Jayhawk Talk: Another Frustrating End

I only watched a few minutes of basketball here and there over our spring break. It wasn’t that I couldn’t watch; CBS was available on our TV and I’m guessing the one quasi-sports bar on the site could get other games. My enthusiasm for the tournament was low to begin with and I figured I’d rather sit in the sun and read, or go to dinner, than sit inside and watch the games.

We missed KU’s opening game because I was in bed ahead of the late tip. I wasn’t terribly surprised when I checked the score at about 3:40 the next morning and saw KU had to hold on to beat California Baptist by eight. The vibes around this team have been concerning for weeks and as nice as a blowout win to open the tournament would have been, I figured they would struggle.

For Sunday’s game against St. John’s, we had dinner plans that overlapped with the second half. So I muted all my text threads and notifications, ignored the first half, and then enjoyed the evening with my wife and daughter. We got back to our room just after the game had ended, so I only knew that KU had lost by two. Not that they had dug a huge hole, made a terrific run to tie it, then blew the game in one of the worst ways possible. Reading through texts I was glad I did not see the game, as I would have been angry about a number of aspects of the game’s close.

Again, not surprised. Vibes.

Thus ended what was supposed to be a bounce-back season, but became another super frustrating one. While all the blame can’t be laid on Darryn Peterson and his weird health issues, there is no doubting his availability is what killed this team. Yoyo-ing in and out of the lineup, playing parts of some games, and so on prevented the team from ever figuring out who they were. Or, rather, figuring out who they were with him. They were pretty solid without him, handing Arizona one of its only two losses of the season while he was in the locker room sick. When he finally began playing full games, he was not the player he had been when he was only playing 18–20 minutes. The rest of the team became tentative and deferred to him. They had no basketball chemistry.

That might have been a bigger bummer than how the season ended. Peterson was supposed to be a can’t miss, no fucking around, legit generational star. There was always the risk he wouldn’t mesh with his teammates. But I, and most KU fans, would have been fine with the exact same win-loss record but with him scoring 27 points a night, with a couple 40 point nights thrown in. Basically what AJ Dybantsa did at BYU.

KU has had some really good one-and-done players over the years. They all had some kind of baggage, though, that made their seasons seem disappointing.[1] Even the guys who had really good years. Peterson was going to break that string. Until he didn’t.

Once again I feel dumb for putting so much hope into 18 and 19 year old kids.

Given all that, it would have been a miracle if this team did get out of the first weekend.

I’m not sure what Bill Self could have done about that. It was a mess in every way, largely out of his control.

However, his continued failure to properly evaluate and retain talent really hurt this team. Once again, there was almost no bench. Jamari McDowell and Elmarko Jackson both had a handful of decent games. In McDowell’s case he became a decent role player, one you could count on to play solid D and hit a couple shots. In Jackson’s case, he had two or three excellent games. He nearly cancelled those out with double the number of bad games. By all accounts he is a great kid, and worked incredibly hard to return from his brutal knee injury. His basketball IQ, though, is extremely low, and he constantly made terrible decisions. Worse, he was predictable in how he would get himself into trouble, so teams could both play him into a mistake then know exactly how to capitalize off of it.

Those two were basically the bench for much of the season. Jayden Dawson and Samis Calderon couldn’t get on the court. Kohl Rosario started at one point, then got buried because he couldn’t hit a shot to save his life. He seemed to be finding his footing again late in the season, but…well, I won’t get into it since I didn’t see the end of the St. John’s game live. Paul Mbiya was a nobody all year, playing something like 10 minutes in Big 12 play. Suddenly in the last two weeks, he became an awkward if semi-functional piece. It doesn’t feel like the development of any of these players was handled well.

Which brings us to the big elephant in the room of whether Bill Self will return next year or not. For some time it has been assumed this would be his last year, and he only came back this year to coach Peterson. A week ago I was 100% sure he was going to retire. There seems to have been a shift, though, and people with inside knowledge tend to think he will return. If the 2026 class’ #1 prospect, Tyran Stokes, commits to KU in the next few days, it will be a clear sign Self is back. If Stokes ends up at Kentucky, Oregon, or Arkansas, KU might be scrambling to find a new coach in the wake of North Carolina getting first choice from the game’s elite.[2]

Even with a really good freshman class coming in, the question remains is it the correct move for Self to return? Something has clearly been off since his first heart attack three years ago. Again, it is more vibes than anything concrete. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that most of the transfer portal players he has signed have failed to live up to expectations.[3] Maybe it’s just a coincidence players don’t seem to remain at KU and develop the way they once did. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the NIL era, which KU and Self seemed to be set up perfectly to dominate, has brought a clear drop off in the program. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that sometimes the team does not look well coached.

I don’t know. I’m not in practices and meetings, I can’t tell you if Self is the same coach he was four years ago when he won his second national championship. Something is definitely off, though.

That said, I had to nod my head when I read an article that showed the social media reaction by fans of other schools reacting to the idea that it is time for Self to retire. They basically said KU fans were insane for entertaining the idea. They pointed out the last three “down years” were still pretty decent, and looked worse both because KU failed to get out of the first weekend of the tournament each year and the Big 12 has been insanely strong. They pointed out that Self at 80% is still a better coach than most others in the game. How KU’s “slump” still resulted in 20 win seasons and tournament appearances, where every other Blue Blood has missed tournaments when they have down years.

There’s a lot of truth in there. We KU fans also must realize that what we’ve gone through is likely a long overdue regression to the mean. KU was really freaking good without fail for a long time. Fans of rival schools might make fun of the Jayhawks for getting upset by the Northern Iowas and VCUs of the world, but they still knew that KU would win 25+ games, likely win the Big 12, and earn a top 2 seed in the NCAA tournament every one of those years. That had to end at some point.

I do worry that Self returning will be more of the same. A handful of super talented young guys. Maybe one or two portal players that fit in, balanced by a couple more who do not mesh and never play. Another team that can only go 5–6–7 players deep and, no matter how good they are, falls apart in March because of the weight of all those minutes. I worry Self is even more stubborn now and won’t change either how he manages the game or the roster to allow for how the sport has changed.

All that stated, very respectfully mind you, I can’t ignore that Self is the greatest coach KU has ever had.[4] He deserves the opportunity to go out on his terms, when he wants to. I’m more worried about what comes after he leaves than if he comes back and can only coax 20–24 wins out of a team and not get back to the Sweet 16.

We’ll get to some other hoops talk before the week is over.