Morgantown, W.Va. — Nothing will be as challenging as the third day in Honolulu.
Back before Thanksgiving, the Kansas men’s basketball team had to come back 13 hours after suffering its first loss of the season against Marquette — an unthinkably short turnaround — and face another formidable opponent in Tennessee.
KU passed that test with flying colors, concluding the Maui Invitational on a high note with a 69-60 victory.
It didn’t lose again, following that bounce-back game, until the last 11 days, which have proven an unexpectedly brutal stretch to open Big 12 Conference play.
The Jayhawks beat Oklahoma at home (Jan. 13) and Oklahoma State on the road (Wednesday), but sustained ugly upset losses at the hands of UCF (Jan. 10) and West Virginia (Saturday). The Knights had been a unanimous pick to finish last in the Big 12 in the preseason; the Mountaineers had ranked worst in the Big 12 in a slew of statistical categories — offensive, defensive and rebounding alike.
Their defense wasn’t anything special Saturday, but their offense put up 91 on a Jayhawks team featuring nationally renowned defenders like Dajuan Harris Jr. and Kevin McCullar Jr., and WVU won the battle decisively on the boards against a team with Hunter Dickinson.
KU now sits at 3-2 in the league and still has one more matchup to close out a stretch of five games in less than two weeks: Monday night at home against Cincinnati.
“You got to learn from it, turn the next page and get ready for the next opponent,” guard Kevin McCullar Jr. said after the loss to WVU. “Cincinnati’s a great team.”
The Bearcats have indeed had their fair share of great moments and find themselves at 2-3 in the league, 13-5 overall, amid the massive logjam of two- and three-win teams that now also includes a former preseason No. 1 team in Kansas. One of four first-year Big 12 teams, UC features a well-balanced offense with eight players scoring at least 7.5 points per game, led by Russian forward Viktor Lakhin and his 13 points and 7.5 rebounds.
The Bearcats are right in the middle of the league in scoring offense and scoring defense and have already proven themselves a valuable addition. They beat another surprising newcomer in BYU and also took down TCU, and their three losses were by a combined eight points (in games where they shot 29-of-49 at the free-throw line).
“We knew what we were going to get with Houston, and Houston will deliver on exactly what we thought they were,” Self said at a press conference on Thursday. “I don’t know that we really banked on getting what BYU and Cincinnati bring to the table this early in the process.”
Lakhin combines with players like new addition Aziz Bandaogo (7.8 points, 8.1 rebounds) and high-scoring, primarily off-the-bench guard Dan Skillings Jr. (11.2 points, 6.1 rebounds) to make UC one of the league’s best rebounding teams — suddenly a concern for KU after it got repeatedly outhustled by WVU Saturday.
Guard Nick Timberlake said prior to the loss to West Virginia that the Jayhawk players actually like to play games in rapid succession because “it means less practice” and “games are a lot more fun.” He added that, with regard to the Maui Invitational, “those little tournaments like that help us for obviously conference play.”
Just how much they actually helped will be borne out against Cincinnati, as KU attempts another quick turnaround — albeit one a whopping four times as long as Maui’s.
“Knock on wood, I actually think we got a pretty well-conditioned group,” Self said Thursday. “I think it’s easier to play turned up for 40 minutes if you can maybe get a little more rest than what our guys have, but I don’t see KJ (Adams) slowing down much, and we were able to play Hunter 30 minutes the other day (at OSU) and it felt like he hardly played compared to what it has been.”
Dickinson then played 36, however, at WVU, as did another occasionally overtaxed player in the point guard Harris. Both will test the limits of their conditioning Monday.
“Let’s get back, get (the players) off their feet, watch tape and have a 30-minute practice tomorrow and hopefully a good scout, and try to get as much rest as we can,” Self said Saturday. “Rest is probably as important as anything else when we play these quick turnarounds.”
AP Photo/Kathleen Batten
