KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Big 12 Tournament needed a dark horse — a cuddly, lovable underdog for the masses.
Kansas missed its big chance to fill that role — along with a lot of rims Thursday.
Then it got worse, if that’s possible this season. Kansas not only lost to Arizona, missing the Big 12 Tournament semifinals in consecutive years for the first time ever, but it got run out of the building late against the Wildcats.
The dark horse, if you will, was put down before it ever got out of the gate. The numbers showed that Arizona pulled away late 88-77.
How Kansas got to this point is becoming repetitive. Arizona’s hostile takeover of the paint Thursday night was evidenced by a 46-20 advantage.
Kansas has a problem being complete. It doesn’t play defense particularly well. Its bench is thin, while Arizona’s bench outscored KU 45-13. The Jayhawks don’t have an edge on the road. A team that has beaten Duke and Michigan State is also 9-9 since mid-January. It is drafting on months-old accomplishments and about to get its lowest NCAA seed in years.
“I’d say we’re one of the volatile teams in the country,” center Hunter Dickinson said. “When you look at it, we’ve played the best in the country and been neck-and-neck with them. We’ve been neck-and-neck with a lot of average teams. It depends on which Kansas team shows up.”
Hang your hopes on that assessment.
“I thought tonight we tried hard,” Self said.
Which is important.
Thursday was a symptom, not a diagnosis. These Jayhawks just never seemed to fit together consistently this season. This year’s transfer class brought in by Self wasn’t good enough.
Zeke Mayo — the Lawrence, Kansas native who arrived from South Dakota State — had a tough time developing into the consistent scorer he was expected to be. In a March 1 loss at home to Texas Tech, Mayo went 1-for-7, including 0-5 from the arc. Mayo said he was harassed online to the…
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