Kansas Head Coach Bill Self:
On the slow start and final score.
“If you had said the score is going to be 12-0, you would hope the home team would have an advantage, but we didn’t tonight. We were so bad early. Then, of course, they made everything they took early, but still a lot of that was our mistakes. I actually thought we played a little selfish. The ball stuck early. We actually executed very well the last 30 minutes of the game. I thought to start the second half the ball really moved and we got great shots. We were more patient even though we played faster. That press that we worked on for all of about 15 minutes I thought really paid off early on, but there were some good things that happened. We knocked a lot of rust off, I hope. We got a face slap and got punched in the face early on, which will happen again. The guys did a pretty good job. Of course, they threw in some hard shot threes. They did a good job of making some hard threes.”
On McCullar’s performance and the team’s performance...
“I thought his hands were good. Kevin has good hands and a lot of those steals you are not going to get against some different ball clubs, but he’s got good hands. I thought he looked fast, in transition he pitched ahead and looked fast. I thought he did a really nice job. I thought he had a really good game. I thought Gradey was great. Gradey is a starter here, we just didn’t start him tonight. I thought he was great tonight. The thing about it is with Gradey, there’s no assist on that category. People are going to guard him, and he has got to be able to pass the ball to the guy that is basically coming to help. We have to get better at that. Jalen I thought in the second half was great. I didn’t think Dajuan had a great game, but he still got 10 assists. I thought K.J. also had a good game. Bigs were bad the first half, but obviously played a lot better the second half.”
On Bobby Pettiford...
“The last turnover we told him to throw it to Dillon. I felt bad about Dillon. I’m watching the game and coach asks me if we want to put Dillon in and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t even realize’ because I wasn’t used to him suiting up for us since he didn’t last year. He should have played a little more. We tried to throw it to him and Bobby threw it away there at the end. I thought that off the bench other than Gradey, Bobby was the best player we had off the bench tonight, without question.”
On Gradey starting the next game...
“Yeah, I’m sure. What we saw tonight is we are much better playing small than we are playing big. We haven’t even practiced with KJ at the five this year because we want one of those bigs to come through. So, we need to do that in the next two days of practice we have. We only have Saturday and Sunday left. We need to get KJ some reps at the five and go from there. Even though it wasn’t pretty early, you get past those first seven minutes, that wasn’t bad. We have had a lot worse exhibition games than that.”
On the adversity that the team faced...
“Well, you never want to have to deal with adversity, but when you deal with it it’s the best thing in the world that we could ever have to go through. The one good thing about being down 15 is it was so early that there was plenty of time to come back. Being down 15 with 10 minutes left is a little bit of a different story. Jeff’s got a small team and took advantage of their quickness. They were faster than us early until we kind of figured it out a little bit. It was good to have Boschee back in the building. I thought the fans did a good job recognizing him before the game. He did have a sweet stroke, as evidenced by the intro board. He was a pretty good shooter back in the day.”
On the Load the Wagon banner and what it meant...
“Well, it was unexpected. Shep [Douglas Sheppherd] and administration did that without my knowledge. It was really nice. I knew that they were going to put that banner up for a while, but I didn’t know anything about it until yesterday, as far as details on logistics or where or anything like that. I saw my mom up there and saw her wipe her eye. I’m sure my sister did too. It was good, it really was. It was good, special and I wish the whole family could’ve been here, but we have sick ones down in Dallas, little ones. It was a nice moment. It will certainly mean something to me, every time I look over my shoulder knowing that he’s kind of looking down over all of us.”
Kansas Redshirt Junior Jalen Wilson:
On being down 15 points and getting hot...
“I was feeling normal. We have been down in bigger games before than this and I knew we just had to settle down and start playing our game. Never was worried, we got them to speed up a little more and we started making the right plays.”
On his offensive mindset…
“I saw that their center was a bit undersized and we had an advantage in the paint. I started settling in from the outside and once we figured it out it was easier to get downhill. We saw it start working.”
On next four games…
“We’ve been a team that’s handled a lot of adversity, even last year with my situation. We always come together in tough times. We know what we do in the practice gym and how we prepare for games. It won’t change anything. We have a great coaching staff and a great circle so when anything happens we prepare and get better. We’re just going to take each game one at a time.”
Kansas Redshirt Senior Kevin McCullar Jr.:
On his first game as a Jayhawk in Allen Fieldhouse...
“It was great. Being on this side of it and having the crowd to feed off from was amazing. We went down a little early but got some steals and the crowd got us going.”
On his five steals…
“I like playing on both ends of the floor and I take it very personally. We have to play defense to win games and I just did what I do to try and help us win.”
On what sparked the team…
“It was a collective effort. We were down early and we didn’t panic. We just stayed together. We tried to just speed them up a bit and get a press going to get easy buckets, and we fed off the energy from the crowd.”
Kansas Redshirt Junior Dajuan Harris Jr.:
On Coach Roberts…
“Coach Roberts is a great coach. He’s got great energy and he’ll definitely have us fired up for the first game.”
On first half offense…
“We were rushing a lot. We have to take our time and be patient on the offensive end. We struggled a bit on defense and just have to work every day on that.”
On the slow start and final score.
“If you had said the score is going to be 12-0, you would hope the home team would have an advantage, but we didn’t tonight. We were so bad early. Then, of course, they made everything they took early, but still a lot of that was our mistakes. I actually thought we played a little selfish. The ball stuck early. We actually executed very well the last 30 minutes of the game. I thought to start the second half the ball really moved and we got great shots. We were more patient even though we played faster. That press that we worked on for all of about 15 minutes I thought really paid off early on, but there were some good things that happened. We knocked a lot of rust off, I hope. We got a face slap and got punched in the face early on, which will happen again. The guys did a pretty good job. Of course, they threw in some hard shot threes. They did a good job of making some hard threes.”
On McCullar’s performance and the team’s performance...
“I thought his hands were good. Kevin has good hands and a lot of those steals you are not going to get against some different ball clubs, but he’s got good hands. I thought he looked fast, in transition he pitched ahead and looked fast. I thought he did a really nice job. I thought he had a really good game. I thought Gradey was great. Gradey is a starter here, we just didn’t start him tonight. I thought he was great tonight. The thing about it is with Gradey, there’s no assist on that category. People are going to guard him, and he has got to be able to pass the ball to the guy that is basically coming to help. We have to get better at that. Jalen I thought in the second half was great. I didn’t think Dajuan had a great game, but he still got 10 assists. I thought K.J. also had a good game. Bigs were bad the first half, but obviously played a lot better the second half.”
On Bobby Pettiford...
“The last turnover we told him to throw it to Dillon. I felt bad about Dillon. I’m watching the game and coach asks me if we want to put Dillon in and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t even realize’ because I wasn’t used to him suiting up for us since he didn’t last year. He should have played a little more. We tried to throw it to him and Bobby threw it away there at the end. I thought that off the bench other than Gradey, Bobby was the best player we had off the bench tonight, without question.”
On Gradey starting the next game...
“Yeah, I’m sure. What we saw tonight is we are much better playing small than we are playing big. We haven’t even practiced with KJ at the five this year because we want one of those bigs to come through. So, we need to do that in the next two days of practice we have. We only have Saturday and Sunday left. We need to get KJ some reps at the five and go from there. Even though it wasn’t pretty early, you get past those first seven minutes, that wasn’t bad. We have had a lot worse exhibition games than that.”
On the adversity that the team faced...
“Well, you never want to have to deal with adversity, but when you deal with it it’s the best thing in the world that we could ever have to go through. The one good thing about being down 15 is it was so early that there was plenty of time to come back. Being down 15 with 10 minutes left is a little bit of a different story. Jeff’s got a small team and took advantage of their quickness. They were faster than us early until we kind of figured it out a little bit. It was good to have Boschee back in the building. I thought the fans did a good job recognizing him before the game. He did have a sweet stroke, as evidenced by the intro board. He was a pretty good shooter back in the day.”
On the Load the Wagon banner and what it meant...
“Well, it was unexpected. Shep [Douglas Sheppherd] and administration did that without my knowledge. It was really nice. I knew that they were going to put that banner up for a while, but I didn’t know anything about it until yesterday, as far as details on logistics or where or anything like that. I saw my mom up there and saw her wipe her eye. I’m sure my sister did too. It was good, it really was. It was good, special and I wish the whole family could’ve been here, but we have sick ones down in Dallas, little ones. It was a nice moment. It will certainly mean something to me, every time I look over my shoulder knowing that he’s kind of looking down over all of us.”
Kansas Redshirt Junior Jalen Wilson:
On being down 15 points and getting hot...
“I was feeling normal. We have been down in bigger games before than this and I knew we just had to settle down and start playing our game. Never was worried, we got them to speed up a little more and we started making the right plays.”
On his offensive mindset…
“I saw that their center was a bit undersized and we had an advantage in the paint. I started settling in from the outside and once we figured it out it was easier to get downhill. We saw it start working.”
On next four games…
“We’ve been a team that’s handled a lot of adversity, even last year with my situation. We always come together in tough times. We know what we do in the practice gym and how we prepare for games. It won’t change anything. We have a great coaching staff and a great circle so when anything happens we prepare and get better. We’re just going to take each game one at a time.”
Kansas Redshirt Senior Kevin McCullar Jr.:
On his first game as a Jayhawk in Allen Fieldhouse...
“It was great. Being on this side of it and having the crowd to feed off from was amazing. We went down a little early but got some steals and the crowd got us going.”
On his five steals…
“I like playing on both ends of the floor and I take it very personally. We have to play defense to win games and I just did what I do to try and help us win.”
On what sparked the team…
“It was a collective effort. We were down early and we didn’t panic. We just stayed together. We tried to just speed them up a bit and get a press going to get easy buckets, and we fed off the energy from the crowd.”
Kansas Redshirt Junior Dajuan Harris Jr.:
On Coach Roberts…
“Coach Roberts is a great coach. He’s got great energy and he’ll definitely have us fired up for the first game.”
On first half offense…
“We were rushing a lot. We have to take our time and be patient on the offensive end. We struggled a bit on defense and just have to work every day on that.”
