What Kansas coach Bill Self said after losing to BYU

Bill Self isn’t used to losing like this.

Self’s No. 23-ranked Kansas squad was blown out by BYU by a score of 91-57 Tuesday night at the Marriott Center, marking his worst regular season defeat in 22 seasons at the helm of the Jayhawks.

Despite the brutal outcome for his team, Self was highly complimentary of the Cougars following his first visit to Provo.

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“I think BYU could have beaten anybody tonight,” Self told reporters after the game. “They were great, and we didn’t do anything to make them play less than great. Our offense stunk, but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t our offense. We couldn’t stop them or get any momentum.”

Kansas had never faced a greater deficit under Self than Tuesday against BYU, which led by as many as 38 points and ended up winning by 34.

The Jayhawks had also never been beaten so badly as a ranked team against an unranked opponent across their entire program history.

The 34-point margin of defeat was the third-largest ever for Kansas, which is a true college basketball blue blood that stands atop the sport’s all-time wins list with more than 2,300 victories.

BYU shot 51.5% from the field and 38.9% from 3-point range against the Jayhawks, who couldn’t handle an excellent defensive effort from the Cougars and turned the ball over 15 times.

Hosting a program of Kansas’ caliber was a major milestone for the Marriott Center, which lived up to its reputation as one of the toughest road environments in the country as Cougar fans went ballistic throughout Tuesday night amid BYU’s dominance.

Even the two-time national champion Self couldn’t help but rave about the venue.

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“I love this place,” Self said. “I mean, it’s great. It’s classy, it’s clean. There’s a lot of good things about it. The fans are actually as close to you in my opinion of any place that we play in our league ... they’ve done a remarkable job with this place, they’ve got really good players playing (in) it. Tonight, that’s the best anybody’s played against us this year.”

Kansas, which opened the season as the No. 1-ranked team in the country, now finds itself at one of its lowest points of the Self era. The Jayhawks have dropped five of their last eight contests, will likely be booted from next week’s top 25 poll and appear headed for a disappointing March showing.

“We need to regroup, you know, get away from each other for a day and go home,” Self said. “A lot of times with teams, there needs to be something happen to pull everybody together that is us against the outside, and we’re going to have an opportunity to do that for sure.

“A lot of teams go through it. We just haven’t been through it much at all in a long time, but certainly we’re going to go through it this time.”