Self: Thoughts were on next season amid KU slide

Josh Weinfuss, ESPN Staff WriterMar 23, 2024, 07:47 PM ET

Josh Weinfuss is a staff writer who covers the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL at ESPN. Josh has covered the Cardinals since 2012, joining ESPN in 2013. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and a graduate of Indiana University. You can follow him via Twitter @joshweinfuss.SALT LAKE CITY — By the time the horn sounded on No. 4 Kansas’ 89-68 blowout loss to No. 5 Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA tournament Saturday, Jayhawks coach Bill Self said he had long been preparing for next season.

That’s what happens when you have only eight healthy scholarship players left on your roster, as Self pointed out after the game at Delta Center.

“I think for the last month, I’ve been thinking about next season, to be honest,” said Self, whose team lost four of five games entering the tournament and again was without star Kevin McCullar Jr. “Not in the moments during the game, but obviously, we played — we had eight guys on scholarship, and we play — I mean, that were healthy there late. Injuries are part of the game. That’s not an excuse.

“But we could have done a much better job as a staff of putting more guys out there that we could play, and so that’s something that I’ve thought about for a long time. The thing about it is, in basketball, early on you can play through some things. But the course of a season, there’s a grind that goes with it and bodies get run down, injuries occur. It’s all part of it. When you don’t have as much firepower or that maybe you’ve had in past years, it certainly showed this year.”

And it was evident Saturday.

After Kansas led 44-43 at halftime in what Self described as a “horse contest,” the Jayhawks ran out of, well, everything in the second half. Out of energy, they were outscored 46-24 in the last 20 minutes.

“My guys were gassed,” Self said. “Everybody knew that at the end of the first half. I mean, my guys were gassed.

“I hadn’t had very many times where you take a guy out and he’s sitting through a three-minute timeout and I say, ‘Go back in,’ and he says, ‘I need a little bit more time.’ So, I knew that we were tired, and I was just hoping we had enough energy to get to the finish line. I’m not going to blame it on energy, but I think we played very fatigued the second half.”

Self didn’t want to put the blame for Kansas’ fatigue solely on the 10:45 a.m. tipoff time here, but he said that, coupled with having to play a full 40 minutes of a fast-paced, high-intensity nail-biter against Samford on Thursday night, did in his team.

“I’m not an expert on that,” Self said. “Of course, would we have preferred more rest? Absolutely. But I’m sure anybody would that gets back to the hotel at 1 a.m. and you have your dinner and then you’ve got to flip it quick.

“I would have loved to been able to practice yesterday. But that wouldn’t have made any difference. When I say practice yesterday, you know, guys were gassed. It’s not the time’s fault that we had to play 40 minutes on Thursday in a fast-paced game. That’s just the way — that’s just the team that we drew. We had to fight hard to get the win.”

In its storied NCAA tournament history, Kansas’ 21-point loss was the second largest in school history and the second largest by an AP preseason No. 1 team, according to ESPN Stats & Information. The Jayhawks became the second straight preseason AP No. 1 not to make it to the second weekend (North Carolina being the other), something that’s now happened four times in the past seven years.

It marked the first time in Kansas’ history in the Big 12 that it lost by at least 20 points after leading at halftime. Its 21-point setback was tied for the largest by a top-4 seed that led after halftime since seeding began in 1979. And its 22-point differential in the second half was the second worst in an NCAA tournament game in program history.

Neither senior guard Dajuan Harris Jr. nor senior center Hunter Dickinson blamed the short turnaround on the Jayhawks’ second-half drop-off.

“You can’t make excuses,” Harris Jr. said. “You want to play in March Madness. This is the best tournament you’ll ever play in, and you can’t make excuses when you want to win basketball games late in March.”

After shooting 50% in the first half, including making 7-of-11 3-pointers, Kansas shot 27.8% in the second and made just 2-of-11 3s.

Gonzaga, which advanced to its ninth straight Sweet 16, tying Duke for the second-longest streak, took advantage of Kansas’ woes, going on a 15-0 run in the second half, part of a 23-4 surge over a span of 7:17 to put the game out of reach.

“In the second half, we didn’t make anything, and they played lights-out great,” Self said. “Certainly put it on us bad the second half.”