Self notes lack of leadership during loss to BYU
The Jayhawks lost 76-68 to BYU without Kevin McCullar, whose impact goes beyond his abilities on the court. In fact, head coach Bill Self was disappointed in the other three members of the core four (Dajuan Harris, KJ Adams, and Hunter Dickinson) and their unwillingness to step up as leaders during the loss.
“It's got to be Juan, KJ, and Hunt, without question,” Self said. “But tonight, I don't know that we had anybody. Juan probably more so than anybody just because the ball was in his hands. But KJ was the best player in the first half and Hunt labored.”
Self not only noticed that there was a lack of leadership, but there were cases in which some of his veteran players needed to be led.
“Tonight I actually saw some things with guys; frustration that really wasn't as mature as what we should have, considering the age of some of our guys,” Self said. “There wasn't as much thinking next play as there was thinking last play, and that's not a good sign. If you're in the stands watching, you can see body language and things like that.”
In the loss to BYU, the Jayhawks started Johnny Furphy who is 19 years old, and then a 21-year-old, two 23-year-olds, and a 25-year-old Nicolas Timberlake. All in all, the team has a lot of basketball under their belt and it makes the lack of maturity all the more disappointing for Self.
The game was not the only time during game day in which things did not go right for the Jayhawks. According to Self, there were signs of the oncoming poor performance during shoot around.
“You could feel this coming today at shoot around,” Self said. “We had a terrible shoot around and the focus wasn't very good, the energy level wasn't as good and you could feel this coming and it's not anything from an attitude standpoint. It happens over a course of the season where you have days like this and our speed, even though I don't consider us a fast team, our speed certainly didn't take away their skill. It had to in order for us to have a good chance of winning tonight.”
Dickinson does not want to use McCullar’s absence as an excuse, as he knows that everyone is used to their roles whether he is there or not.
“I think the guys are pretty pretty used to the roles now at this point,” Dickinson said. “I think this is probably like our fourth or maybe fifth game without him and so I don't think it's new to us at this point. I think we kind of just got to play in those roles now that they're that they've been established.”