Dan Fitzgerald explains Kansas' approach to handling pressure, postseason picture in Big 12 Tournament

The Kansas Jayhawks and head coach Dan Fitzgerald are looking to make noise in the postseason. That starts with making a run in the Big 12 Tournament.

During the fifth inning of Kansas’ first Big 12 Tournament game against Kansas State, Fitzgerald spoke with ESPN. There, he explained how Kansas is going to approach handling pressure as it tries to make a run at the conference and potentially a spot in the NCAA Regionals.

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“I think you can look at it two ways,” Dan Fitzgerald said. “One is, as you said, pressure. The other thing is to be really thankful and have a ton of gratitude for the opportunity given the fact that this is literally what we all signed up for in the Big 12. You can look up at all the teams in this tournament, and the teams that aren’t here, and there’s not a single weekend that you have off. It is a grind every single week.”

Because of that, Fitzgerald argued that it’s going to come down to having the right mindset in the Big 12 Tournament. That way, they can play loose and not feel that pressure.

“So, to be playing, I tell the guys all the time, you’re the one percent of one percent that has made it this far. So, enjoy it. Pressure is just a mindset vs. just a total freedom to perform knowing that you’ve prepared. So, we prepare really hard. These guys are awesome and they really work. So, now you just go out and play at this point.”

This season, Kansas went 29-21 overall this season and 15-15 in conference play. That included dropping two out of three games to Kansas State earlier this season. That was good for the seventh seed in the Big 12 Tournament, just one behind the Wildcats.

There is a chance that Kansas can play spoiler to a lot of other teams this postseason. That’s both possible with a deep run in the Big 12 Tournament, as well as possibly reshaping the NCAA Tournament seeding with how they play right now. Still, Fitzgerald isn’t worried about that.

“No doubt, and I think the surest way to get yourself off track is to bust out a TI-87 calculator and start trying to calculate RPI and everything else. I think the best thing for us to do is what we do starting in August and take this day by day. So, yeah, we’re playing for something for sure and when we started this thing months ago if someone were to have said you would be in the mix at the end of the year, we would have 1000 percent loved that,” Fitzgerald said.

“So, very thankful to be here, and our guys are just gonna grind each day until we go home.”

Only the top 10 teams in the Big 12 make the conference tournament at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. There, they play a double-elimination tournament.