ALLSTATE MAUI INVITATIONAL

November 21, 2023

Bill Self

SimpliFi Arena

Kansas Jayhawks

Postgame Press Conference

Marquette - 73, Kansas - 59

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with opening comments.

BILL SELF: I thought Marquette played great. I thought they were so quick and, you know, the things they can do as well as anybody is have guards that can drive into post-up positions, and obviously, their center had a fabulous game, made some hard shots, but had a fabulous game, and we got behind and played catch up the whole game.

But I actually thought we played better than the score. You miss all your free throws and botched as many opportunities as we did, and a lot of times botched opportunities lead to points on the other end. But they were definitely the much better team tonight.

Q. (Question about the technical foul.)

BILL SELF: I doubt it was accurate, just so you know, and I don't even care. I'm not going to talk about it, but I guarantee you it wasn't accurate.

Q. The 12 turnovers in the first half of the 18 overall, just what do you think they were doing to disrupt you guys on offense?

BILL SELF: Well, we played sped up. I think they're extremely quick. The changing defense didn't bother us. A couple of times we threw it away in the first half when they soft pressed us or did whatever, but I just think a lot of it was just our carelessness.

Q. Kevin and Hunter both played very well, but outside of that, no other player was in double digits. Who are you going to look for to step up as the season progresses? Because there's obviously --

BILL SELF: Well, actually, we've had, in our games so far, and I know the competition hasn't been the same as Marquette, but Kentucky's got a good team. We have had four guys really step up and play well. KJ's mom just passed. He just came over on a plane. The courage that he's playing, just being out there, he's totally fatigued, exhausted, hasn't slept. So I don't think I'm going to say that KJ played awful or anything like that because he gave us more than we should have ever expected him to give us. I don't think 'Juan had a great game. I thought he and Cully kind of neutralized each other for the most part from a statistical standpoint.

Q. Could some of the turnovers that Hunter was involved in be attributed to not having played previous years with these same guys?

BILL SELF: I don't think so. I think that would be an excuse. I think he's played at a high level, and he had a couple of turnovers, but he's also played pretty darn well up until this point, but their speed and the way they played certainly bothered us tonight.

Q. How do you get ready in such a short period of time to come back at 9:30 tomorrow?

BILL SELF: I don't know. Especially when you don't have much depth. It's going to be a hard deal. We're going to play a team that is probably the most physical team that we'll play all year, or could be. Last year in Atlantis we played 'em on the last day, after we both played two games, and it didn't go great for us, in large part just because our depth situation wasn't quite what theirs is. And Rick will throw a lot of bodies at us and they will come at us and it will be a hard game. But I got great kids and winners and they will try real hard. So, but it seems like to me a 5:15 wake up call seems kind of early right now.

THE MODERATOR: With that, Coach, thanks.

BILL SELF: Okay, thank you.