What Kansas HC Bill Self Said After Jayhawks’ Win Over Oklahoma State

Kansas cruised past Oklahoma State 81-69 on Wednesday to improve to 10-3 in conference play this season. The Jayhawks played stifling defense all night and never let the Cowboys get very close.

After the game, head coach Bill Self touched on a number of topics in his press conference, including Darryn Peterson's lack of availability down the stretch. Here is everything notable the Hall of Famer mentioned last night.

On the overall flow of the game and going ahead early:

"Yeah, I thought offensively, we were great early, and when we did score, we got great looks. And of course, Darryn was terrific early. But I thought everybody played well early, and then we didn't finish the half great. And then second half, we just kind of pieced it together. But I thought overall we were good enough keep them at arm's length for the remainder of the game."

On how he is navigating Peterson's consistent second half absences:

"Well, we've had it more than a couple of times, and I didn't anticipate that tonight at all. I thought he was good to go, but obviously, we only got 18 minutes out of him. And that's disappointing, because he could have had a really big night. But one thing about it is, it's happened often enough that our guys have learned to play without him, even though that's not the way we want to play. But that's certainly something that we're not unaccustomed to right now."

On when Peterson asked to sub himself out the game:

"They cut it to 10, and then he makes the three. Yeah, he was going to come out, I think, before he made the three. And then he makes the three. And then he said, 'Get me.' I didn't know that he'd be done but, obviously he was cramping."

On Tre White's bounce back game:

"It's important. We ran the first play to try to get him a basket early just to try to get the lid off. And Tre is a good player, he's had a great year, but he hadn't been very good by his standards the last couple of weeks. So it was important that he'd see a couple go down. He did, and those were big shots, too.

On Elmarko Jackson's aggressiveness:

"I thought he was the best player we had tonight over 40 minutes. But I'd say the biggest thing is he's not putting himself in as many compromising positions offensively. The ball moves, and then when he's got an angle to drive it, usually when the ball moves, there's not as much built-in help, so that when he makes a decision to go, he didn't have two guys guarding him. That's the thing, I just think he's exercising a lot more patience."

On his message to the team after the game:

"I didn't think, this is me, I didn't think we played very tough. I thought they beat us to loose balls after the first 15 minutes. I didn't think we finished the game, and you've got to be able to finish games. There's going to be close games in late February and early March that you've got to execute and finish and that kind of stuff. And we did some good things, but defensively, I didn't think we were very good in the second half at all."

On if there is concern about Peterson's cramping:

"It's a concern. I thought we were past it, but obviously we're not. But it's certainly a concern, and you get into the NCAA Tournament and you're playing a team just as good as you, and you need to have all your best players available, so to speak. So yeah, all it takes is for one day like that to derail not only a game, but a season. So yeah, it's concerning, but I do think we're making progress."