Kansas guard AJ Storr (2) puts up a 3 from the corner against West Virginia during the first half on Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self said on Monday that wings Rylan Griffen and AJ Storr were becoming more comfortable, and had a chance for significant improvement during the next phase of the Jayhawks’ season.

Then, in a pregame interview posted on KU’s social media on Tuesday before KU faced West Virginia, Self even added that Storr had looked “about as good as anybody we’ve had” since the team’s holiday break.

When tipoff came, though, neither player made a notable impact on the Jayhawks’ conference opener. After KU lost 62-61, Self was asked what he saw from his pair of highly touted transfers, and responded “Nothing.”

Storr earned his fourth overall start in 12 games but went 0-for-2 in 15 minutes and recorded no other stats. Griffen hit his first 3-pointer after coming off the bench, but immediately committed a turnover and a foul and didn’t score again in his 12 minutes of play.

Self said he felt Storr got rattled by issues that affected him early in the game. He said Storr “probably could have done better” in terms of his role in KU’s deficient ball-screen coverage early, which allowed West Virginia center Eduardo Andre, not typically one of the Mountaineers’ premier scorers, to tally a dozen points in the first half.

“That’s my fault, I just don’t have them quite ready yet in that situation,” Self said. “They’ve had good practices but … when somebody punches you in the mouth and staggers you or there’s a screwup or something like that, all of a sudden you’re not quite as aggressive and you’re not quite as confident and therefore you’re not near as effective, and that’s kind of what happened today with AJ starting the game.”

The themes of confidence and aggression have been frequent in Self’s discussions of Storr in particular since the Rockford, Illinois, native arrived from Wisconsin in the offseason. The coach characterized it as a situation in which he and his player would have to reconcile their different definitions of the word.

Whatever Self’s definition may be — when he said before the season he had Storr “messed up” and thinking too much, he cited ball movement and quick decision-making as examples of how he wanted Storr to be aggressive — it didn’t show on Tuesday, when he called his transfers “timid” and, more to the point, “nonaggressive.”

It was the first scoreless game of the year for Storr and the third game with three or fewer points for Griffen.

And so it came to pass that Northern Illinois transfer guard David Coit played 16 minutes, including all but 14 seconds of the final 12:35, alongside Dajuan Harris Jr. and Zeke Mayo in the backcourt. That occurred despite the fact that Coit was held scoreless for just the second time in his campaign as well.

The lineup intrigue goes beyond one spot. With forward KJ Adams struggling on Tuesday, freshman center Flory Bidunga played extended minutes alongside Hunter Dickinson in the second half and acquitted himself well outside of one key foul late.

Self already articulated in November a desire to get Bidunga up toward playing 20 minutes per game. However, his 18 on Tuesday were a season high, and it’s not clear yet whose minutes might be at risk if Bidunga’s role gets larger.

“Maybe we just play three bigs and just rotate those guys equally,” Self said, referring to Adams, Bidunga and Dickinson. “Flory’s got to play more, but the bottom line is the reason he’s got to play more is we’re not really getting a lot out of a couple positions right now.”