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Last week was a rough one for a Kansas men’s basketball team that will no longer be ranked at #1 in the wake of back-to-back losses. Bill Self couldn’t have been pleased with how his team played against Missouri, but even he had to respect the wild scene we were treated to in Columbia when the Tigers pulled off the upset.
The Kansas Jayhawks were sitting atop the AP Poll when the current college basketball season kicked off, and they managed to stay there for five weeks in a row after getting off to a 7-0 start with a string of victories that included wins over #9 UNC and #11 Duke.
However, things have taken a turn for the worse thanks to what’s transpired in their past couple of games.
On Wednesday, Creighton handed Kansas its first loss of the season with a decisive 76-63 win that was capped off with the members of the Bluejays faithful storming the court in Omaha.
The Jayhawks were obviously hoping to bounce back when they headed into enemy territory to face off against a Missouri team that was listed as a 6.5-point underdog, but they found themselves dealing with a 24-point deficit toward the start of the second half and were unable to crawl back before falling victim to the second court storm in five days when the 76-67 upset wrapped up.
Missouri head coach Dennis Gates called a timeout in the closing seconds of the contest to give Self the chance to get his players off of the court before it was flooded by thousands of rowdy fans, and after the game, the Kansas skipper praised him for that “classy” move while giving the invaders credit for what he stressed was a “real court storming.”
Bill Self on today’s #Mizzou‘s court storming and the timeout by Dennis Gates.
“We’ve been court stormed a lot… that was a real court storming… Mizzou played great but that court storming may have been even better.”
Question: @shre98 #kubball pic.twitter.com/TFVjDPl48I
— Vince Lovergine (@Vince_Lovergine) December 9, 2024
Self noted he’s been a frequent victim of those postgame celebrations after spending two decades at the helm of a perennial contender, so the fact he said “Mizzou played great but that court storming may have been even better” is some incredibly high praise for the fans who were responsible for it.
When you can make an opposing coach pull a Ron Burgundy by essentially admitting he’s too impressed to be mad, you’ve done something right.