No. 3 Kansas got right after three-game losing streak
From January 17 to January 23, Kansas experienced something that rarely happens under Bill Self. The Jayhawks dropped three-straight games, at Kansas State, vs. TCU, and at Baylor. Kansas, with a road trip to Lexington, Ky., up next on the schedule, faced the real possibility of losing four-straight games, which would have been a first under Self.
However, like Kansas has done so many times under Self, the Jayhawks bounced back to defeat Kentucky and then returned home to beat Kansas State several days later. On February 4, Self’s squad lost at Iowa State, 68-53, but has since defeated Texas, Oklahoma (Away), Oklahoma State (away), Baylor, and TCU (Away).
While addressing the media on Thursday afternoon, Kansas guard Kevin McCullar, Jr., talked about how Kansas was able to bounce back from its three-game losing streak.
“That streak of losing those three games, it taught us a lot about ourselves and we learned from it,” said Kevin McCullar, Jr. “We kept a level head and Coach (Self) told us that we’ve got to be the hardest playing team every game we go out there.
“We can’t come out lackadaisical, especially in the league that we’re in,” he added. “We’ve got to bring energy, and that’s kind of what we’ve been doing and sticking with it. It’s been working for us.”
Kansas, currently tied atop the Big 12 standings with Texas, now faces the most important stretch of games the regular season has to offer. Self’s squad, with wins at home over West Virginia and Texas Tech and on the road at Texas in the final regular season game of the year, can win the Big 12 regular season championship outright.
Self, during his weekly press conference on Thursday, talked about the importance of the final three games of the regular season.
“Well, although, you can make a case that we've had a lot of big games, but they're the two biggest games we played at home to date because of obviously the ramifications of what could possibly be if we're able to take care of business and what would happen if we don't,” said Self. “So yeah, they're huge games and both hard games and two teams we hadn't played in a long time.”
Kansas, in the final three regular-season games of the year, has a chance to accomplish something Self didn’t necessarily envision at the start of the season. Playing in, without question, the toughest conference college basketball has to offer, the Jayhawks are in a position to clinch the Big 12 regular season championship outright, and control their own destiny in that quest.
Despite all the players that moved on from a season ago, Kansas is three wins away from winning the Big 12 outright and, in all likelihood, wrapping up a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
“Well, I think the whole thing with, when you look at your team, your goal is every year is to maximize your team to the point where they're playing their best when it counts the most,” said Self. “And also, to get them playing as close to their ceiling as possible. I hope we haven't done that yet. I think we've been fairly consistent of late in how we performed, but I hope the best ball's still ahead of us. To be quite honest with you, I don't think that I envisioned that at the end of the year, we would control our own destiny on what actually happens beginning post-season, whether it be capture a league. Controlling your own destiny also means you probably have to win out. But Texas could say the same thing as well.
“But capturing your league and being a high seat in the tournament is all in front of us if we do what we're set out to do,” he added. “You don't need help from somebody else to do it if you take care of your own business. There's been a lot of years where we needed some help to fall our way to get to where we want to go and that still may very well be the case, but the reality of it is we put ourselves in a good position where it doesn't have to be the case if we perform at our best from this point forward. But there's no guarantees on that. So obviously I didn't envision that.”