Lubbock, Texas ? Kansas University’s basketball team had an 8-0 run to open Saturday’s game against Texas Tech and a 13-1 spurt at the end.
So what in the world was the problem with the offense during the middle portion of the Jayhawks’ 69-64 loss to the Red Raiders?
“Selfishness,” said KU coach Bill Self.
He was not enamored with an offense that accounted for 28 points the first half off 40 percent shooting.
KU had four assists the first half and 15 for the game.
“The first half, the ball stuck in guys’ hands,” Self said. “When guys did catch it, they tried to make plays on their own instead of exercising patience : very frustrating.
“The ball has to move side to side, make sure everybody touches it, make everybody feel involved. Everybody has great intentions in practice, move the ball side to side. It’s what we emphasize, ball and body movement. But the ball has a tendency to stick sometimes. When it does, everybody watches. I thought what happened early on set the pulse of the entire game because the ball stuck early on. We had impatient possessions early that set the tone.”
Julian Wright, who was credited with two turnovers, had an especially tough day despite tying Darrell Arthur for team-leading scoring honors with 12 points.
“I thought our whole team offensively was baffling. He was a part of that,” Self said.
Wright hit six of 12 shots and Brandon Rush four of 14 on a day the Jayhawks made 45.2 percent. Tech hit 49 percent of its shots for the best performance against KU by an opponent this season.
“We were not getting it inside. We were not moving the ball, not making the extra pass,” KU’s Russell Robinson said. “It was a chain reaction. It just wasn’t flowing. At halftime, the emphasis was to get the ball inside. We had to go to that.”
KU scored 36 points the second half, 28 the first.
“We all played poorly the first half,” Rush said. “We weren’t getting things we normally get, fast breaks and transition points. We were not getting out and running like we usually do.”
But in the second half : “We stopped worrying about things and started moving the ball,” guard Sherron Collins said. “We tried to make the extra pass and started playing as a team.”
