Kansas basketball: Defensive meltdown leads Jayhawks to loss

Hot-shooting by Texas Tech and lack of defense from Jayhawks leads to largest loss of the season for Kansas basketball

From start to finish, Saturday’s game against the Red Raiders was not pretty for Kansas basketball. After going down early, the Jayhawks were never able to recover and fell to Texas Tech 91-62.

“That was a beat down. I’m not going to say the game was over early, but the way they jumped on us,” Coach Bill Self in a Kansas Athletics press release. “We are a team that doesn’t adjust well during the game defensively at all and that was very evident tonight.”

The Jayhawks were in the midst of a three-game winning streak when they traveled to Lubbock, but Texas Tech made sure to shut the momentum down early by jumping out to a five-point lead.

Three minutes later, that lead was a 10-point lead, but Kansas fans continued to be hopeful, expecting to see one of those infamous Kansas runs. The run never happened.

By halftime, the Jayhawks were trailing by 25-points, the largest halftime deficit Kansas has faced since  Baylor on Feb. 12, 2001.

Despite trailing by 25, fans continued to hold hope, thinking that if the Jayhawks could decrease the deficit to 15 by the eight minute mark, there would be an opportunity to win.

The Jayhawks have had more remarkable comebacks in their history, everyone knew this comeback would be possible.

The Red Raiders made sure to never allow Kansas to reach its mark, the closest the Jayhawks got was within 20-points with 13 minutes left in the second half.

Throughout the game, Kansas seemed out of it while the Red Raiders seemed to bury every shot they took. The 29-point margin of defeat is Kansas’ largest loss in the Bill Self era.

As a unit, Texas Tech shot 60.7% from the field and went 16-of-26 from behind the three-point line, a season-high in total makes from behind the arc.

The Jayhawks, although struggling defensively and left players wide-open, did not play as bad as one would have expected them to perform. Offensively, Kansas shot 45.8% from the field while going 9-of-21 from behind the arc.

Shooting-wise, Kansas did not play its worst game. Instead, it was the hot-shooting of the Red Raiders and early turnovers that took the Jayhawks out of the competition.

Texas Tech’s Jarrett Culver led all scorers with 26 points and may have secured himself a Big 12 Player of the Year award.

Junior forward Dedric Lawson scored 14 points, half of which came from the free-throw line. One other positive for Kansas was the return of sophomore guard Marcus Garrett who scored nine points in 22 minutes in his first game back from injury.

The Jayhawks will now have to put this game behind them and focus on the game against Kansas State on Monday, which is a must-win if Kansas wants to win a share of the Big 12 Championship.