The emotional edge, if there is such a thing, seems to be on Kansas’ side as the Jayhawks roll into the Marriott Center on Tuesday night for a battle with BYU that has been years in the making for the Cougars and their faithful fans.
Kansas, which fell from No. 17 to No. 23 in the Associated Press Top 25 rankings released Monday after Saturday’s 74-67 loss at Utah, is angry and has to be feeling like it has been backed into a corner. The team picked to win the Big 12 has been mildly disappointing, and is out of contention for the regular-season title.
The Jayhawks will also be out for revenge, having been upset 76-68 by BYU in Lawrence last year.
Just don’t try telling all that to first-year BYU coach Kevin Young, who said Monday he doesn’t believe that past results — be they from three nights ago or a year ago — have anything to do with future performances.
“You could make that narrative: ‘Oh, they are going to be hungry and this and that,’” Young said Monday in his weekly press briefing. “Well, so are we. We have played a couple good games in a row, but we are hungry as well. So, I think all that stuff kinda goes out the window once the ball gets thrown up. You just gotta execute the game plan.”
The ball goes up shortly after 7 p.m. MST on Tuesday, with ESPN televising the first-ever matchup between BYU and Kansas at the Marriott Center.
The Jayhawks have played in Provo before, but their 80-70 loss to the Cougars in 1960 came at the Smith Fieldhouse. The 17,978-seat Marriott Center, which is sold out, opened in 1971.
BYU-Kansas preview
The teams have identical records — 17-8 overall and 8-6 in Big 12 play — but much different offensive styles.
BYU loves the 3-pointer, while KU runs its attack around 7-foot-2 center Hunter Dickinson, who averages 16.4 points and 9.5 rebounds per game. He had 17 and 11 last year, but was the goat at Phog Allen after going 6 of 15 from the free-throw line.
Not surprisingly, the game is expected to be razor-close, despite BYU having a NET ranking of 36 and KU a NET ranking of 15.
Oddsmakers had BYU favored by 1.5 points midday Monday, while KenPom.com predicts a 74-73 Kansas win, with a probability of 51% that the Jayhawks will prevail.
“They are a great team, prestigious school, and it is just an excellent opportunity for us to go out and put our best foot forward,” said BYU guard Dallin Hall, who had 16 points in BYU’s 80-65 win over Kansas State on Saturday.
With the NBA All-Star break still on and not much else going on in the sports world, much of the TV spotlight Tuesday night will be on this matchup, and Young said his group is ready for it but staying even-keeled, which is his way of going about things.
“Man, we just need to win ball games. Like, our group hasn’t really been a group where it hasn’t gotten too high or too low,” he said. “We have been really businesslike with our approach, each practice, each game, regardless of who the opponent is. That’s kind of how we are going to approach this one as well.”
In regards to BYU’s NCAA Tournament hopes, this week is as big as it gets, with the opportunity for two resume-building, Quad 1 wins. The Cougars face No. 19 Arizona on Saturday in Tucson. Last week’s two giant wins — at West Virginia, at home against streaking Kansas State — pushed BYU into the “Last Four Byes” section of ESPN’s Bracketology with Joe Lunardi.
Kansas was No. 15 in the NCAA’s bracket reveal on Saturday, before the Jayhawks lost at Utah.
KU coach Bill Self was not impressed after his team suffered its third straight road loss.
“No. 15 is obviously very generous. I mean, that’s obviously very good,” Self said. “We’re not playing to that right now. We got to do a lot of things better down the stretch. We just need to take it one day at a time and try to regroup and have a couple of good days of prep before we go to Provo.
“As you guys know, that’ll be a monster game there with, I’m sure, a great atmosphere as well,” he continued. “So I don’t think we need to worry about the tournament. I think we need to worry about trying to get better and become a good solid basketball team again.”
Kansas is 5-11 in Big 12 road games this season and last.
But the Jayhawks still surround Big 12 preseason player of the year Dickinson with plenty of firepower, including seniors Dajuan Harris, Zeke Mayo and KJ Adams. Mayo is their top 3-point threat, and had 15 points against Utah, right around his average.
Unlike Utah, BYU doesn’t have anyone close to Dickinson’s size. The Cougars will throw 6-foot-8 Keba Keita, 6-6 Fousseyni Traore and 6-10 Mihailo Boskovic at the Michigan transfer in hopes of keeping him from dominating the paint.
“They do a tremendous job of finding angles where he can score the ball. It is not so much he is this back-to-the-basket savant,” Young said. “They just do a really, really good job of getting him the ball where all he has to do is catch, gather and finish.”
The Cougars were able to keep West Virginia’s Javon Small and K-State’s Coleman Hawkins in check, but this might be their most difficult challenge yet.
“We will have to do it as a team, just like we had to do it with Javon Small, just like we had to do that with Kansas State’s combination of weapons,” Young said. “In a perfect world, you are rolling in a 7-2 guy that can go blow for blow with him. But obviously we don’t have that, so we will have to do it in some other ways.”
Whatever the case, Young is getting a good taste of what this league is all about.
“I knew it was a hard league, but every game is an absolute dogfight. I probably under-estimated that component of it, knowing that it was a really, really good league. It feels like every game is, you know, just an all-out war,” he said.
“It is fun to prepare for that, but it is mentally exhausting as well, especially this stage of the season,” he said. “I try to balance it out and make sure I am not wearing myself out. I try to keep myself fresh so I can bring it every day for my guys.”
