photo by: AP Photo/L.G. Patterson

Kansas head coach Bill Self, center, watches his team play Missouri during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Columbia, Mo. Missouri won 76-67.

If Kansas hasn’t learned from its mistakes in the Border Showdown loss at Missouri, it could be quite apparent very soon.

Head coach Bill Self said that N.C. State, the Jayhawks’ upcoming foe at Allen Fieldhouse at 2:15 p.m. on Saturday, reminds him a lot of Missouri.

“Very athletic,” Self said of the Wolfpack, “and they play a lot like Missouri as far as (they) switch to deny, and pressing — although Missouri didn’t press, they pressured. And I think that N.C. State may press a little bit more than Missouri did against us.”

The Jayhawks will get an immediate assessment of what they’ve learned in what was at least a relatively long break since Sunday’s defeat — the second loss in a row for KU, a rarity under Self.

“When things aren’t going great, sometimes you want to turn it around quick and sometimes you want to try to improve some things that you’re not doing very well,” Self said, “and I’d say in our case I think the latter’s probably better for us.”

For just over a half against the Tigers, the Jayhawks played as badly as they have in any game in recent years, largely hampered by turnovers, individual defense and an inability to get to the free-throw line.

“The biggest thing to me is we’ve won a lot of games here when we’ve played poorly. A lot,” Self said. “So you don’t have to play great, you just got to make sure the other team doesn’t, and I think we’ve allowed teams to be too comfortable, at least the last week.”

They got back into contention in the second half with a 30-8 run but couldn’t do quite enough to take the lead.

Self stressed in his Thursday press conference that — back-to-back losses notwithstanding — results from the first month of the season have no bearing on what happens in March.

“It’s not the end of the earth, but it is a great eye-opener, saying ‘Hey, that was somebody punching us in the mouth to wake us up,'” Self said. “So hopefully we’ll use it as a way to benefit from it, as opposed to caving from it.”

In this unusually quiet portion of the schedule, KU has two opportunities to do so — on Saturday against N.C. State, on Dec. 22 against Brown — before the start of league play on New Year’s Eve.

After making an improbable run to the Final Four in April, the Wolfpack was picked to finish eighth of 18 teams in the competitive ACC and thus far has performed to about that level statistically in nonconference play.

N.C. State lost four of its top six contributors by minutes per game from last season, including high-scoring guard DJ Horne and tournament-sensation big man DJ Burns.

Point guard Michael O’Connell has started all 10 games so far, and the Wolfpack is getting much of its scoring on the guard-heavy roster from returnees Jayden Taylor, former North Carolina and Georgetown guard Dontrez Styles and Bowling Green transfer Marcus Hill, the current points-per-game leader at 13.0.

“What jumps out to me is they can get their own shot and they’re very, very quick and athletic,” Self said. “I mean, they got a good-looking roster.”

One factor that might not be as much at play in this game is 3-point shooting. The Wolfpack holds opponents to 27% shooting from beyond the arc, lowest in the ACC, but also makes fewer than six 3s per game. In addition, N.C. State has been poor on the glass and does not have a player averaging more than forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield’s 5.6 rebounds per game.

The Wolfpack opened 5-0 before losing to Purdue, BYU and Texas by an average of eight points. It has since rebounded with an overtime victory over Florida State in its very early conference opener and an uninspiring 10-point home win against Coppin State, the second-worst team in Division I.

No. 10 Kansas Jayhawks (7-2) vs. N.C. State Wolfpack (7-3)

• Allen Fieldhouse, Lawrence, 2:15 p.m.

• Broadcast: ESPN

• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KMXN FM 92.9)

Keep an eye out

Wanting Moore: Kansas guard Shakeel Moore, who has been unavailable for quite some time as he deals with recurring soreness from an offseason foot injury, actually played his freshman season at N.C. State. As it turns out, Self revealed on Thursday that Moore had practiced the prior two days and could potentially be available soon. Self added he wasn’t necessarily sure inserting Moore against the Wolfpack would be the best course of action; nonetheless, it’s encouraging for KU to have a strong defender, one who has played just 10 minutes this year, on his way back to action.

Shifting to drive: One of KU’s most surprising deficiencies this year is its bizarrely low quantity of free-throw attempts. The Jayhawks are shooting from the line just 13.2 times per game, which is one of the worst marks in the nation at 346th. Self said that not only is KU throwing the ball inside less, which isn’t even the primary way of getting to the line anymore, it’s struggling with the current means of doing so: driving to the basket. He added that “we don’t have guys obviously that drive the ball downhill as well as some others that we’ll play against.” Of course, KU does have AJ Storr as a possible driver, but he hasn’t received the same level of action he did at Wisconsin, nor has he driven especially often when he has played in recent games.

Special cause: Saturday is a Hoops4ALS game, raising awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The organization sponsored its first games last season and will have players sporting special warmup shirts and coaches wearing lapel pins. Self said, “I know that we’ve had friends that have suffered and endured (ALS), and going back to the reason why it was called Lou Gehrig’s disease, is because of the most durable, maybe baseball player that’s ever lived — and it took him.”

Off-kilter observation

KU will now have played the three major teams of the Research Triangle in Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State, a scheduling decision of which Self joked, “I don’t think from a scheduling standpoint it’s the brightest thing that anybody has done for their respective programs over time.” However, the Jayhawks at least got two of them at home this time. Next year, KU plays Duke at Madison Square Garden and will have to make road trips to both UNC and N.C. State.