Month: January 2023 (Page 1 of 2)

Perhaps THE thing that has set Kansas apart and made their Big 12 success so consistent in the Bill Self era is their ability to avoid losing streaks. Lose one? They almost always win the next. On the rare occasions they lose back-to-back games, a win in the third is about as easy money as you can find. There might be momentary panic among the fanbase after a loss. But normally that is quickly quashed.

Today, though? I’m not so sure.

Suddenly the Jayhawks are in the midst of a three-game losing streak, with no easy wins in sight.

Jalen Wilson has been fantastic, on as hot of a streak as any KU player since at least Paul Pierce in 1998 if not Danny Manning in 1988, averaging a hair over 30 ppg over the last week. I’m wondering, though, if that’s kind of the plan against KU: let J-Will get his and make sure no one else goes off.

If so, it has worked pretty well.

Since halftime of the game in Manhattan, it’s as though KJ Adams suddenly remembered that he is KJ Adams and has kind of stunk. Kevin McCullar has looked thoroughly shook. Although he had 14 points and 12 rebounds last night, he still had some really bad moments.

We saw signs of life from Gradey Dick. He was only 2–5 from 3, but he was finally aggressive in getting to the rim again and dropped a game-high 24. If he can get people to even halfway respect his shot fakes and drives, that should give him space to get a couple more good looks per game. Which opens things up for his teammates.

DaJuan Harris? Yikes. He hasn’t been the same since he smacked his head on the Bramlage Coliseum floor. He somehow was only charged with four turnovers last night, but it seemed like more. Several of those were just bad decisions/plays, not the product of good Baylor defense. He’s not getting to the rim as often, either, and when he does he seems more interested in passing out than trying to get a shot off or seek a foul. He went through a phase like this last year, but that was more survivable since he was surrounded with better, or more consistent at least, scorers. There’s less room for error this year, especially from him.

Monday night in Waco was frustrating because KU did a lot wrong, and still did enough right to make two big runs in the second half, briefly taking the lead midway through. But in each of those moments, it was little mistakes by KU that gave Baylor back the momentum. Bad passes. The inability to hold onto a ball that hit them in the hands. Getting beat and being forced to foul on drives. All little things that add up quickly on the road against a very good team.

My random, postgame, half-assed theory is that KJ Adams’ development in December may have actually hurt the Jayhawks long term. He was great for 5–6 weeks, meaning Self had no reason to give any of the other bigs meaningful minutes. Zuby Ejiofor and Ernest Udeh might get a look here and there, but as soon as they missed a defensive rotation or blew up a play on offense, Self would sit them down.

Now, when defenses are taking away what made KJ successful during that stretch, his lack of size becomes a real problem. But Self doesn’t trust Ejiofor or Udeh to come in for more than spot duty. KU really needed a longer player on the court in each of the three losses. Had those freshmen played more minutes in December, would Self have the trust to play them more now?

The answer to that question is always “Well, he sees them in practice and we don’t, and they obviously aren’t doing enough there to warrant the minutes.” I just wish Zuby and/or Ernest did enough of something – rebounding, blocking shots, playing solid D – to get on the court for 5–10 minutes a night and force teams to deal with their size.

Of course the real source of angst among KU fans isn’t losing at Baylor. It’s getting waxed at home by TCU Saturday. I kind of saw that coming – I warned you that TCU was the worst matchup in the league for KU because of their size and speed – but I did not expect such a thorough ass kicking. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an opposing team go on a 19–0 run in Allen Fieldhouse before.

In my personal preseason rankings, I had KU third in the Big 12, behind Texas and Baylor. Baylor and KU have both suffered through three-game losing streaks. TCU lost three of four. The league is so tough there’s no reason to think that the other contenders won’t go through similar spells. The Ken Pomeroy prediction for the Big 12 currently has a four-way tie for first at 11–7 with two teams at 10–8. The challenge for KU is can they get their issues figured out so they can stay in that top six.

I’m not the first person to think about this, but over the past week I’ve been considering losing streaks in the era of NIL. What happens when a kid who is making money to play in college isn’t performing well, or his team is losing, or he’s just sick of his coach’s BS? Are they more likely to look for their own at the expense of the team, to mentally check out, or even flat-out quit? I think most kids who earn a big NIL deal have enough built-in pride where that won’t be a factor. But I hate how that’s in my mind now.

Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis shared a message he received from a “fan” a couple weeks back, calling him out for his play and using NIL as a specific argument for how he didn’t stack up to the legends of IU who came before him. I doubt he is the only one getting those messages.

Players like Jackson-Davis, who is making well into six figures this season, don’t deserve pity. However, when they have track records of playing hard, they also don’t deserve to have their motivation questioned when they go through a cold spell.

Every January KU goes through a rough stretch. Now it isn’t always losing three (or more) straight, obviously. But it is a rite of passage this time of year for KU fans to rip on the team, bemoan the recruits we missed out on, and start wondering about who will fill those holes for next season. Bill Self usually figures out a way to get KU right again. The path is certainly tougher this year.

A week ago some KU fans[1] were suggesting this year’s squad was/could be better than last season’s national champs. Now I think most of us are wondering if they aren’t more analogous to the 2020–21 team. That team also had a three-game losing streak and ended the year getting humbled by USC in the round of 32.[2] At least for today that seems like an apt comparison.

Well, KU’s end-game luck had to run out eventually. After winning 15-straight games that were decided by less than 10 points, KU came up a point short in overtime in Manhattan Tuesday night.

KU missed 10 free throws and 23 3-pointers. They had the ball at the end of regulation and overtime and didn’t get a shot off either time. They had the ball at the end of the first half and a chance to run out the clock. Instead Gradey Dick drove into traffic, was fouled, and hit one of two free throws. Seconds later Keyontae Johnson hit a short jumper at the buzzer to put the Wildcats up by five at the half.

The Jayhawks still only lost by one on the road to a top 15 team. With three starters fouled out and another (possibly) playing concussed.

It takes a lot to kill this KU squad.

The only true bad luck of the night was Bill Self calling a timeout with about 40 seconds left in overtime, just before Jalen Wilson swished a 30-foot shot that would have put KU up four. After the timeout KU couldn’t get a shot off and the Wildcats hit the game-winner.

Sheesh.

That was, by almost every measure, a good loss. But it coming to the Purples makes it sting a lot more than it should, and makes the replaying of the dozens of little moments that cost KU a point or two even more bitter.

There’s also the specter of what lies ahead. Any loss in the Big 12 can quickly turn into a nasty losing streak. KU hosts TCU Saturday, probably the team they matchup with the worst in the conference. Then go to Baylor. Then to Kentucky. Then host K-State. Then go to Ames. Then host Texas. Shit can get sideways really fast, so every close loss seems even bigger than normal.

After the first few minutes, when he had his shot blocked at least three times, Wilson was fantastic. Had his late 3 counted, he would have tied Andrew Wiggins for the most points scored by a KU player under Self. He’s been super inefficient in recent weeks, but was nails last night. A W in Manhattan on his shot would have propelled him back into the national POY conversation.[1]

The rest of KU? Everyone had their struggles. Well, not KJ Adams, who was incredible during KU’s first-half comeback but disappeared in the second half.

DaJuan Harris had 11 assists but three terrible turnovers in crunch time. I really wondered if he was concussed after hitting his head on the floor. Maybe that explains that poor decision making late?

Gradey Dick had a horrible night shooting from behind the arc, going 1–8. That will happen. But, man, some of them were wiiiiiide open. He still managed to pitch in 16 points, grab seven rebounds, and get four steals and two blocks. K-State kept picking on him on defense, and he either got beat badly to give up layups or committed cheap fouls. I don’t know if he was ever going to hit another 3, but it sure would have been nice having him on the court instead of fouled out thanks to three soft fouls that came from being in bad position instead of making any real effort to stop his man.

Kevin McCullar had been poor for a couple weeks, but was flat-out bad Tuesday. I wondered if he was sick. He looked literally shaky. He nearly air-balled two free throws. He did airball a 3 and hit the side of the backboard with another. He seemed a step slow on defense. Hopefully he did just have a bug of some kind and can rebound Saturday.

I had to laugh when KC Star beat writer Shreyas Laddha Tweeted that he had never seen a team as good as KU miss as many layups as they do. If you didn’t know he was new to the KU beat, that would be an obvious tell. Seriously, KU misses a TON of shots right at the rim. At least three on the break last night, as guys got stuck between laying it up, dunking it, and worrying about the defense. Easy for me to say sitting on my 51-year-old ass in Indianapolis, but come on, fellas!

I’m guessing for a neutral this was a great game to watch. Well, except for the officiating, which was atrocious. Now, it was called pretty evenly. But it was as if the refs decided about 30 minutes in, “OK, this is a rivalry game, it’s close, we need to blow the whistle on every play.” KSU’s Johnson was called for two fouls when he was just in the vicinity of someone falling down. He was given an and-one, and fouled out McCullar in the process, when he flew by McCullar and Adams without being touched. Nae’Qwan Tomlin fouled out on a play when another K-State player clearly was the guilty party. Wilson had a clean steal in overtime that a ref decided he needed to blow the whistle on. He was also hammered on one drive, a shove from Tomlin nearly knocked him over, with no call. Two possessions later he flipped a runner at the rim with the mildest contact and drew a foul.

Oh, and worst call of the night was when they stopped play, with K-State driving to the hoop, because Wilson was cramping in the backcourt. Pretty much everyone in my various KU chats said “Oooh, that was a really bad call. And lucky for us!”

Those are just the examples that I can think of immediately. Worse than the bad/wrong calls were the sheer number of whistles. There were 49 fouls called in 45 minutes. The game was physical, but never egregious or nasty. It was just two really good teams battling. And the refs decided they needed to take it over. Even then they couldn’t do it with any consistency. Quite the commercial for the Big 12!

You always laugh when your rival hires a new coach and the fanbase gets irrationally excited about it. That’s a fundamental part of rivalries. “Oh, sure, Roy Williams is shaking in his shoes thinking about how to match wits with Jim Wooldridge.” So when K-State fans immediately suggested that hiring Jerome Tang would turn K-State into Baylor north, it was easy to be amused.

You can’t draw big conclusions from half a season, but Tang seems legit. Even assistants who have a good feel for the game can struggle when they have to be The Man. Tang doesn’t seem afraid of the moment and made some really nice calls last night. With Baylor not matching preseason expectations (yet), KU fans can turn this into another way to bash Scott Drew, suggesting Tang was the real brains in the operation down there.

So now KU is 5–1 in the conference, tied with K-State and Iowa State a third of the way through the schedule. I’m not sure anyone can make any safe assumptions about how the next third of the slate will go. Six games seems like an eternity when every night brings a physical matchup with another good to very good team. Just when you think you have confidence in any squad, they could easily go through an 0–2 week and prove that belief misguided.