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MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONAL


November 23, 2015


Bill Self

Landen Lucas

Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk


Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii

Kansas - 123 Chaminade - 72

THE MODERATOR: We now welcome Kansas to the interview room.

Q. Was that the response you guys needed after Michigan State?
LANDEN LUCAS: Yeah, I think so. I feel like defensively we have a lot to work on. But it was nice to at least get some guys' confidence back. So I think a couple guys on our team could definitely have used that game offensively.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Landen.

Q. Svi, what was the key in setting your career high for threes tonight?
SVIATOSLAV MYKHAILIUK: You know, probably I think because of my teammates Frank, Devonte' and everybody else was driving the balls really good, and I was able to just make some shots.

Q. Svi, it seemed you were shooting the ball with a lot of confidence tonight. Were there nights that you feel like maybe every ball was going in the basket?
SVIATOSLAV MYKHAILIUK: You know, like I said, if it's an open look, it's a pretty easy shot, so I just need to make that.

Q. Landen, what did you think of Svi's threes and your team's offense tonight?
LANDEN LUCAS: I think people have a got rhythm back offensively, shot the ball well. They were playing a defense we really haven't seen, so it was good for us to kind of get out there, make some shots, and good to see Svi and some other shooters get some confidence going. So offensively I think we got a lot of confidence back in this game.

Q. Svi, what did you think of Chaminade, and what was the key to pulling away so early?
SVIATOSLAV MYKHAILIUK: We were talking about them, and we know they're a pretty good team. They shoot a lot of threes and they're driving the ball very good. We just try to play defense, but it was not very good in the first half, so I think we need to get better than this.

THE MODERATOR: Now an opening statement from Coach Self?

COACH SELF: Obviously, we made shots, and everything looks better when you make shots.

Chaminade's the type of team that if they get comfortable and score the ball well early, which they actually did against us, it gives them confidence and they can certainly hang around.

I thought that obviously our offense was good enough to keep them at arm's distance, and then we started guarding them a little bit better as the game wore on.

Q. I don't know how much you can say about this, but could you comment at all on the Diallo situation with the letter that came out today?
COACH SELF: Did something come out today? I didn't see anything today that came out. Only thing I know, and I've commented the last couple of days and I guess I can comment again. The only thing I know is I think our athletic director was contacted today that they're working on it. So that's all I know concerning that situation.

Q. At this point as the frustration continues to mount, how disappointed are you that maybe some people higher up at the NCAA, and the NCAA's leadership, people above the investigators, I guess, haven't stepped in and tried to expedite this process?
COACH SELF: Well, I don't know exactly how policy works and how legislation works, or who oversees what and who oversees the overseers. I don't have any idea. It is disappointing that no one's stepped up to the plate so far.

The thing about it is, if you talk from a macro level, from 30,000 feet, it's frustrating and it's very hypocritical, I think of coaches and myself to say, well, it's the leadership's problem. Because everybody that works in the organization, the higher ups in the organization, hire people and has policies in place under them that people are supposed to definitely work towards and to fulfill the obligations of whatever job responsibility is. So that's what's frustrating. Because I can't say it's leadership, because that would be hypocritical because I don't think it's the coaches' faults, totally, when somebody in the academic department or training department or the weight room or what not commits a violation. The head coach is totally responsible for that because the head coach, we do what we can to oversee, but you have people underneath you or people that work in the same organization that may not carry out the assignment the way it was designed to carry out.

So I don't fault any blame with leadership, because if I did, and if it was the coaches' fault -- blame in that, then the way we feel about how coaches are being talked about and how we're responsible when we do everything we can to make sure negative things don't happen, but we're still responsible for a tutor in the academic department that we've never met. I think that would be very hypocritical to say that it's all leadership's fault.

I think the bottom line is there are some flaws in policies and certainly the lack of partnership, I think is the thing that's most frustrating with anything else with Cheick.

Q. How would you rate your offense tonight and what was the key to blowing the game open?
COACH SELF: When you make shots, you've got a chance to score a lot of points, and we've scored a lot of points. We were decent in transition. But I don't know if our offense was great when you have a big size advantage and you can throw it inside and have a 6'9" score against a 6'4, 6'5". You should get some easy baskets.

But I think we got the ball in good places tonight, so hopefully we can continue to do that.

Q. Were you pretty pleased, with that said, about the response coming off of Michigan State, just how hard you guys played and with intensity?
COACH SELF: Yeah, I guess we played pretty hard. We didn't seem like we guarded very well for a good part of the game. But that's one thing with our guys normally. There are always exceptions, but we usually do play pretty hard and compete pretty hard and play with pretty good energy. Certainly the reason we lost to Michigan State didn't have anything to do with those three things. We just didn't close, and they played better down the stretch.

But if you call it an answer, it was good to get back on the winning track. But certainly we know -- I don't want to sound negative towards Chaminade, but we knew coming in if we played well, we had a size factor, a size advantage and depth advantage and things like that.

But moving forward now every game the next two nights is going to be very difficult.

Q. I think you guys shot 29 threes tonight, and I know some of it was the way they guarded you guys, but is that a number you're comfortable with? I guess if teams are giving you, do you like this team shooting that many threes?
COACH SELF: That is a lot of threes for us. Instead of looking at how many threes you shoot, you look at what percentage of the threes you shot. If there's 80 shots and you shoot 25, that seems like a lot, but maybe not as many if you shoot 18. There's only 50 shots. So I think you should look at percentage. But I don't know exactly what that is. That would probably be around 38% or so like that. So that is a lot of threes.

But when a team plays zone, naturally you're probably going to shoot more threes.

Q. What did you think of Svi's game tonight, and Selden?
COACH SELF: Well, I thought -- winning is a huge key to our team. I thought Wayne did some nice things. Had a couple of bad basketball plays, but I thought he played very well. Of course he made a couple of shots, which is always good to see, which sets up driving for him.

But I thought Svi was pretty good. We need Svi to be aggressive, especially over here, because we're not playing with near as much depth on the perimeter. So we need him to be one of our key players and one of our go-to guys, and he was tonight.

Q. Just going into the rest of the tournament, what do you think is going to be the key for you guys in coming out with the championship?
COACH SELF: Well, we've got to guard better, and we certainly can't foul like we did. Whenever the other team is in the bonus with 15 left or whatever it is, 14 left, you play defensive while you're on defense. You play not to foul as opposed to play to guard.

So we've got to do a better job of guarding the ball and certainly keeping teams off the free-throw line and not putting us in a situation where we can't be aggressive. I think that's as much of a key for us as anything else.

Then, you know, you've got to make shots. When you can run bad offense and come away with three points, that's a huge advantage. Certainly there were several times tonight we didn't run great offense or anything, but we were able to come away with baskets because guys stepped up and made plays.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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