Why Kansas coach Bill Self has been looking toward next year even before Gonzaga romp

With his Kansas team apparently transfixed by Gonzaga’s second-half offensive clinic and responding only with a slapstick shooting exhibition on the way to tumbling 27 points behind on Saturday, KU coach Bill Self’s thoughts at times strayed to the “episodes” this season that led to this fiasco:

The 89-68 loss on Saturday at the Delta Center was the second-most lopsided in KU’s NCAA Tournament history and left the fourth-seeded Jayhawks with 11 defeats — their most in a season since the probation-stifled 1988-1989 team went 19-12 in Roy Williams’ first season.

Then and after the game, Self thought about how this program, a national champion two years ago and perennial contender that was voted The Associated Press preseason No. 1 last October, had excelled for so long at rebounding and defending … only to Saturday display “absolutely no sign of being able to slow them down.”

He thought about how Gonzaga, the fifth seed in the Midwest Region, was making KU pay for any of its many mistakes and having its way even when the Jayhawks didn’t blunder.

And perhaps most of all he considered the glaring deficiency of a team that he’d tell you himself he failed to bolster with the sort of depth that would have made the absence of injured star Kevin McCullar more an asterisk than the epitaph of the season.

So when the Jayhawks were getting swamped and making just four of their next 25 field goals in the second half after Nick Timberlake’s 3-pointer gave them a fool’s gold 47-43 lead, Self had nowhere to turn, nowhere to start a run and, ultimately, nowhere to hide in the aftermath.

There was no instant offense to be had. No stopper. No substantial way to change looks or reset. Or even replenish.

“I mean, my guys were gassed,” Self said. “I haven’t had very many times where you take a guy out, and he’s sitting through a three-minute timeout, and I say, ‘Go back in,’ and he says, ‘I need a little bit more time.’”

No wonder this team had looked so depleted in losing four of its previous five before barely fending off 13th-seeded Samford in the tournament opener on Thursday.

No wonder the pilot light you could already see flickering finally was snuffed out.

And no wonder Self was candid and blunt when I asked him after the game if he’d already begun thinking about next season.

“I think for the last month, I’ve been thinking about next season, to be honest,” said Self, who missed last season’s Big 12 and NCAA tournaments with a frightening health issue.

Clarifying that he didn’t mean he was thinking about next season during those games down the stretch, Self noted that it had become evident having this group of eight healthy scholarship players was not going to be sufficient.

Especially since it became apparent that, beyond freshman Johnny Furphy exceeding any expectations, Kansas — for a variety of reasons, including injuries and the ill-considered Arterio Morris recruitment — didn’t get what it might have hoped for this season out of several newcomers that had figured to complement the core of McCullar, Dajuan Harris and Hunter Dickinson.

“We could have done a much better job as a staff of putting more guys out there that we could play,” Self said. “And so that’s something that I’ve thought about for a long time.”

Meanwhile, the cumulative effect of the thin roster — and increasingly thin margin for error — only gathered momentum after it was well past the time anything could be done about it.

Bottom line: “When you don’t have as much firepower (as) maybe you’ve had in past years,” Self said, “it certainly showed this year.”

Certainly, the feeling showed in the tight quarters of the locker room after the game.

Freshman Jamari McDowell was in tears with his head in his hands. Harris had a towel over his head as he spoke, and sixth-year senior Nick Timberlake’s eyes were moist and his face red after what was his final college game.

“Definitely going to keep this one in my back pocket,” junior KJ Adams said. “It’s not the best feeling, you know? But when you have feelings like these, you want to keep them for next season just to play harder.”

Which brings us back to the fundamental question of the moment and Self’s most urgent task now: building next season’s roster.

At this point, Harris is the only starter who seems certain to be back. Dickinson and Furphy will weigh going pro. And asked if he was returning, Adams told The Star’s Shreyas Laddha, “I don’t know yet.”

McCullar and Timberlake (and reserve Parker Braun) are all out of eligibility, and McDowell and Elmarko Jackson each have indicated they’ll stay at KU. Junior Zach Clemence, who redshirted this season, told The Star he’d return.

As ever, Kansas’ recruiting class was highly ranked upon signing day last fall: Rivals.com and 247Sports.com each rated it fourth. But the class only features three players, Flory Bidunga, Labaron Philon and Rakease Passmore.

Even as he gushed over the group at the time, Self said, “We’ve got to add to it. We can’t be done.”

Exasperating as this is for KU and its fans, at least there’s this: With the transfer portal now open and beckoning, Self and his staff are free to turn their attention in that direction right away — lest the episodes and oddities of this season become not a blip but a trend.