What Bill Self Said After Kansas Survived Cal Baptist's Comeback Attempt

Kansas narrowly pulled away from Cal Baptist in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last night to advance to the Round of 32. Bill Self's group had not played in nearly a week after being eliminated in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament, but it kept its season alive.

The Jayhawks were the better team for approximately 30 minutes out of a possible 40, though they let the score get too close for comfort with five minutes remaining. The same Lancer team that trailed by 26 points early in the second half cut the deficit to six with a minute to go.

Still, KU was the winning team in the end, and that's all that matters. Following the victory, Coach Self spoke to the media to discuss his squad's performance. Here's everything the Hall of Famer said after his 58th all-time NCAA Tournament win.

On his general thoughts about the game:

"They say survive and advance, and that's what we did. I actually thought we were pretty darn good for about 25 minutes, and then went stale for about eight, and then was really poor the last seven. We just played not to lose and weren't very aggressive. But, give them credit. They kept grinding, and obviously, Dominique got on a roll there late. But we made enough plays to advance, and certainly couldn't be more thrilled to have an opportunity to play again on Sunday."

On Paul Mbiya's breakout performance:

"Well, you know, Flory and Bryson obviously weren't very effective scoring the ball. And Paul's a big body, and I thought he was great. You know, Darryn was probably our best player tonight, but Paul was probably our second-best player. I thought he was great."

On Darryn Peterson's prolific scoring night:

"Well, you know, I can't remember everything, but we ran an isolation play for him where he got a shot. And then he, I believe, he hit another two on a drive. And then we got fortunate where they turned it over with about 10 left or eight left, and we just got the ball to him and got out of his way. And you know, of course, he made a hard shot there. At the time, going up 38 to 18, you'd think that wasn't that big a shot. But the way the game ended, obviously, it was probably a pretty important play."

On what changed during Cal Baptist's comeback attempt:

"I think it's a combination of some things. I thought our ball screen defense on Daniels was really good early. And we corralled him and didn't let him get loose. And then after that, when he just put his head down and said, 'I'm going to drive it every time,' we couldn't keep him in front of us. And so I thought we weren't as good defensively. And then offensively, we were so passive and complacent. And then to Pat's point, out of a timeout, we got a couple of plays to get the ball to Darryn, and we'd throw it to somebody else and they're face guarding him, and we didn't get it back. So I thought our offense the last four or five minutes was brutal. The first half, I didn't think it was great, but it wasn't great because we missed shots. We got the ball where we wanted to get it, we just missed shots. But there at the end, we didn't get the ball where we wanted to get it at all."

On Dominique Daniels Jr. and his talent:

"Well, I said this yesterday. It's very admirable that loyalty comes into play in a way that — I don't know what their NIL budget is, but he can make more money, I would assume, if he went somewhere else. And you know, he probably loves playing for Coach Croy and loves his teammates, so that says a lot. But I will say this, if you guys remember a kid we had several years ago, he's a little taller than Dominique and didn't play quite as downhill, but he reminds me of Frank [Mason], a lot. I think Frank was more efficient, but I think Dominique was stronger and could get his own shot better than Frank. Frank was National Player of the Year, so. But I thought there was a stretch tonight where he made some plays that, I didn't think our defense was bad, I just thought he made some great plays."

On key factors about the Round of 32 matchup against St. John's:

"There will be a lot. They're very, very physical. They're deep and athletic. Their four and five can pressure at 90 feet. We saw that even some tonight with Zuby getting out there. They're as well-coached as anybody. I thought that they deserved to be higher than the seed that they were. But that may also be a chip for them that they can use to their advantage. But what have they won, like, 19 out of 20? So, there's not too many teams that play in a good league that win 19 out of 20 and are a five seed. But I think they're great. The thing about it, I think they're great defensively, the thing about them is, I watched the first part of the game tonight, and it wasn't Northern Iowa making a shot. It was Northern Iowa getting in the scoring area where they could take a shot. And it was the same way in the Big East Tournament, from what I saw. So we'll have to be a lot better to try to get our shoulders past them to at least get some paint touches, because they're really good defensively."