Kam McGusty eyed his defender like a predator sizing up his prey.
Miami already led Kansas by six in the closing seconds of Sunday’s first half, and McGusty saw a chance to extend the Hurricanes’ advantage.
McGusty went right. Kansas freshman K.J. Adams slid his feet and blocked his path.
McGusty spun back left. Adams, again, was right there.
In the end, McGusty tried to use a step-back dribble to free himself for a left-wing 3-pointer. Adams didn’t give him even a sliver of space, deflecting the shot with his left hand and then pumping his fist with the right as the halftime buzzer sounded.
That improbable defensive stop by a seldom-used freshman who played all of two minutes Sunday served as a potential turning point in a 76-50 Kansas victory in the men’s NCAA tournament. The Jayhawks unleashed their most impressive 20 minutes of the season after halftime, outscoring Miami 47-15 to overcome their bleak Elite Eight history and join Duke and Villanova in next week’s Final Four.
Kansas head coach Bill Self was asked after the game what he told the Jayhawks to spark such an emphatic turnaround. Self insisted he’s “not very good at those types of things,” but admitted he made a point of specifically bringing up Adams’ stifling of McGusty.
“I told them that K.J. Adams gave us the best 29 seconds that anybody did the entire first half,” Self said. “I challenged our guys to guard them and they did.”
The spark that Adams gave Kansas was especially important because of its timing. The Elite Eight has been Self’s nemesis over the years, far more than any single coach or Big 12 opponent. Self entered Sunday’s game 3-7 in the Elite Eight, with five of those losses occurring since he came to Kansas nearly two decades ago. Most of those came as favorites. The worst occurred in 2011 when a highly touted top-seeded Jayhawks team overlooked underdog VCU and as a result allowed a gift-wrapped opportunity to win a national title slip through their fingers.
“We’re 3-7 in my career in Elite Eight games,” Self said Saturday. “So that’s not good enough.
“It’s the hardest game in the tournament to not win. You can talk about first round, you can talk about whatever, it’s the hardest game. The national championship finals, at least you’re playing for it all or whatever. But this one, every goal of every team is road to the Final Four. It’s not road to the national championship. It’s road to the Final Four.”
This season’s Kansas team isn’t the title favorite that the 2011 one was, but there were obvious similarities entering Sunday’s matchup. Again Kansas was a No. 1 seed. Again the Jayhawks were facing an undersized double-digit seed. Again, they were a substantial favorite.
For Kansas, everything about Sunday’s first half felt like a repeat of Elite Eight nightmares past. The Jayhawks played tight, as though they were hoping to survive. Miami played free and loose, as though it had nothing to lose.
Boasting four dynamic guards and a lone big man who sinks more than 40% of his 3-point attempts, Miami played a five-out system on offense designed to force an opposing center out of the paint and open up lanes to the rim. McGusty, in particular, exploited favorable switches throughout the first half, scoring 14 of his 18 points before halftime to help the Hurricanes build a 35-29 lead.
“We weren’t very good in the first half,” Self said. “We played tight a little bit and couldn’t guard McGusty.”
The difference in the second half was Kansas’ defensive energy. The Jayhawks overplayed McGusty to deny him the ball. They jumped passing lanes, dominated the glass and won almost every 50-50 ball.
Live-ball turnovers led to Kansas run-outs. So did Miami missed 3-pointers. One run snowballed into another into another until a Kansas halftime deficit had turned into an insurmountable Jayhawks lead.
“Everything we’ve seen from Kansas throughout the season is the same thing,” Miami head coach Jim Larrañaga said. “They’re the best in the open court attacking you. When you’re not scoring, it’s hard to get back and set your defense. And we weren’t scoring, we weren’t making shots. We got a little anxious. I use the expression don’t play the score, play the game. We started playing the score.”
At the end of the game, Self flashed a relieved smile. He walked into the Kansas locker room with two open water bottles hoping to surprise his team. Much to his surprise, they were lying in wait ready to ambush him with enough water to fill a bathtub.
Who knows if the second half would have been quite so joyous for Kansas were it not for the energizing defensive play made by a backup who averages 1.1 points per game? Self told reporters after the game that it was no accident he brought that play up at halftime.
Asked about KJ’s block on McGusty at the end of the first half Bill Self said “I told the guys we only have one person that can guard him hoping it would piss them off.” #jayhawks #kuball #FinalFour
— Andrew Baker (@abakesports) March 27, 2022