5 Key Takeaways from Kansas' Bizarre 74-67 Loss to Utah

Utah 74, Kansas 67

5. Oh those Inconsistent Kansas Jayhawks

Kansas has now alternated win-loss-win-loss over the last eight games.

In the span of almost a month, the team managed to lose on the road to Baylor and Kansas State - by the way, kids, next-KU-opponent BYU 80, Kansas State 65, and it wasn't that close - dropped that no-shame-there double-overtime thriller to Houston, and get beat Iowa State and managed to bounce back from losses with wins.

It's not like Utah is anything special, but Kansas couldn't score - more on that in a moment - played confused, and couldn't take advantage of any break as the pattern continued. Part of the issue started with ...

Final: KU 67 - 74 UU.
— Kansas Men’s Basketball (@KUHoops) February 16, 2025

4. The Kansas rebounding wasn't good enough

Give Utah a bit of credit here. It has size, and it can rebound. He's second in the conference behind Arizona in total rebounds per game, and on the year it's 8-2 when coming up with more than 35 rebounds. Kansas is 3-4 when allowing more than 36 rebounds.

Utah was all over the place with a whopping 46 boards including an unforgivable 16 on the offensive glass.

Queens College in North Carolina. That's the only team that gave up more rebounds to this Utah team than Kansas did.

KU came up with 36 rebounds. That Houston game was the only other time in ten games the team lost when grabbing at least that many boards. In many ways ...

3. This actually was a pretty good performance by Kansas

Okay, it wasn't. Kansas never led, but let's do the "if you had told Bill Self ..." thing.

If you had tole him before the game that Utah would shoot 36% from the field, and Kansas would hit 40% and be better from three, he'd have taken that and assumed a win.

The defense wasn't bad. It didn't force enough mistakes and was lousy on the defensive glass, but it allowed just 74 points and a slew of those game late. No. the problem was ...

side step for 👌#PayHeed x @diggycoit11 pic.twitter.com/F2gLPXV5Y2
— Kansas Men’s Basketball (@KUHoops) February 16, 2025

2. What the heck happened to the Kansas offense over the last 90 seconds?

Seriously, at the end the Jayhawks played like a B-team junior high club that didn't know how to look at a clock or figure out that you seriously don't make 100% of the shots you don't take.

The offense was confused, no one stepped up when the game was still very, very there for the taking in the final minutes, and there wasn't any movement whatsoever.

It's not like those were the 1997 Chicago Bulls over there on the other side - the Utah defense isn't anything special. But Kansas scored two more fast break points than you did on Saturday night, the ball movement wasn't quite there, and again, no one took charge. And now ...

1. It's time for Kansas to flip things back around

It's my ongoing college basketball go-to line - whatever. Just win two games in a middle March weekend and none of this matters.

But the power outage continues to be concerning, the inconsistency is maddening, and this team will get bounced instantly if it can't figure out how to bring the same focus - that Iowa State performance was wonderful - two games in a row again.

This road game at BYU up next is no tap-in, but win that, and Oklahoma State and at Colorado should get things back on track before the finishing kick against Texas Tech, at Houston, and Arizona.