest. I was hoping the game was slow, which it was. I was hoping the game was ugly and muddy, which it was in large part because they turned it over and in large part we couldn’t make shots.”
Johnny Furphy, who had six steals and hit 7-of-7 free throws, was 0-for-6 from 3. He scored 11 points. The Jayhawks hit 5 of 21 3s to BU’s 8 of 26. Harris finished with 14 points, five assists and two steals. KJ Adams had 13 points, four rebounds and three steals.
BU was led by Yves Missi’s 21 points and eight rebounds. Walter had 17 points and eight rebounds with five turnovers.
Tipoff for Monday’s game at Tech is 8 p.m. at United Supermarkets Arena.
Of McCullar’s status, Self said: “I can’t imagine Kevin being a lot better on Monday if he can hardly move on Saturday. We’ll see.”
