[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Coach Self's postgame comments
after Missouri 72, Kansas 68
courtesy of Jack Alden

Related pages

Box score

Season stats

Possession analysis

advertisement
[an error occurred while processing this directive]

"We had the ball tied, then had a terrible possession. If we could have just played without fouling, we would have had a great chance to win the game. But we fouled way too much, and they made all their free throws. But give them credit. They whipped us. They totally dominated us for about 19 consecutive minutes, from the 17:00 mark of the first half when it was 11-3 and Keith went down to the 18:00 mark of the second half. For us to have a chance to come back, guys showed some character and some toughness, but we didn’t play well enough to deserve to win.

"It’s not hard to overcome if you can play defense without fouling. That’s the bottom line. If you can play defense without fouling, you’ve got a chance. The first half we tried to protect Wayne and we went zone, which ended up being a mistake because we couldn’t guard them, and they made 8-10 threes. They probably made four or five of them when we went zone the last seven minutes. But we didn’t play good enough defense not to foul. The thing about fouling is, you play your man before he catches it, and we just played them after he caught it and we made some silly plays. And that was the difference in the game. They shot the ball well from beyond the arc in the first half, and they made all their free throws.

"We didn’t have any offense without (Langford), and we had very little perimeter toughness without him. It obviously hurt, but we’re not going to use that as an excuse. We have good enough players to step in there and make plays. In the second half we did do some good things. We shot too many threes when the ball wasn’t going down, and when Dub should have been getting touches every single possession. Our guys did not recognize it for whatever reason. I really felt like if we could just get it real, real close, which we did, in the zone they weren’t going to shoot a three. They had to get it a step closer, and sure enough we bailed them out by fouling them three or four times late just by not being able to guard the ball. We know we’re going to labor to score, especially if Keith’s not in the game. The inability to defend and guard the ball was the difference in the game. If we could have done that better, then I think we would have had a chance to win even with us being behind and even with Keith being out.

"Russell did a good job. I hadn’t given him a chance to play much at all, but he did some good things. Hawk played really well the first half and did some good things. JR competed hard the second half. We had some guys step up and do some pretty decent things who hadn’t had a chance to play much. But we should be playing for 40 minutes and not 20, and that’s what happened today.

"We made (the Big 12 tournament) hard. But it would be tough no matter what. It’s a great league, and this will be a great tournament. It’s evenly balanced. OU is playing better than anybody in the league right now. But we could have been the #1 seed, but now we’ll play the winner of A&M and K-State, and that will be no picnic. And then if you’re fortunate enough to win that, you play the winner of Texas and Oklahoma State, more than likely. And we may not have Keith, too, so we’ve got to get tougher and harder than we ’ve been all year long. We were this close, yet we can go back to 20 possessions, if we’d just been tougher and stronger they wouldn’t have scored points, and that’s what’s frustrating to me, because I didn’t think we played very tough at all the first half."

| Share


News | Daily Links | 2015-16 Jayhawks | Historical Stats | The Rock Chalk Board
Tradition | Recruiting News | Fan Zone | Links

Further information: privacy information, about this site, feedback, advertising info

Copyright ©1995-2015 Rock Chalk Zone, All Rights Reserved