The 7th-ranked Kansas men’s basketball team dropped its Big 12 opener on the last day of 2024, 62-61 to a West Virginia team that never trailed.
The loss snapped a streak of 33 consecutive KU wins in conference openers, dating back to 1991.
KU struggled mightily in the first half and got down by as many as 15 points in the opening frame before trailing 33-20 at the break.
From there, the Jayhawks and Mountaineers (10-2 overall, 1-0 Big 12) traded baskets for much of the first 8 minutes of the second half, but then Kansas stiffened on defense and started to climb back into it.
KU tied the game at 61 on an old-fashioned three-point play by Zeke Mayo with just under 20 seconds to play. But KU big man Flory Bidunga fouled a West Virginia shooter on the Mountaineers’ final offensive possession.
The foul was a tough end to an otherwise solid day by Bidunga, the KU freshman who played a lot of KJ Adams’ minutes in the second half on Tuesday. Bidunga finished with 8 points and 11 rebounds in 17 minutes.
Mayo led Kansas with 27 points in 36 minutes, with 13 of those points coming on 13 trips to the free throw line.
Next up, KU (9-3 overall, 0-1 Big 12) will head down to Florida for its first Big 12 road game of the season, a 3 p.m. Sunday tipoff at UCF.
Here’s a look back at some of Tuesday’s action against the Mountaineers.
LIKES
• Allen Fieldhouse stops – KU erased an 18-point second half deficit (38-20) in large part thanks to the intensity it showed on defense from the 10-minute mark to the end. And it wasn’t just the Jayhawks on the floor who got those stops. For a chunk of Tuesday’s game, this one felt like classic Allen Fieldhouse, with the intensity from the stands spilling onto the floor and fueling KU’s effort on the defensive end. It was clear that West Virginia felt it as its lead slipped away. But it was also evident that they found a way to stay poised and composed in order to pull out the victory.
• Zeke keeps his head – Any time a team falls behind by double digits, it can be totally normal for its top scorers to try to erase the deficit by jacking up shots and looking to hit 5-pointers that don’t exist. KU senior Zeke Mayo didn’t do that in this one. Not only did he force the action by driving to the rim, looking to draw contact and get easy ones at the free throw line, but he also kept his eyes up and looked to pass when that was the right play. Never was that more evident than on a secondary transition opportunity when he appeared to have an open 3-pointer on the left wing but saw KJ Adams sprinting to the rim and fired a pass to KJ’s chest that led to an easy 2 for Adams. Those were the infant stages of what turned out to be pretty huge in this one. Mayo was so good in the second half taking the ball to the rim and drawing contact to get to the free throw line, something Kansas has struggled with all month.
• Signs of life – Dajuan drive baseline, drop pass to Hunter in the paint for the easy 2. Only cut the deficit to 25-14, but the players responded with good energy, clapping their hands, digging in on defense and the crowd responded, as well, rising to their feet to cheer on their squad. KU found a little momentum out of the moment, but it disappeared nearly as quickly as it arrived and KU entered the half trailing 33-20 after giving up 18 points in the paint and being out-rebounded 22-12, both very non-Bill-Self-basketball statistics.
DISLIKES
• Rougher than rough start – After just two games in the last 23 days, this was either going to go one of two ways — either the rest and practice time were going to be great for the Jayhawks and put them on a path toward an explosive conference season. Or, they were going to look a little rusty and sluggish. The latter won out. On both ends. KU found itself in holes of 9-0 and 13-3 and didn’t score its first points of the game unti the 14:38 mark of the first half. Beyond that, the Jayhawks’ body language and overall energy about the rough start looked like this optimal.
• Ugh after timeouts – Self’s never been afraid to call quick timeout — or even two or three of them — when his team doesn’t have it early and he has to stop the opponent from gaining momentum and building a big lead. Usually out of those timeouts, Self and company take the court with something nice to counter the momentum of the opponent. In this one, after taking a quick T.O. while falling behind 7-0 at the 16:10 mark of the first half, the Jayhawks responded with KJ Adams firing up an elbow, 15-foot jump shot on their very next possession. The shot missed and WVU’s momentum grew as a result. Self used more timeouts for this very same reason in the first half, but the result was generally the same. I can only remember one time when KU scored immediately after a timeout in the first half, and that came on a tough take to the rim by Dajuan Harris Jr. a few minutes later.
• Beat at the rim, over and over – It started with slip screens and slick passes for uncontested dunks and devolved into the Mountaineers playing what Self likes to call “Take ‘em” and just driving by their man to get points at the rim. It also included offensive rebounds, second-chance points and good motion and movement in the half-court sets. Whatever it was not only confused KU but also sucked the life out of the Jayhawks and slapped a serious case of bad body language all over the Jayhawks after each easy deuce by the visitors. For the game, WVU finished with 28 points in the paint and KU evened the score in that department. But the damage was done in that a huge chunk of West Virginia's came early, turning the game into one in which Kansas had to play from behind.
WHAT THE?
• Hunter’s travel – It was the perfect indicator of how sluggish Kansas was in the first half of this game and how their intensity and energy did not match what many people expected to see. With the Mountaineers leading by 11 with 1:23 to play in the first half, Dickinson came up the floor as the trail man on KU’s possession, like he has a thousand times before, and caught a ball reversal near the top of the key. One problem. Hunter took three steps with the ball before doing anything with it. The traveling violation was promptly called and merely added to the rough first half by the KU big man, who shot just 1-of-5 for 2 points and 4 rebounds in the first half. He finished the game with 10 points and 12 rebounds on 4-of-10 shooting in 33 minutes. And while some might say that nit-picking this one possession is a little unfair, it summed up the day for Kansas and wound up being pretty big in a game decided by a single point.
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