CHICAGO — There is no such thing as an ugly win in the NCAA tournament. But this one might have been pushing the edge of the envelope.
Kansas shot 39 percent Friday night against Providence.
Kansas put up 14 attempts from behind the arc and made only two; none in the second half when the game was on the line.
Kansas struggled to get to 26 points by halftime.
Kansas missed four free throws in the final 92 seconds.
Kansas is one game from the Final Four.
How far can defense and rebounding and steel carry a team? If the Jayhawks don’t rekindle their offense, they’re about to find out. Plan B, apparently, is making the other guys play so badly, they can’t beat you.
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“I certainly hope so because that’s how we’re playing right now,” Bill Self said after the Jayhawks grinded past Providence 66-61 and into the Midwest regional championship. “We made them play poor, they made us play poor. But when the other team can’t score, you’re not going to lose very often.”
At this moment, Kansas has an All-American in a scoring slump. Ochai Agbaji is shooting 33 percent in the NCAA tournament and had only five points Friday. There were enough Jayhawk problems on offense that Providence could shoot a liquid oxygen-like 20 percent in the first half, miss 12 of 13 from the 3-point line and three of five free throws, and be down only nine points at halftime. “That’s not a great sign,” Self told his team at halftime.
Is this any way to get to a Final Four? Well, it is if it works. Kansas is finding other ways to survive and advance — blowing a 13-point lead in the second half Friday and then yanking the game back, for instance. There were the 11 blocked shots and a 17-5 edge in second chance points. And when Kansas really needed a basket in the second half and the Friars were in a zone, Self ordered a lob play that Agbaji rammed home. Good call. “The guy’s in the Hall of Fame for a reason, right?” Providence coach Ed Cooley said afterward.
And maybe all the above starts with how the Jayhawks spent their winter, trying to stay near the top of a brutal Big 12.
“Considering that we come from the toughest conference in the country, we’ve seen games like this almost every single night.” Jalen Wilson said. “And I think we’re just so well-prepared for anything, especially them going up one late like that.
“We never get rattled.”
Really?
“I don’t know that I totally buy in 100 percent that we don’t ever get rattled,” Self said. “But I do think, as Jalen said, our league has prepared us in a way; we play so many close games. And every game is a fistfight.”
So maybe Providence got Big 12-ed Friday night. A team long on grit ran into an opponent that is made of the same stuff. Beauty, optional.
“If it gets ugly, it comes to defensive rebounding and playing like that. If we win like that every game, I’m tripping,” Wilson said. “Like coach said, if our offense is bad, we need to make them play worse than us.”
So Self didn’t see all the clanking Kansas shots in the first half as much as something else. “I think the first half was about as well as we can guard," he said.
And he doesn’t see Agbaji’s shooting woes. “Right now, I think he’s doing enough stuff to help us win, and we’ve had other guys step up," Self said. "So we don’t put too much emphasis on that at all.”
And he didn’t consider the second half dry spell that let Providence back in the game as anything shocking. “In sports, when things don’t go your way offensively and the other team has momentum and they’re playing with a freer mind coming back, I do think that sometimes that basket shrinks a little bit," he said. "And I think that did tonight.”
Matter of fact, he didn’t look long at any of those ugly figures. Nor did he even probably take much time to notice the number 2,354 — Kansas' all-time wins, which move it ahead of Kentucky for No. 1. He just saw 66-61. And another chance to play Sunday.
