What Kansas HC Bill Self Said After Kansas’ Road Win Over NC State

Kansas somehow pulled away in the Lenovo Center on Saturday night in a miraculous win over NC State. The Jayhawks overcame a pair of missed one-and-one free throws at the end of overtime to come out victorious 77-76.

It was one of the most thrilling contests of the college basketball season, largely due to Melvin Council Jr.’s unexpected breakout performance. He finished with 36 points and knocked down nine 3-pointers despite hitting just five through the season’s first 10 games.

Following the win, head coach Bill Self spoke to the media and provided some thoughtful answers. Here are some of the things he said.

On how he viewed the game:

"From a fan perspective, which I'm not, I would think it would be a pretty entertaining game to watch. Not a lot of turnovers, and certainly not a lot of fouls. I would think it'd be a fairly entertaining game to watch because there weren't that many stoppages. I thought that neither team played great. I didn't think we did at all, and their switches really bothered us, and we didn't have ball and body movement the whole night. But we did compete, just like they did, and we had one guy who was probably the best performer that I think that I've had on the road in my 23 years at Kansas. He was unbelievable. And made hard shots. They dared him shoot and then when he made a couple, he started looking at a big basket, and then he was unbelievable. But if you look at his entire line, nine 3s, seven rebounds, four assists, no turnovers, played 43 minutes, pretty good stat line. So I'm really happy for Mel. I'm happy for our team, but especially happy for him, because he put us on his back tonight."

On how NC State guarded Melvin Council:

"No I didn't anticipate it. I think it's pretty sound. I don't think anybody would say it's not a sound philosophy based on his numbers up until this point. But you look at his stroke, his stroke isn't broke. He's got a good looking stroke. It just hadn't gone in and, you know, the thing about it is with shooters, even though he didn't shoot it well the first half, but shooters don't remember their misses. They only remember their makes. And so in his mind, he's thinking he's looking at a big basket, which was probably good for us, really good for us."

On Darryn Peterson's sudden departure with two minutes left:

"I think he was getting tight. I haven't talked to the doctor yet or the trainer about it, but he said he needed to come out. So he's experienced this every game that we've played. So I was happy that he got that far, that deep into the game because it's happened to start the second half every other game. But I think it's just tightness, but I haven't even found out yet."

On the team's defensive performance:

"We switched everything. So we decided to switch like they switch, to try to take away the shots off the catch behind the arc. That's what we did. And they hurt us driving the ball some, and they played the mismatches some, but for the most part, we did a pretty nice job."