Bill Self reveals how he prepared for late tip-off vs. Colorado

The Big 12 is now a conference with 16 teams from the Eastern Time Zone to the Mountain Time Zone. That’s made for some interesting body-clock tests with late and early start times, including the one that Kansas Jayhawks head coach Bill Self had to manage on Monday night for the team’s road test to at the Colorado Buffaloes.

Kansas managed the late tip-off on the road against Colorado well, winning 71-64. After the game, Self revealed that his preparations for the game didn’t particularly change. Instead, the time he did everything shifted slightly.

“It wasn’t that hard for me,” Bill Self said. “I went for my walk right around 11 and then took my nap before pregame at 5. So, I handled it fine. It wasn’t that big a deal.”

Tip-off for the game against Colorado was at 10:00 p.m. Central Time. That was the latest start time for a game that Kansas has seen all season. The previous late start time was at 9:00 p.m. Central Time on February 15th when the Jayhawks played a road game against Utah, losing that game.

Kansas shot 49.1 percent from the field and 23.1 percent from three-point range. They also struggled at the free-throw line, making just 57.1 percent of their shots from the charity stripe. However, rebounding was an issue, getting outrebounded by Colorado 46 rebounds to 31. That helped keep the game itself relatively close throughout, though an excellent defensive effort by Kansas largely helped the Jayhawks to hold on and win.

With the win, Kansas moved to 19-9 overall and 10-7 in Big 12 play. That puts them in sixth in the current Big 12 standings. If the season were to end today, it would be the worst regular season finish for Kansas ever under Bill Self. Their previous worst conference finish under Self came last season when they were tied for fifth. The last time Kansas finished sixth or worse in the Big 12 regular season standings, was the 1988-89 season.

Beating Colorado also represented a second win in a row for the Jayhawks. That comes on the heels of a two-game losing streak from Kansas’ last road trip when they played road games against Utah and BYU. While neither of those games started as late as the Colorado game, they were similar road trips to play teams in their first and second seasons in the conference respectively.

There are now just three games remaining in the regular season for Bill Self and Kansas. That’s going to be a difficult final stretch, taking on Texas Tech, Houston, and Arizona, making the Colorado win even more important to the Jayhawks.