Hopping around the Internet on Tuesday while traveling home from covering [KU’s wild and somewhat improbable come-from-behind win over West Virginia][1] in Morgantown on Monday night, I found myself bumping into the same hot take from a variety of sports analysts and Kansas fans.
“We should’ve known it was dumb to doubt Bill Self,” they said.
Hogwash.
Look, I’m firmly planted in the not-so-small camp that believes that any time Bill Self is on the sideline coaching a basketball team, said team has a shot to win whatever game it is playing, no matter who it is facing.
The guy’s a Hall of Famer. He’s one of the best coaches the college game has ever seen. And his record, and records, at KU figure to live for a long, long time and have taken an already elite program into another stratosphere.
I’m also in the camp that says it’s OK to doubt and question Self’s teams. Anyone who was not doing so with this year’s Jayhawks at some point during the past few weeks was not looking at a clear picture of what was going on in Lawrence.
Yes, the Jayhawks are 15-3 overall and 5-1 in the Big 12, with three tough road wins already to their name. And, yeah, Kansas is knocking on the door of jumping back into the Top 5 again after falling into the teens after a tough stretch in December.
But the Jayhawks also had real issues. And they may still have them.
They’re the same issues that dozens and dozens of other teams encounter year after year, so there’s no need for full-on panic. But they are issues. And they are real. And that’s at least a little rare by Kansas standards.
Just because the Jayhawks picked up a monster victory over a Big 12 rival in a building where they had not won in five years does not magically make the issues go away. Nor does it make anyone crazy for questioning whether Kansas had what it takes this year just a few days earlier.
Monday’s win over West Viriginia was all of the things Self wants his teams — and his victories — to be. Tough, mentally and physically. Fueled by defense, particularly down the stretch. And led by veterans who made the plays they had to make and set up their teammates to make the ones they couldn’t.
That recipe has led to 600-plus victories for Self and made Kansas the 13-time defending Big 12 champion that it currently is.
But those things were not present during many of this team’s first 16 or 17 games this season. At least not consistently.
[The fact that they surfaced in a must-have moment and a hostile environment on Monday night][2] only makes it easier to see 13 Big 12 titles in a row turning into 14. But it doesn’t make anyone wrong for wondering — or, to borrow a buzzword, doubting — Kansas in the days and weeks that came before it.
As good as Monday’s win was, this team still has questions. Depth is one of them and likely will be the rest of the way. Defense is another. And durability makes three.
If the Jayhawks the rest of the way can answer those questions — and even still a few others — in the resounding manner they did on Monday night, they’ll win this thing running away and be poised to make another run at a No. 1 seed on the road to the Final Four.
If they can’t, which, in some ways is to be expected, then the race is on and the questions will remain.
Either way, there’s nothing wrong with doubting Self or his Jayhawks. Especially when the doubts are warranted and based on real issues.
Heck, I don’t even think they mind. It’s not that often that a KU player can utter the phrases, “Nobody believed in us” or “No one picked us to win,” and have them be true. But that was what KU sophomore Udoka Azubuike was saying after Monday’s victory, and doggone it if he wasn’t right.
Maybe all that doubt wasn’t such a bad thing for Kansas after all.
[1]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2018/jan/15/mountain-comeback-jayhawks-stun-west-virginia-move/?mens_basketball
[2]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2018/jan/16/strong-play-two-ku-seniors-helped-put-end-jayhawks/?mens_basketball
