Notebook: Jayhawks take season-ending loss hard

Frank Mason III, left and Wayne Selden Jr. sit at their lockers after the Jayhawks' 78-65 loss to Wichita State Sunday, March 22, 2015 at the CenturyLink Center, in Omaha, Neb.

Omaha ? Frank Mason III sat with one hand on his head in front of his stall Sunday, in a quiet locker room following Kansas University’s 78-65, season-ending loss to Wichita State.

Senior Christian Garrett seemed to take the loss hardest of all as he shed tears.

Brannen Greene barked at a reporter for getting too close to him in an excessively crowded locker room, then calmed down and answered all questions put to him.

Jamari Traylor confirmed that somebody put a fist to a whiteboard in the locker room, poking a hole in it prior to reporters’ arrival. He did not indicate who slugged the whiteboard on which plays were drawn.

Marshall says: WSU coach Gregg Marshall in the interview room had this exchange with a reporter.

Q: Gregg, now that you’ve probably screwed up any chance to get a series with KU. …

Marshall: You think?

Q: Is the result OK?

Marshall: Is that what they said? We haven’t called them yet.

Q: I just assumed from the result today that might be tough. Do you think your fans would be OK with that?

A: You know, who knows? They may want to play now. Who knows. I have no idea. I’m not worried about that. I’m fine letting the series lay the way it is right now. The series is good with me at this point.”

Wessel vs. Ellis: Former Wichita Heights teammates Evan Wessel (12 points, four threes) and Perry Ellis (17 points, eight boards) guarded each other.

“He had a great game, both ends of the floor,” Ellis said. “He made some huge shots that gave them a lot of momentum. I didn’t get to talk to him much, but, yes, he’s a tough player, tough kid, real smart, and he showed that tonight.”

Wessel said: “First of all, he’s a tremendous player, tremendous athlete and he had a great game. It was a battle down there. As far as did I say anything to him, we’re both pretty quiet, we don’t say much, so I mean not really. I said good luck before the game, and that was about it, you know, wish him the best. But he had a great game, and it was definitely a challenge and a great opportunity to go against him.”

Physical play: Ellis took an elbow from Fred Van Vleet in the first half. Asked if his nose was broken, Ellis said: “No, nothing like that. I got hit pretty good, a little rip of the skin made it keep bleeding.”

KU’s Oubre was called for an intentional foul for hammering Tekele Cotton on a layup late in the game.

“Yes, I’m OK and he just hit me a little bit on my head, and I came down on my head a little bit, but I’m perfectly fine,” Cotton said.

Experience: Self on WSU’s three senior/two junior starters all scoring in double figures.

“Well, they obviously were better prepared, ready for the moment better than us, and we didn’t play very well. I obviously didn’t get our guys to the point where we should play up to our — to the ability that we should potentially play up to. I do think — it’s pretty nice having some vets out there, and … to me he (Wessel) was the most valuable guy of the game, and to me he dominated the game from a loose-ball energy, and then of course, he shot the ball in the hole well. They were solid all the way around, but they had four starters play great, I thought. And they were all veterans, and that was the difference. Then their bench came in, and there was no pressure on their bench to perform well because the starters were playing so well. So the basket opened up, and certainly they made the most of it,” Self said.

Self on playing some zone the second half: “They were getting anywhere they wanted to go the ball screens in the second half. First half we actually did a good job of that. Second half we didn’t, for whatever reason, and they were able to drive the ball downhill and got the ball in tight and forced help; so we decided to go zone, and we actually played the zone pretty well, and we made them shoot a couple of deep-corner from their non three-point shooters, statistically, and it kind of took us out of that immediately.”

More news and notes from Kansas vs. Wichita State in the NCAA Tournament