photo by: AP Photo/Rob Gray

Kansas head coach Bill Self reacts to a play against BYU during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025, in Provo, Utah.

Provo, Utah — In a conference schedule that had already featured plenty of deep, deep lows, the Kansas men’s basketball team may have hit rock bottom on Tuesday night.

The Jayhawks gave up 10 first-half 3s, trailed by 20 points at the break and did nothing to make the game competitive from then on. They suffered one of the worst losses by margin in school history, a 91-57 drubbing by BYU at the Marriott Center.

“I thought we were awful, and I thought they were great,” KU coach Bill Self said. “I think BYU could have beaten anybody tonight. They were great, and then we didn’t do anything to make them play less than great.”

Center Hunter Dickinson was one of two Jayhawks to reach double figures, with 12 points and 14 rebounds, but he shot just 5-for-13 in a second straight lackluster showing. David Coit scored a pair of late 3-pointers to reach 11 points on the night.

Richie Saunders (22 points) and Trevin Knell (15 points) hit four 3s apiece for BYU, while Mawot Mag (13 points) made three. Keba Keita had 10 points and nine rebounds.

The 34-point margin matched KU’s 2021 NCAA Tournament loss to USC, but did not quite stack up to the 125-year old 40-point defeat to Nebraska.

Even with a new starting lineup featuring three forwards — Self said he wanted “just to try something different” — the Jayhawks set a poor tone early, missing their first four shots and giving up a pair of early 3-pointers, forcing Self to call timeout less than two minutes in with KU trailing 8-0.

“It wasn’t as much early-on crap offense, it was that we didn’t make our shots and they made their shots even when we actually did an average job defensively,” Self said. “And I think that contributed to the bad start as much as anything.”

BYU went up double digits on an alley-oop finish by Keita five minutes into the half, then made it 22-7 on a 3-pointer by Mag as part of a 9-0 run.

“It got away from us real quick,” Dickinson said postgame, later adding, “Coming out, trying to throw the first punch, per se, would be a better recipe for success.”

From then on, KU at least did a better job of holding the Cougars until late in the shot clock and managed to score seven straight in response, capped off by a 3-pointer by Rylan Griffen. BYU went six minutes and eight seconds without a field goal, but erased virtually all of the Jayhawks’ progress with back-to-back 3s by Mag and Saunders.

Saunders opened 5-for-5 and 4-for-4 from deep, and his fourth 3 gave BYU its largest lead at 38-22 late in the first half — which the Cougars quickly exceeded when KU left Knell wide open beyond the arc twice more before the break.

“I think if you had to point to one thing, it’d just be communication and being tighter on our switches,” Dickinson said of the Cougars’ three-point shooting. “That’s something that we emphasized going into the game, and that was kind of our game plan, was to switch, because they are so deadly from 3 and they do a good job of spacing you out and making you guard a lot of areas.”

It was more of the same after halftime for the Jayhawks, except they also attempted a slew of 3s out of the break. They only made one early, from Dickinson, before conceding a stretch of 10 straight points.

The Cougars’ lead cleared 30 points when Egor Demin drained a stepback 3 over Dickinson to make it 64-33. Self used his final timeout with 14 minutes remaining.

“I think just trying to claw any way we could, I think,” Dickinson said of Self’s message during the timeouts. “Whatever the lead was what it was, just trying to finish it little by little. When we came into halftime, he said there’s no 20-point play, got to do it one possession at a time, and that’s what we tried to do but were unsuccessful in doing that.”

The Jayhawks didn’t do themselves any favors, in terms of making the final margin more respectable, when they failed to make a shot for nearly six minutes. Freshman Rakease Passmore, seeing extended playing time with the game out of reach, made his first field goal since Nov. 30 and brought the drought to an end.

The Jayhawks, who fell to 17-9 and 8-7 in league play, will return home to face Oklahoma State at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Box score