Bill Self reveals only home loss as painful as Saturday’s vs. Houston

Head coach Bill Self knows that his Kansas Jayhawks are going to need to find a way to bounce back from their loss to the Houston Cougars. The problem is going to be just how painful the loss was.

Self admitted following the game that Kansas won’t immediately be able to move on from this loss, comparing it to a loss that Kansas suffered more than a decade ago at the hands of the Texas A&M Aggies.

“We’re not gonna move on from this,” Bill Self said. “We won’t tomorrow. Hopefully, we will Monday and put it behind us, but it’s a tough one. It’s a tough one. I think the only one that I can remember that would be comparable, and it wasn’t as bad, but was when Acie Law made the shot against us with Texas A&M when we had that game in hand and they went to the Hack-a-Shaq on us and we ended up missing free throws.”

Bill Self is referencing a game from the 2006-07 season. In that game, Texas A&M pulled off a 69-66 upset over the Jayhawks, and Acie Law helped to earn his “Captain Clutch” nickname by hitting a three-point shot late to take the lead making his free throws a bit later to seal the deal.

“So that’s the only one that I can remember a home game in which we left out of here, probably, hurting as much as we did today,” Self said. “But with that being said, guys, two pretty good teams playing and there wasn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between us and we didn’t have KJ [Adams], so there was some good to it too.”

The loss to Houston went a little differently. Kansas was in position to win both in regulation and then in the first overtime period. However, two turnovers on inbounds passes cost the Jayhawks, especially once the Cougars started hitting their three-point shots.

After the game Bill Self also made a point of taking the blame for Kansas struggling on those inbounding plays.

“We didn’t execute. Put it on me. We got a way to get it in that we practice every day and obviously, maybe not having KJ who’s our best athlete that can get open, but we didn’t make a great effort to get open and didn’t call the timeout when we had one. When the count got to four, I should have done that,” Self said.

“And then the second one, we didn’t make a great effort and then when they threw it in, I didn’t tell them to foul immediately if something went bad. I thought that was sending the wrong message. So, obviously, something did go bad and then they made the shot. So, yeah, we had numerous opportunities. We played really well. Kids fought their ass off and obviously just didn’t make plays when it counted the most and they made every one.”

On Tuesday night, Kansas will look to bounce back at home against UCF.