Bill Self discusses active effort Kansas staff has made to bring energy

The Kansas Jayhawks bounced back from a two-game losing streak with a dominant win over the Oklahoma State Cowboys on Saturday. For head coach Bill Self, the energy his staff brought was a key piece of that puzzle.

After the win, Self broke down that energy from his assistant coaches, explaining that it goes back to the first loss of their two-game skid. It was against Oklahoma State that things clicked into place on the floor for the Jayhawks.

“I don’t know that the energy was a lot different by the coaches today,” Bill Self said. “I think the energy has been different by the coaches since we’ve been back from Utah. I don’t know if it was just different today. So, hopefully, it’s contagious.”

In their two losses, Kansas averaged just 62 points per game. In the win over Oklahoma State, they were able to score 96 points, which was the most they had in a game since January 5th. That was on the back of a game where they shot 52.1 percent from the field.

“But, guys, let’s just call it like it is, when the ball goes in the hole, everybody’s happy and everything looks good. I do think there’s a lot of things that happened today that created opportunities that we haven’t been getting,” Self said. “Because we’ve been playing flat-footed, and today we didn’t.”

At 9-7 in Big 12 play, Kansas is out of the regular season conference championship race at sixth in the current conference standings. Still, that’s not the focus for Bill Self. He wants his team to focus on this last win and build on that from here.

“We’re 1-0. That’s what we are and that’s what we’re talking about. Everybody’s stat sheet and what they’re averaging this year is exactly what happened today,” Self said. “And we’re not even gonna talk about the other stuff right now. We’re 1-0. Now can they do that? I don’t know why they couldn’t because it actually gives them new life too.”

The Kansas Jayhawks are next going to be in action on Monday when they’ll be tested on the road by the Colorado Buffaloes. In their previous meeting, the Jayhawks won at home by 12 points. It should give them a chance to continue building momentum going into the postseason. After that, the schedule gets more difficult again against the current top three teams in the Big 12 standings.