Bill Self could feel loss vs. BYU coming at shootaround

Bill Self noticed that the energy was off as Kansas prepared to face BYU on Tuesday night. The Jayhawks were playing without leading scorer Kevin McCullar, and Self got the feeling it was going to be a difficult evening.

That suspicion turned out to be correct as KU suffered a 76-68 loss, snapping a 19-game winning streak at Allen Fieldhouse. Speaking postgame, Self opened up on where things went wrong.

“They were pretty defeated and down and all that,” he said. “But hey guys, 50% of teams in America lose every time you throw one up. This happens and right now our team is such where we’ve gotta really work our butts off and have some good things happen in order to win playing a little shorthanded right now. So things like this happen. But also to me, you could feel this coming today at shootaround. We had a terrible shootaround and the focus wasn’t very good.”

Regardless of the sluggish showing at shootaround, the Jayhawks led the entire first half. They expanded their lead to as many as 12 points in the second half, leading 41-29 with 18:27 to go.

BYU refused to go away, however, and continued to chip away at the deficit with some sharpshooting from 3-point range. The Cougars took their first lead of the game with 4:50 remaining after a pair of free throws from Dallin Hall.

Teams traded blows for the next couple of minutes, but Hall’s 3-pointer with 1:34 left made it a five-point lead that they would never relinquish. BYU finished 13-of-34 from beyond the arc while Kansas hit only three 3-pointers all game without McCullar, who has played one game since Feb. 5.

“It’s not anything from an attitude standpoint,” Self said. “It happens over the course of a season where you have days like this. Our speed, even though I don’t consider us a fast team, our speed didn’t take away their skill and it had to in order for us to have a good chance of winning tonight.”

Hunter Dickinson led the Jayhawks with 17 points in the loss. Kansas dropped to 21-7 (9-6 Big 12) on the season and will look to finish strong with both the conference tournament and March Madness on the horizon.

KU will next face No. 15 Baylor, with which it is tied for third place in the Big 12 standings, at noon CT on Saturday in Waco.