Had they come in another setting, instead of during the final home game for seniors Frank Mason III, Landen Lucas and walk-on Tyler Self, the 19 turnovers Kansas committed against Oklahoma would have put head coach Bill Self in a grumpier mood Monday night.
Following the Jayhawks’ [late recovery and Senior Night victory][1], though, the head coach went out of his way to deliver more positives than negatives in his post-game message.
Still, it’s not in Self’s nature to ignore plays he deems soft, sloppy or conducive to forming bad habits. So the 14th-year KU coach, while reviewing a first half versus OU in which he thought the Jayhawks (27-3 overall, 15-2 Big 12) played as poorly as they had all season, acknowledged ball security contributed to that forgettable stretch.
“Just throw the ball away, give it to ’em,” the coach said of KU’s apparent offensive approach at times against the Sooners.
It marked the second game in a row in which Self followed a victory by bringing up his thinking that turnovers are one of his team’s flaws. When you’re coaching the No. 1-ranked team in the nation, of course, complacency isn’t an attribute you’re striving for, either — that’s why Self initiates these types of discussions.
“With this team, if you have 11 turnovers you think you handled it like Princeton did back in the glory days,” Self joked shortly after KU’s 11-giveaway evening at Texas on Saturday.
So just how much of a concern is KU’s ability to maximize possessions? Given it will be March the next time the Jayhawks play — Saturday’s regular-season finale at Oklahoma State (5 p.m., ESPN) — there’s no better time to fine-tune your offense.
Entering Tuesday, Kansas ranked 154th in the country in turnovers per game (13.0). That doesn’t read too favorably when you think about the fact that only 68 teams make the NCAA Tournament. But the Jayhawks aren’t awful, either. [Per sports-reference.com][2], they rank 98th out of 351 Division I teams in turnover percentage — an estimate of turnovers per 100 plays — at 15.5%.
Kansas encountered some luck versus OU, because the Sooners only turned KU’s 19 gifts into 11 points. The Jayhawks weren’t so fortunate a few weeks earlier, when Iowa State pulled off an almost unheard of road victory at Allen Fieldhouse by scoring 22 points on 19 KU turnovers. The other league loss for the Big 12 champions, at West Virginia, featured 19 points for the Mountaineers via 13 Kansas mistakes.
“We can definitely not be very good, which is a negative,” Self said Monday, in reference to some stretches this season, such as the prolonged one vs. OU, when the offense — ranked fifth nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency [at KenPom.com][3] — has sputtered.
Among KU’s top nine players, three upperclassmen guards rank as the surest ball-handlers statistically. [From sports-reference.com][4], here are the individual turnover percentages for the Jayhawks who are on scholarship and healthy:
*Svi Mykhailiuk: 12.3%*
*Frank Mason III: 13.2%*
*Devonte’ Graham: 13.3%*
*Dwight Coleby: 13.8%*
*Lagerald Vick: 15.2%*
*Josh Jackson: 15.9%*
*Carlton Bragg Jr.: 16.3%*
*Mitch Lightfoot: 21.7%*
*Landen Lucas: 22%*
Playing in what was sure to be his final home game, too, Jackson’s turnover issues flared up against the Sooners, when the freshman committed eight. Mason, likewise, was uncharacteristically lax with the ball, losing a possession four times.
For the most part, Self trusts his skilled four-guard lineup to deliver winning plays game after game. He’s right, nevertheless, to remind them when they’re trending more atypically careless, as he did following a largely clean win at Texas, rebuking cross-court passes that gave the Longhorns layups.
Steering the Jayhawks as close as possible to a mistake-free offense isn’t nitpicking, it’s a ploy to increase KU’s chances of getting where every team wants to go this year: Glendale, Arizona, for the Final Four.
This season, Self’s team repeatedly has displayed late-game poise and a collective belief that the Jayhawks will figure out a way to win. Those qualities also allow their coach to worry a little less, while emphasizing the need to never stop improving.
“We’re not always gonna play well,” Self said, “but usually at game point these guys compete about as hard as anybody I’ve had.”
[1]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2017/feb/27/jayhawks-senior-night-goes-sluggish-spectacular/
[2]: http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/seasons/2017-advanced-school-stats.html
[3]: http://kenpom.com/
[4]: http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/kansas/2017.html
