Bill Self shares his message to Kansas after loss to Iowa State

Kansas coach Bill Self wasn’t overly discouraged by the Jayhawks’ loss to Iowa State Saturday afternoon.

In fact, Self said he was “encouraged” by the effort but the Cyclones did just a bit more in the upset. Hosting Kansas, Iowa State knocked off the No. 7 team in the country.

Simply put, Self thought Kansas did enough offensively to get it done but the defense had some lapses they couldn’t overcome against a conference foe.

“I was actually encouraged,” Self said. “This is the best offense we’ve run and you score 75 points against Iowa State in their building, it should be enough. We did some good things. We did make shots. They outscored us, you know, 21 points from beyond the arc. But I thought we hung in there and did some good things offensively. Defensively we weren’t good but we rebounded the ball better in the second half. 

“We did some good stuff. They were just better. And certainly they made us pay. I don’t know how many shots they made, you know, in the last five seconds of the shot clock but you know, they made us pay.”

Hunter Dickinson led the scoring with 20 points, 15 rebounds and four assists on the afternoon. Kevin McCullar Jr. added 16 points, seven rebounds and three assists.

This isn’t anything new for Kansas, despite few losses this year. Winning on the road in the Big 12 is quite difficult.

Heck, Self said as much after a road loss to West Virginia just last week.

“Well, the League’s a monster,” Self said after the WVU loss, pointing out that a top-10 Baylor team has even dropped a couple of heartbreakers on the road early in league play.

“And, you know, Baylor was an eyelash away in two games from having a significant advantage on everybody, if you win at K-State and Texas. And then Texas made a great play today and K-State made a great play this week … But it’s, you know, we’re certainly not happy where we’re at in the league race. But there’s going to be games like this for everybody and certainly it’s a monster league, it’s a great league.”

Now, Kansas will have to switch focus to Oklahoma State after losing two of three games. The good news is, the Jayhawks will return home for a Tuesday night tipoff at 9:00 p.m. ET.