Historically speaking, trailing at halftime has not been good news for the Kansas men’s basketball team under Bill Self, who has just a .500 record in games in which the Jayhawks have trailed at the half.
Self, as you all surely know by now, racked up his 400th victory as the head coach at Kansas on Tuesday night in Norman, Oklahoma. And it took a second-half comeback to make it happen.
Trailing by a season-high nine points at the break, KU outscored the Sooners by 20 in the second half en route to the 11-point victory that featured, arguably, KU’s best half of the season.
The win moved second-ranked Kansas to 15-1 overall and 3-0 in games when they were trailing at halftime. Earlier this season, KU also beat Duke, which led 34-29, and Davidson, which led 43-42, despite trailing after the game’s first 20 minutes.
The win pulled KU teams coached by Self to a 55-55 record in games in which they trailed at the break, compared to a 333-25 mark in games in which Kansas has led at halftime. Self’s Jayhawks are 12-4 in his 13-plus seasons when tied at halftime.
While KU’s 3-0 mark this season after trailing at halftime, though a small sample size, seems to be a sign of overall mental strength of this year’s squad, KU senior Landen Lucas said the opportunity to face that kind of adversity was great for this team, which, in some ways, is still finding itself and coming together.
“I think it’s good, as a team, to kind of get that mindset back and, moving forward, you can always use those experiences, especially if you end up getting the (win),” Lucas said.
Asked if trailing at halftime triggered any sort of muscle memory moments from having found ways to come back in the past, Lucas said there was an element of battling back from halftime deficits that was like riding a bike but added that finding ways to get it done was different for each team.
“It’s something that you do have to work towards again,” he said. “We have to kind of relearn that. We had it down pretty good last year, how to not panic, how to put teams away when we’re ahead, different things like that. So we just gotta kind of relearn that and get our confidence back, knowing that we can do that.”
KU’s most recent victory (81-70 over OU) should go a long way toward delivering that confidence. Not only did the Jayhawks erase the nine-point halftime lead in impressive fashion, but they also followed up their lowest offensive output in a single half this season (27 points) by delivering their highest points in a half (54).
No. 2 Kansas is 12-1 when leading at the half this season — KU led Indiana 46-42 at the break in the season opener — and has yet to be tied at the break during the 2016-17 season.
Next up: KU will play host to 10-6 Oklahoma State at 1 p.m. Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
