• 🏀 3 Quick Things: Adams situation is Self’s mess

• 🏈 KU football schedule released

• 📝 Quick Links: Harlan, Nantz, and more congratulate Self

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🏀3 Quick Things: 1 Take, 1 Stat, 1 Quote🏀

One take: KJ Adams Situation is Bill Self’s Mess

Bill Self is the greatest coach in Kansas basketball history. One of the best in college basketball history. And yet, today, I’m about to do something stupid — I’m going to be a little critical. I know it probably won’t age well.

KU students pissed a lot of people off in the opening minutes of KU’s 69-52 win vs. Iowa State when they chanted at Bill Self to play Flory Bidunga. The subtext of those chants were about playing Flory instead of KJ Adams.

This isn’t normal Allen Fieldhouse behavior. The KU radio broadcast was apparently stunned, discussing it at length. Self has long praised KU fans for how well they treat their players. This wasn’t one of those moments.

And yet, I don’t blame the students for the chants.

They sent a message to Self in a very college-y way: Direct and loud with a touch of belligerent idealism sprinkled on top.

Self publicly called them out earlier this year for not being loud enough. KU followed it up with a pair of historic losses and the students responded.

All good and fair and part of the game, except for Adams somehow being caught in the middle of it. And that’s on Self. For two years now, he’s knee-jerked into playing Adams whenever things get tight.

• This season: Adams is averaging 30.5 minutes vs. Power-Five schools (excluding the game he got hurt and the UCF blowout).

• Last season: He averaged ~35 minutes in KU’s 11 losses.

• And KU’s rotation in the second-half collapse against Baylor ramped things up:

  • The most a single lineup played together? Six minutes.

  • 12 different lineups played between 2 and 6 minutes.

    • Adams played in 9 of them.

    • Take a look at KU’s most played lineups vs. Baylor (from left to right with MP= minutes played).

After the Baylor game, Self said Bidunga didn’t play to help KU’s offense—an argument that lacks evidence and generally contradicts the standard he’s set for the last 21 years. This would be like Fran Fraschilla saying he doesn’t like talking about refs when you know he’s going to criticize the very next call.

Self responded fairly to students after Monday’s win vs. Iowa State. But his calm response still spoke to the cause of Monday’s agitation: This feels like an all-or-nothing debate when it shouldn’t be.

It almost as if Adams has been thrown into the middle of a battle between the old and new eras of college basketball.

Adams shouldn’t have to deal with this. He’s a great Jayhawk, the kind of player who always shows up for his team and for the school. So yes, he’s a starter. And yes, he should probably play a little less.

There are just four home games left in Adams’ KU career.

And I hope he plays 25 great fucking minutes in every one of them.

One Stat: 65.4%

The Jayhawks assisted on 65.4% of their made shots against Iowa State, one of their best marks this year.

The ball doesn’t stick when this KU team is at its best and playing with energy. It’s how KU creates driving lines and good post looks.

Early in game, watch to see how KU’s moving the ball. It often says a lot about how the team is feeling.

One Quote 😂

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Jayhawks Announce Full Football Schedule

Here it is. KU’s first season in the New Booth has a favorable schedule.

The bye weeks are well timed and there are winnable home games early in Big 12 play. I think this is about as good as KU could’ve asked for.

• Aug 23: vs. Fresno State (New Booth debut)

• Aug 29 vs. Wagner

• Sept 6 @ Missouri

• Bye week

• Sept 20 vs. WVU

• Sept 27 vs. Cincy

• Oct 4 @ UCF

• Oct 11 @ Texas Tech

• Bye week

• Oct 25 vs. Kansas State

• Nov 1 vs. Oklahoma State

• Nov 8 @ Arizona

• Bye week

• Nov 22 @ Iowa State

• Nov 28/29 vs. Utah

Also, KU’s announcement video was good stuff. It’s worth the watch.👇

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🏀 The Athletic’s CJ Moore wrote about the Adams situation and saw it differently.

🏀 Watch KU’s edit of the Dajuan Harris save and Adams alley oop. And check out KU AD Travis Goff reaction to the play.

🏀 Here’s Bill Self’s full postgame presser after the Iowa State game.