Column: Jayhawks winning in mysterious ways

Kansas guard Frank Mason III (0) gets a hand on a shot by Utah guard Brandon Taylor (11) with less than a minute remaining during the second half on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014 at Sprint Center

• Box score

Kansas City, Mo ? The season of consistently winning inconsistently continued Saturday for the Kansas University basketball team, this time in the Sprint Center against No. 13 Utah.

This is not your typical Kansas basketball team, not like most top-10 teams, either. The Jayhawks are great and then they’re awful and so it goes. They do consistently get it together in time to pull out close games, ones in which they come from behind and others in which they fall from ahead, watching huge leads vanish.

Bill Self’s basketball team keeps winning and leaving him at a loss for how to avoid the wild in-game swings from brilliance to bone-headedness and back.

“We’ve got to become more consistent,” Self understated after his team blew a 21-point lead, trailed and recovered in time to win, 63-60.

Twice this season, Kansas has lost a half by a 39-24 score and won the game. The first half in Allen Fieldhouse vs. Florida and second half in the Sprint Center vs. Utah, with KU coming up short by a combined 78-48, raised so many questions about a KU team that plays without its typical offensive staple, a low-post scoring threat through whom the offense flows.

Same two opponents, different halves: Kansas 86, Florida/Utah 47.

The way Self talked after Saturday’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Show, he plans to step out of his comfort zone and take a path untraveled.

But really isn’t the only way to achieve consistency by making things happen closer to the basket?

“Lot of people don’t play that way,” Self said. “A lot of people live and die by jumpers and driving it and spreading it, but that’s the way we’ve always played.”

Not anymore. Fifty years after Bob Dylan released “The Times, They Are A Changin’,” Self has joined the movement.

“What we’ve always done, whatever we’ve done, we’ve always tried to get a lot better at doing what we do,” Self said. “I don’t think it’s the kids’ fault. I think it’s something we’ve got to come up with a way to help them, more than us doing better at what we do. We’ll come up with something.”

But what?

“It won’t be a major deal, but we’ve got to do some things to get them to believe (that) what we do works. Right now, if you’ve got a 6-10 guy, you just play dead behind him in the post, you throw it to him and there’s no advantage. And that wasn’t the case with the big guys we played with in the past.”

Landen Lucas lacks the explosiveness, strength and deception to his game that former Self centers featured, so look for the reserve minutes he has been given as a starter to dwindle greatly.

Complicating matters, Kansas started practice with three point guards. Conner Frankamp quit and later transferred to Wichita State. Devonté Graham will miss anywhere from four weeks to the entire season because of a toe injury.

No potent low-post scoring threat and only one point guard. Frank Mason III played 36 minutes Saturday.

“We’ve got to do some things to try to create driving lanes and things like that and we don’t have an unbelievable driving team, but Wayne (Selden Jr.) and Frank should be able to get in there a little bit better and Kelly (Oubre Jr.), who was really good tonight, will be able to help us in that regard,” Self said.

Self shared unconventional thoughts that have run through his mind since the Graham news.

“Playing (Jamari Traylor) at the five, he’s always going to be quicker than any five man he has,” Self said. “I’ve even thought about making (Traylor) a back-up point. I’m being dead serious. Let him initiate offense because nobody can pressure him because he can drive around anybody. Not be the point guard who comes up and sets it up, but I’m talking about, hey, just bring it in transition. We’ve got to become a little bit more creative because it’s going to totally wear Frank down if he has to do everything every possession.”

This team has more issues than most of Self’s, but playing its best basketball in the toughest spots is not one of them. They consistently play with more confidence than the opponents when the outcome hangs in the balance.

As for the other 36 minutes, it’s anybody’s guess.