Bill Self keeps it real on Kansas basketball's bounce-back win after 'crappy' Baylor debacle
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The Kansas basketball team picked up a huge win at home on Monday night as they took down #8 Iowa State. The Jayhawks needed this one after blowing a huge lead over the weekend in a loss against Baylor. Kansas once again got out to a big lead against the Cyclones, but they didn’t let it slip away this time as they cruised to a 69-52 win.
Kansas led by 21 points against Baylor on Saturday, and they ended up losing by 11 points. Jayhawks head coach Bill Self is proud of the way that his team bounced back on Monday.
“I thought defensively, our first shot defense was pretty good first half,” Bill Self said after the game, according to an article from 247 Sports. “We didn’t rebound the ball like I thought we could have. We really guarded them and we got them into the last 10 seconds of the shot clock, I think 10 out of the 30 possessions in the first half. So that was good we did. We guarded them. We did a good job and did a great job on their on their big three, especially. But yeah, guys, this storyline, you guys can do what you want, the storyline, you could say defense, the storyline to me on tonight is how the guys responded after a really crappy last 48 hours. So really proud of them.”
Kansas and Iowa State have already played once this season, and it was the Cyclones that won the first matchup convincingly. Self thinks that winning the 50/50 balls helped the Kansas basketball team flip the script this time around.
“I think Iowa State, the first time we played them, if there were 10 50/50 balls, they got at least seven of them,” he said. “So there’s four extra possessions right there. I don’t know what it looked like tonight, but I thought we did a better job, with the exception of defensive rebounding, I thought we had more active hands tonight. I don’t think we stole the ball. They didn’t turn it over. But I do think we made some plays that were indicative of being tough with the ball and even if we didn’t get a 50/50 ball, we may have kept them from getting it where in the past, I think they got them.”
Kansas needed this win badly, as they dropped five spots in the polls after last week, and they had just 48 hours between the Baylor loss and this big game against Iowa State. It would’ve been easy for the Jayhawks to fold, but they responded well, and now they have some momentum.
“We’re going to take a day or two off and then hopefully go to play a K-State team that, obviously, has, maybe the impressive road win as anybody in our league has,” Self added. “And that’s a hard matchup for us, obviously, with Coleman. Of course the first time we played them we didn’t have, KJ, either. But it’ll be hard game. It always is when we go over there. But this was good to get this one tonight and hopefully get some momentum going forward.”
The Kansas basketball team is now 16-6 overall and 7-4 in Big 12 conference play. The Jayhawks will look to go 2-0 on the week when they travel to play Kansas State on Saturday. The Wildcats are currently 10-11.
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