Big 12 race emerges as topic of discussion entering Big Monday clash: KU Jayhawks at TCU

Bill Self hadn’t spent any time discussing the Big 12 Conference standings with members of Kansas’ basketball team heading into Saturday afternoon’s home game against Baylor.

Now … in the aftermath of an 87-71 victory over the Bears that pushed the Jayhawks’ record to 10-4 in the league, Self, KU’s 20th-year hoops coach, soon may be mentioning specifics concerning KU’s position down the homestretch.

“We haven’t talked about the league race at all. Now, you can actually talk about the league race because we’re down to four games and everything’s so magnified,” Self said Saturday after a victory that kept KU (22-5 overall) tied with Texas (21-6, 10-4) for first place with two weeks left in the regular season.

Baylor is third at 9-5 followed by Kansas State and Iowa State at 8-6. TCU and Oklahoma State are 7-7, Texas Tech and West Virginia 4-10 and Oklahoma 3-11.

Here’s this week’s schedule for the two teams tied for first and the one squad currently a game back in the Big 12.

KU heads to TCU Monday for a rematch of the Horned Frogs’ 83-60 victory over KU on Jan. 21 at Allen Fieldhouse. Tipoff is 8 p.m. at Schollmaier Arena with a live telecast available on ESPN, which has included the game in its Big Monday package.

The Jayhawks then return home to face West Virginia in a 3 p.m. tip Saturday.

Texas, which plays host to KU on March 4 in the regular-season finale for both teams, plays host to Iowa State on Tuesday and travels to Baylor on Saturday.

Baylor travels to Kansas State on Tuesday to go with the Texas game Saturday.

“TCU killed us the first time (in) every way,” Self said. “They were as good for 40 minutes the first time as Baylor was for 20 minutes tonight.”

KU on Saturday was outscored by BU 45-32 the first half, then slugged the Bears 55-26 the final 20 minutes.

On Jan. 21, TCU outscored KU 48-38 the first half and 35-22 the second for KU’s second worst home loss in the Self era. Texas defeated KU by 25 points on Jan. 2, 2021.

“The biggest thing about TCU is transition defense. They are so good in transition,” Self said. “When Miles is not playing, it’s a totally different team. He is back now.”

Mike Miles, a 6-foot-2 junior, scored 15 points, grabbed four rebounds and dished four assists in the Horned Frogs’ win at KU. After missing five games (four losses) because of a right knee injury, Miles returned to game action Saturday. He scored 15 points in the Frogs’ (18-9, 7-7 Big 12) home rout of Oklahoma State, 100-75.

“I don’t know what he did today (vs. OSU). I assume he spearheaded everything,” Self said Saturday of Miles. “We know we will play a good TCU team Monday. I kind of wish we had another day to catch our breath a little bit.”

On Saturday, junior guard Damion Baugh recorded his third double-double with 16 points and 11 assists. Junior forward Emanuel Miller scored 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting with five assists. Junior guard Shahada Wells scored 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Sophomore guard Micah Peavy added 10 points. He was 2-of-3 from three-point range.

The Horned Frogs hit 68.4% of their shots versus OSU. That number was 0.2 shy of the record for a Big 12 Conference game, which was set by Oklahoma State in 1998.

In Lawrence, TCU hit 54.4% of its shots in stomping KU. Wells scored 17 and Baugh 11 to go with Miles’ 15.

“I think this gives us a lot of momentum for Monday,” KU junior forward Jalen Wilson said Saturday after scoring 21 points and grabbing 13 boards versus Baylor. Wilson had 30 points and seven boards in the first game versus TCU.

“We’re playing a team that came here and beat us by 20, 30 points. It gives us another opportunity to get some payback on a team that got us in the past,” Wilson added.

Baylor had won the first game against KU this season by six points in Waco.

“It’s important to play them kind of the same way we played today. They have got a lot of good guards. They are really athletic, fast in transition. It’s good to get that second half (55-26 vs. BU) going forward,” Wilson said.

KU point guard Dajuan Harris — he had 14 points and nine assists against Baylor on Saturday and zero points and eight assists the first meeting versus TCU — said that on Saturday “we were playing against the three best guards in the country (on one team in Adam Flagler, LJ Cryer and Keyonte George). We can learn from that playing against TCU Monday. They’ve got good guards too. We can take that forward.”

TCU on Monday will try to become the third conference team to sweep KU in a home-and-home series in the Self era. Texas in 2021 and OSU in 2018 are the only teams so far to take two from KU.

So KU on Monday may be playing for pride and, of course, its status in the league race.

“It’s huge,” KU freshman Gradey Dick said of beating Baylor on Saturday. “We knew coming in it was the three (BU, Texas, KU) racing for the one spot. To get a win here was super big for us. It kind of pushes us to prepare for TCU.”