What HC Bill Self Said After Kansas’ 69-56 Win Over Houston

Kansas started the game stagnantly last night against No. 5 Houston, but it eventually found enough rhythm to take a big lead and never looked back. The Jayhawks bounced back from their home loss to Cincinnati two days prior to get back into the win column and now sit second in the Big 12 standings.

Following the win, head coach Bill Self met with the media to discuss what he thought about his team's performance. Here are some notable things he said about the game:

On if the Cincinnati loss impacted the team's performance:

"I don't know that Saturday impacted tonight. I mean, I don't know what the players said, but I don't know that it did. I think we would have been excited to play tonight against Houston regardless. So I don't think that had much to do with our energy level being better or anything like that. I think if we'd have played well Saturday, I think we would have been the same team tonight."

On what stood out about the defense:

"I thought our ball screen defense was really good. The bigs stayed until he picked the dribble up a lot more. If you look at it, they didn't get near as many open looks. I know, Sharp scored, I think, off the short roll to start the second half, when we helped too much. Kingston made one or two late. But other than that, I thought our ball screen defense was right on point, and that was good. Even when we were switching, I thought we switched up and just didn't let them, you know, get to their spots."

On Flory Bidunga's defense:

"Oh, he was great. Flory is +17. He scores four points, gets seven rebounds. And to me, he can hedge a ball screen, he can stay with a guard, he can cover for a guy. He did a lot of really, really good things tonight. I thought he was terrific. I thought obviously Melvin had a stretch there in the second half where he dominated the game speed-wise and loose ball-wise and everything when we kind of pulled ahead. And Bryson was really, really solid. I thought he did some good things. And then of course, Tre was the best player in the game offensively, for sure. So we did some good things tonight. It was a good team win. I thought everybody contributed, and Jamari off the bench was great."

On Kelvin Sampson saying Kansas is a team 'you never know about:'

"I think I have a decent feel what we need to be. I'm not sure I know who we are, totally. You know, Cincinnati played great the other day. People make a big deal about it. They played great. But we allowed them to play great. That was the difference tonight. We didn't allow Houston to get a rhythm. They didn't allow us to get one either. The best-looking ugly was going to win the game. And we were just a little bit better than that. I thought that, do I know who we are? No. But I still think we got time to figure it out a little bit. But it was a big step in the right direction, you know, having Darryn out there the vast majority of the time too, finishing the game."

On Tre White's much-needed bounce-back performance:

"I think I'll disagree with you to an extent. I think he was less aggressive, and he made easy plays. You shoot the ball when you're open, you pass it when you're not. You go rebound the ball. You get fouled getting rebounds. You know, I thought he was exceptional offensively. But I think up until this, when you're pressing, you try to do too much sometimes. And I didn't think he did that tonight. I thought he let the game come to him. He made the game easy tonight for himself."

On him speaking to the student campers before the game:

"No, I got to work yesterday morning around 7:30. Didn't sleep great Saturday night. And I'm pulling into the towers, and I'm not exaggerating, it took me 15 minutes to get from the towers to the parking garage, and I don't know what's going on. There's cars and people everywhere. I thought maybe there was a church service or something going on, and whatever. And they were all kids, though. All the parking lots were full. All the stuff was going on, and I'm driving. I go by the crosswalk, one thing about campus, whenever kids go across the crosswalk, it seems like there's one every 10 feet, so you got to wait five minutes before the last get across. They don't go in groups, they leather-stretch it out. So I put my window down, and I asked a dude, 'Hey, man, what's going on? Why all the people?' And his response was, 'It's Houston.' I said 'Wow.'" So I park, and then I go into the arena. And I walk out there, and I don't know how many people there, but it was 2,500 at that time. So I go down, and I asked the dude who's running it, 'You care if I talk to these guys?' And he said, 'No, that'd be great.' So he said, the doors shut at 8:00. This was about 7:30, 7:40 or whatever. The door shut at 8:00. So then I went out there and just said, appreciate them and everything. But that's the first time I did that. That was also the first time I'd ever known that there's a lottery that takes place on a Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m. too."

On saying he hasn't really been able to coach Darryn Peterson this season:

"Well, I wanted him on the ball in case we want to play behind the ball screen traps. But I think that, when I say I haven't had a chance to coach him, I'm talking about day to day on the court where you can actually worry about the details that go into winning, more so than the meat and potatoes of just being out there. But tonight, he was great. He was great. His attitude was great, and hopefully he felt well, and I think he talked to you guys. But hopefully, he felt well, and it'll be a great way to move forward."