Bill Self content with 1st half effort from Kansas vs. Texas, shares simple halftime message

After Kansas spent the first 20 minutes against Texas on Saturday night building a 45-25 lead with smothering defense and effective offense, Jayhawks head coach Bill Self was understandably pleased.

Plus, Kansas was doing it all without leading scorer Kevin McCullar. So with a 20-point halftime margin — almost as much as Kansas’ opponent had scored — Self was pretty content about where things stood.

“I thought we moved the ball pretty well. Driven pressure. Our first shot defense was terrific. It was a good first half,” Self said to ESPN sideline reporter Jess Sims.

And as for the halftime message for the Jayhawks, Self shared that it will be a simple reminder.

Saturday’s game at Phog Allen Fieldhouse is the first and only scheduled game between the Longhorns and Jayhawks on the 2023-24 slate after the teams met multiple times in 2022-23. In the final two matchups, Texas prevailed, including in the Big 12 Tournament championship game.

In both those games, Texas pulled away in the second half, especially so in the tournament championship. The second half in that game, the most recent meeting, was 37-23 for the Longhorns.

“Well, we — the last two times, they cleaned our clock pretty good in the second half, so that’ll be the message,” Self said.

Self shared a bit about McCullar’s status prior to tipoff

Self revealed McCullar will not play and will continue to miss time moving forward. His official status, according to Self, is “week to week” as we’re just a few days away from March.

“Whenever he gets hit or there’s certain movement it hurts to the point he can’t operate,” Self said on a pregame radio hit, according to Gary Bedore.

McCullar has not played since Feb. 17 in a game against Oklahoma. Before then, he missed just over two weeks following the thrilling overtime loss to Kansas State on the road. Kansas is already a thin team and has a tight rotation. Not having McCullar out there has made the task for Self a whole lot harder.

In 23 games this season, McCullar is averaging 19.0 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game. McCullar is the leading scorer for Kansas although Hunter Dickinson is not too far behind. Not to mention his great effort on the defensive end, being a former All-Big 12 Defense player.

Nicolas Timberlake has played in the place of McCullar, specifically against Baylor and Texas Tech. He was quite efficient in those two performances, finishing with eight and 13 points, respectively.