Saturday marked a 1-2 start for the No. 22 Kansas Jayhawks since the beginning of conference play. After falling to UCF in a narrow 71-65 conference-opening loss, Kansas marched back from being down by 16 points in the midst of an electric 104-100 win against TCU earlier this week.
Against the West Virginia Mountaineers, however, after heading into the half with a 43-39 lead. Things fell apart as the Jayhawks conceded a 47-point second half while only scoring a meek 32, resulting in an 86-75 loss.
“We have not consistently gotten everybody to understand that your value to our program and to our team is being a junkyard dog more so than it is being a skilled player,” quoted Kansas head coach Bill Self following the nine-point loss.
5-foot-10 guard Honor Huff notched a monster 17 points in the second half alone with a 3-6 mark from the field and nine points from the stripe. 7-foot center Harlan Obioha came alive in the second period with nine points and six rebounds. Four Mountaineers tallied 9+ points in the second half, showing a well-rounded effort with an extra 14 points from the line in the second half for Ross Hodge’s team.
“We haven't got through that, and we've got to do that, and that's the coach's responsibility to get the players to do that. But our best teams here weren’t great all the time, but we never let anybody else play well.”
It wasn’t just the Kansas defense that faltered; however, the Jayhawks shot a paltry 9-29 from the field during the final 20 minutes, measuring out to a 31% rate. A significant drop from their 53.1% first half mark from the field.
One constant from the season continues to be the foul trouble. Tre White, Bryson Tiller, and Elmarko Jackson all finished the game with four fouls. This caused constant subs, both inside and out of the paint. It also gave West Virginia 29 attempts at the stripe with 21 Mountaineer free throws converted.
Kansas has little time to get things right as the Jayhawks must take on the No. 3 Iowa State Cyclones on Tuesday.
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