Kansas falling to OK State further proves Jayhawks not built for Final Four run
An ordinary looking Saturday in college basketball was detonated into an upset-laden, script-changing cataclysm by 2:30 p.m. ET. Two top-10-ranked bluebloods with national championship expectations -- Kansas and Duke -- were stunned by teams almost certainly not heading to the NCAA Tournament.
Here, let's focus on the Kansas conundrum. An Oklahoma State squad picked to finish last in the Big 12 wound up giving first-year coach Mike Boynton the biggest win of his young career. The Pokes got out on top 84-79, but that five-point margin is misleading. OSU conquered KU. This was convincing.
Although Jayhawks big man Udoka Azuibuike had a litany of good moments, Kansas otherwise looked meek in the frontcourt. It was helpless on the perimeter (on both ends) too, and if I'm speaking as frankly as I can, what KU exhibited Saturday was not the Kansas the sport has come to know, respect, often fear. There's been a lot of that this season with this team.
The seventh-ranked Jayhawks have also proved early doubters correct, as Kansas has slipped from holding a two-game lead in the league standings to (as of the time of this story's publishing) being tied with Texas Tech and Oklahoma in the loss column (all have three).
It was bizarre, yet not surprising, to watch Oklahoma State stroll into Allen Fieldhouse and officially kill the aura of empowerment that existed in that building for the past decade-and-a-half under Bill Self. Kansas has now dropped more home games in one season (three) than any other in Self's tenure. KU's fallen to Arizona State, Texas Tech and now, in persuasive fashion, to the Cowboys. Winning on the road is hard in college basketball, but Kansas opponents are turning it into a habit. Strange times are here.
This is not your father's Kansas club, it's not even your older brother's Jayhawks team. Kansas is still good this season, but this season it cannot be great. For a program that has averaged 31 wins per campaign during the past 11 years, that's an unacceptable reality. This is the down cycle which, all things considered, still speaks to the outrageous consistency of Self.
Allen Fieldhouse no longer allows Kansas to go from Cringer to Battle Cat. Saturday showed again why. By half, Kansas had given up a season-high 46 points through 20 minutes. The Jayhawks never mounted an over-the-hump run. That's normally a given. Instead, the worst defensive rebounding team in the Big 12 allowed the Cowboys to grab 47.1 percent of their misses. That's a ludicrous number. KU's inability to box out teams on defense will be the defining trait that ends its season in the first or second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Oklahoma State won because of its 16 offensive rebounds, its 12 3-pointers made and its 57 percent 2-point clip. That's the magic trio. Kendall Smith, a senior point guard you might not have heard of before Saturday, made a name for himself with 24 points.
This was a tremendous victory for Oklahoma State, and I want to give Boynton his due here. Remember, he got this job to the surprise of many in the business last spring -- then was thrown into the chaos of an FBI probe when his former assistant, Lamont Evans, was arrested by the FBI. Boynton handled that situation superbly in October, and has turned what could have been a ruinous season into a success story. He and his team have done more than anyone outside of Stillwater anticipated.
Oklahoma State's in a period of transition but it has managed to defeat Trae Young at the height of his powers and knock off Kansas in Boynton's first season. No matter what happens going forward, those are the events that will serve as lifelong memories for everyone in the Cowboys program this season.
That said, Kansas is the story of Saturday. Reasons keep popping up; the Jayhawks not getting an All-American-type of season out of preseason Player of the Year candidate Devonte' Graham is one of them. Here's where more attention should be directed: The four-guard starting lineup has led to Kansas being ranked 30th in defensive efficiency at KenPom. From a ranking and a points-per-100-possessions standpoint, this is the worst defensive team of Self's career in the KenPom era, even dating back to his final seasons at Illinois.
The Jayhawks already sit at five losses, which matches their total from each of the past two seasons. The most recent parallel would be 2013-14. Kansas reached the NCAA Tournament with nine losses then. You know what happened to that team? It lost in the second round to No. 10 Stanford. You know who was on that team? Guys named Wiggins and Embiid, who teamed up with Perry Ellis -- then in his sixth season at KU.
This crew doesn't have someone with the transcendent basketball ability of Wiggins or Embiid, and it certainly doesn't have the rim deployment of that 2013-14 group. That squad still managed to get a No. 2 seed because it won out in a tough Big 12, and a 2 seed was the right call. I do wonder if this 2017-18 Kansas team is on pace to repeat history. Jayhawks fans really have only one continual gripe with their program: We're way too good to have made the Final Four only twice since Bill got here. But things are headed toward that lament growing to a chorus in about seven or eight weeks.
The Jayhawks appear to have a birthright to finishing atop the Big 12 standings. That could well still happen. But Saturday was the final offering of evidence that proved to me that this team isn't built to make a Final Four run. Its season will end like 12 of the past 14 under Self -- with a clonk in the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight. Kansas fans are no doubt coming to grips with this, and that's probably a pinching sensation on the 10-year anniversary of Self's only national championship, which came in San Antonio. That's the site of this year's Final Four, too.
Kansas fans can only remember the Alamo, because there's little reason to believe they'll be going back.