photo by: AP Photo/Bethany Baker

Kansas players and staff react to trailing Utah in the final minutes of the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, in Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake City — One of the principal storylines throughout Kansas’ nonconference schedule was the Jayhawks’ ongoing search for a team identity.

“Because who are we?” KU coach Bill Self wondered aloud on Dec. 8, after the Jayhawks had lost back-to-back road games at Creighton and Missouri. “Are we a skilled team? Are we an athletic team? Are we an execution team? What do we really hang our hat on? Are we a toughness team? Do we make people play bad?”

More than two months later, if anything has come to define this year’s KU season, it’s the lack of any consistent through line between the Jayhawks’ performances. Reserve guard David Coit, who has ebbed and flowed along with the rest of the rotation, summed it up quite nicely in the days after what Self called a “bland” win over Colorado.

“We showed who we are essentially right now, as our identity right now, that at times we can look like the best team in the world and then at times we can lose to anybody,” Coit said.

The issue for KU at this juncture is that the glimpses of that “best team in the world” are becoming far less frequent and the Jayhawks are much more often losing to just about anybody. They beat then-No. 8 Iowa State convincingly on Feb. 3 and otherwise haven’t won back-to-back games since Jan. 22, with the victories sprinkled throughout — dogfights at home against UCF and CU — far from crowning achievements.

Then, just two days after Coit’s declaration, KU suffered another baffling loss.

Not an inexplicable one based on in-game situations, like its home defeat against Houston that it had wrapped up twice or the 21-point comeback it allowed at Baylor, but simply an outcome that didn’t make sense: A team picked as preseason No. 1 fell to a bottom-tier Big 12 foe, one that was previously 0-9 in Quadrant 1 games, without even leading at any point. But it happened, as Utah took down KU 74-67 on Saturday.

And much like a week earlier, when KU suffered a similarly decisive loss at once-floundering rival Kansas State, answers were hard to find in the aftermath. For example, how to explain the Jayhawks’ consistent struggles to open games (they trailed 13-5 early), or out of halftime breaks (they let the Utes extend their lead, after KU had carried momentum into the half)?

“You probably should ask the players that,” Self said after the loss to Utah. “The first possession they score off a simple ball screen and we’re in a certain coverage and guys were surprised we were in it, and we’ve only been talking about it for 24, 48 hours. That’s frustrating.

“I don’t know exactly what that answer is, coming out of the halftime different or starting the game different. I really don’t know what the answer is on that, because it seems to me to start any athletic contest both teams are usually pretty geeked up and on point.”

Point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. said “it’s a pride thing.”

“We got to realize what’s on our chest, Kansas,” Harris said. “… and we got to recognize what every team’s going to do when they play against us. We just don’t get that, and once we start getting it I think we’ll be in a pretty good shape, but we got to realize what’s on our chest, and not the back of our jersey, our last name.”

Mistaken identity

For a time it seemed that KU might adopt one of the specific identities Self had pitched in December: making opponents play poorly. (In fact, as it happens, Self reiterated on Saturday night that he felt that play style was crucial to succeeding in the Big 12.)

In January, the Jayhawks did quite well at dragging opponents down. Boosted by Shakeel Moore’s introduction into the starting lineup as an off-ball guard, KU trounced UCF 99-48 as the Knights shot 20.6% from the field, held Arizona State to 13 points in the brilliant defensive second half of a 74-59 home win and ground out a 54-40 road victory at Cincinnati by stymying the Bearcats’ slow-paced, set-dependent offense.

They haven’t recaptured that stinginess since. Moore’s minutes dwindled dramatically and he eventually returned to the bench, with Self occasionally alluding to foot soreness from his offseason injury. Freshman Flory Bidunga strung together some impressive shot-blocking performances to add another element to KU’s arsenal, but his defensive performance began to plateau and even decline, particularly after KJ Adams returned from a separated shoulder and into the starting lineup.

The largely rudderless Jayhawks have gone 5-5 since winning those three January conference games in a row. A team that wanted to make others play poorly is 15th of 16 Big 12 squads in both turnovers forced per game and steals per game since the start of conference play. The one team below KU is Utah, which of course found a way to turn 12 KU turnovers into 22 points on Saturday. If anything the Jayhawks’ presence encouraged the Utes to play better than usual. Certainly KU players often talk about the responsibility of getting every team’s best shot, as Harris apparently referenced on Saturday when he mentioned “what every team’s going to do when they play against us.”

Whatever the case, Self said on postgame radio he had “done a (expletive) job of getting these guys to understand the way we have to play in order to give us a chance to win.”

“I’m tired of regrouping,” he said. “What we need to do is basically be men as an entire organization and do what our job is to do and accept responsibility for everybody, coaches, players, everybody when we don’t do it well. We certainly didn’t do it well at all tonight.”

Before KU lost on Saturday, it came in at No. 15 overall in the NCAA’s preview of the top 16 projected seeds for the NCAA Tournament. Self said that was “obviously very generous” and that KU isn’t currently playing to that level. Losing to the Utes could bump the Jayhawks down to the No. 5 seed line, where it has never been in a tournament during Self’s tenure as head coach.

In the near term, what could have been a manageable string of games to bolster the Jayhawks’ positioning, after KU beat Iowa State, has now become two losses and one uninspiring win. BYU, now tied with KU at 8-6 in the Big 12, is up next on Tuesday.

“I don’t think we need to worry about the tournament,” Self said. “I think we need to worry about trying to get better and become a good solid basketball team again.”