-
Josh Weinfuss, ESPN Staff WriterMar 23, 2024, 07:47 PM ET
Close
- Josh Weinfuss is a personnel author who covers the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL at ESPN. Josh has actually covered the Cardinals because 2012, signing up with ESPN in 2013. He belongs to the Pro Football Writers of America and a graduate of Indiana University. You can follow him by means of Twitter @joshweinfuss.
SALT LAKE CITY– By the time the horn sounded on No. 4 Kansas’ 89-68 blowout loss to No. 5 Gonzaga in the 2nd round of the NCAA competition Saturday, Jayhawks coach Bill Self stated he had actually long been getting ready for next season.
That’s what takes place when you have just 8 healthy scholarship gamers left on your lineup, as Self pointed out after the video game at Delta.
“I believe for the last month, I’ve been thinking of next season, to be truthful,” stated Self, whose group lost 4 of 5 video games getting in the competition and once again lacked star Kevin McCullar Jr. “Not in the minutes throughout the video game, however clearly, we played– we had 8 guys on scholarship, and we play– I suggest, that were healthy there late. Injuries belong to the video game. That’s not a reason.
“But we might have done a far better task as a personnel of putting more guys out there that we might play, therefore that’s something that I’ve considered for a very long time. The important things about it is, in basketball, early on you can play through some things. The course of a season, there’s a grind that goes with it and bodies get run down, injuries take place. It’s all part of it. When you do not have as much firepower or that perhaps you’ve had in previous years, it definitely revealed this year.”
And it appeared Saturday.
After Kansas led 44-43 at halftime in what Self referred to as a “horse contest,” the Jayhawks lacked, well, whatever in the 2nd half. Out of energy, they were outscored 46-24 in the last 20 minutes.
“My guys were gassed,” Self stated. “Everybody understood that at the end of the very first half. I imply, my guys were gassed.
“I had not had many times where you take a guy out and he’s enduring a three-minute timeout and I state, ‘Go back in,’ and he states, ‘I require a bit more time.’ I understood that we were tired, and I was simply hoping we had adequate energy to get to the surface line. I’m not going to blame it on energy, however I believe we played extremely tired the 2nd half.”
Self didn’t wish to put the blame for Kansas’ tiredness exclusively on the 10:45 a.m. tipoff time here, however he stated that, combined with needing to play a complete 40 minutes of a hectic,