Bill Self: "I thought it exposed us"

Facing No. 25 Illinois in the exhibition opener, No. 1 Kansas fell on the road, 82-75. Kevin McCullar, Jr., scored 25 points, Hunter Dickinson added 22 points, and KJ Adams, Jr., chipped in 14 points.

Kansas, which led for just one minute against Illinois, had several opportunities to emerge victorious late in the game, but the Jayhawks simply failed to make any game-changing plays down the stretch.

“Well, we didn’t guard,” said Kansas head coach Bill Self after the game. “If you give up 82 points on the road, you’re going to get beat. We don’t guard and we didn’t rebound. We’ve certainly got to get a lot better at that. I’ll be honest with you, other than the three guys that are returning, KJ Adams, Jr., Dajuan Harris, Jr., and Kevin McCullar, Jr., I’m not sure that anybody else understands how we have won games away from home.

“I’d rather run crap offense than not let other people get easy baskets,” he added. “Certainly, they got like eight layups in the first half and they made seven threes. Gosh, what do you want to take, take away threes, or take away layups? They got eight assists, which tells me all they were doing was driving and we had some issues with ball screens.”

On a night when Kansas lost by seven points on the road in a hostile environment, Self’s squad shot just 3-of-12 (25.0%) from behind the arc and 12-of-19 (63.2%) from the free-throw line.

Illinois, on the other hand, connected on 11-of-27 (40.7%) shots from behind the arc and 21-of-32 (65.6%) of its free throws. The Illini also won the battle on the glass, 39-32, and tallied six steals on the night.

While McCullar, Jr. (25), Dickinson (22), and Adams, Jr. (14), led the way for Kansas on the offensive end of the court, no other player scored more than six points against Illinois. In fact, Harris, Jr.(6), Elmarko Jackson (4), and Nicolas Timberlake (4) rounded out the scoring for Self’s squad.

“We’ve got to get better,” said Self. “I thought it exposed us and it did exactly what we wanted it to do. I would always rather win than not win, but we played guys a lot of minutes – more than I would have liked to, but we needed to.

“On that loose ball play, it would have been a one-possession game with about a minute left,” he added. “That was obviously a big play. The explanation we got was they said he (Kevin McCullar, Jr.) didn’t have the ball. The tape doesn’t agree with that. Kevin was the one trying to call timeout after he got whiplash.

“They missed that one, so that basically ended the game,” he added. “Kevin just got his bell rung, whiplash, so he’ll be fine. He’s tough as nails and very hardheaded.”

For the game, McCullar, Jr., was 9-of-14 from the field, 2-of-3 from behind the arc, and 5-of-9 from the free-throw line. As a team, Kansas was just 3-of-12 from behind the arc, with McCullar, Jr., making two of the shots from deep.

Dickinson, who scored 22 points in 34 minutes of action, was 9-of-20 from the field, 1-of-3 from behind the arc, and 3-of-4 from the free-throw line. During that same stretch, he pulled down nine rebounds and blocked two shots.

Minutes after the game, Self talked about the performance of his talented big man.

“Hunter struggled the whole game, I thought,” said Self. “Even though he made some baskets late, those were gimmies, a lot of the baskets he made late. He’s got to be much better on the glass, he’s got to protect the rim, he’s got to be able to guard ball screens, and certainly, offensively, he was not a factor.

“He was looking to score too much, early, instead of being aggressive,” he added. “We know he can score, and I think the guys were nervous. I really do. I think this was a pretty good wake-up call knowing we haven’t practiced our best and knowing this could happen today. There weren’t very many guys, newcomers, that actually responded the way we hoped they would.”

KU’s two other newcomers, Elmarko Jackson and Nicolas Timberlake, combined to score just eight points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field, including 0-of-4 from behind the arc.

“I thought he (Nicolas Timberlake) and Elmarko (Jackson) did some good things,” he said. “It's just a big moment for them right out of the chute, but I thought they did some good things. They’ll get better. Nic was brought here to shoot the basketball and he can certainly put himself in a position to be more aggressive.

“He needs to shoot, and we need to get Johnny (Furphy) back,” he added. “I think Johnny can help us, but he’s also new and green. There were some good things that happened today, but not enough.”

Kansas and Illinois partnered together to make the game a fundraiser to provide financial resources for rapid response and recovery for the devastating wildfires in Maui.

“We raised well north of a million dollars, so it was good,” said Head Coach Bill Self. “They did a great job with selling as many tickets as possible. There were a lot of positive things that came from it and I do think it was much more uncomfortable of environment than our players thought it would be.”

UP NEXT:

Kansas will play its second and final exhibition game for the 2023-24 season when it hosts Fort Hays State on Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. (Central), in Allen Fieldhouse. The game will be televised on Big 12 Now via ESPN+. Kansas leads the series with Fort Hays State, 12-0, including a 10-0 record in exhibition contests.