Kansas Jayhawks hope defense travels as they take on Cincinnati in basketball Saturday

Displeased after watching his team allow visiting Arizona State 42 first-half points on Wednesday, Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball coach Bill Self sought out defensive whiz Dajuan Harris.

The gist of their halftime conversation at Allen Fieldhouse? Call it a “do-better” talk.

“Basically, Coach challenged me,” said Harris, KU’s veteran point guard. “Their point guard (Blue Valley Northwest graduate Alston Mason) had 15 points (at halftime).

“He (Self) wanted to challenge me and I wanted to come up big for my teammates. I wanted to take out their best ballhandler.”

Mason hit two 3-pointers in helping ASU build a 42-36 halftime advantage. As one of the key cogs in the full-court press that KU employed in the second half, Harris helped hold Mason to four points on 2-of-4 shooting after halftime, with four turnovers.

The Jayhawks steamrolled ASU 38-13 in the second half en route to a 74-55 victory. Their stifling second-half defense helped KU improve to 11-3 (2-1 Big 12) entering Saturday’s game at Cincinnati (10-4, 0-3).

Tipoff for the Kansas-Cincinnati game at Fifth Third Arena is 1 p.m. Central Time, with a livestream on ESPN+.

“All the credit goes to Shak,” Harris said of KU senior guard Shakeel Moore, whose back-to-back steals fueled KU’s comeback victory over the Sun Devils. “He got us going, got the defensive energy going. I followed right behind.”

Harris — he played 17 minutes in the first half and 15 in the second — said an extended stay on the bench helped keep him fresh against ASU.

Moore, a senior transfer guard from Mississippi State, played 13 minutes in the final half and 21 total. Also, senior guard David Coit, who was disruptive on defense, had one steal in 12 minutes but failed to score. He missed three 3-pointers.

“I was energized,” said Harris, who had three of KU’s 13 steals. “Coach sat me four, five minutes and Shak went on a defensive spurt. Then I came in and it was my turn. We switch off.

“Shak is a fifth-year guard like me. He’s strong, makes it easy for me on the defensive end. We can switch. He can guard anybody. Zeke (Mayo, 23 points, one steal) is guarding, too. We’ve got to keep it up. We need that defensive mindset.”

The Jayhawks hope solid defense translates well on the road Saturday. Cincinnati (10-4) is 0-3 since league play began and likely will be desperate to get in the win column after being ranked as high as No. 14 in the AP poll earlier this season.

KU knows all about the Bearcats. One of the highlights of Cincinnati’s first year in the Big 12 came in the second round of the 2024 conference tournament at T-Mobile Center.

The Wes Miller-coached Bearcats, who dropped a narrow 74-69 decision to KU on Jan. 22, 2024 at Allen Fieldhouse, routed the Jayhawks 72-52 on March 14 before a sellout crowd of 18,261 fans, most of whom were rooting for KU.

“They kicked our (butt) last year,” Self said. “They certainly got the best of us adding two games together.”

KU had just seven scholarship players available in that 20-point loss. Hunter Dickinson and Kevin McCullar, who played in the Jayhawks’ win in Lawrence, were out with injuries.

Now a junior, 6-foot-6 Bearcats guard Dan Skillings burned KU for 25 points on 10-of-23 shooting with seven rebounds in the tournament game. Skillings, averaging a team-leading 13.1 points this season, scored 16 points and grabbed five rebounds in the loss at Allen Fieldhouse.

He hit three 3-pointers that day as Cincinnati played KU to a 35-35 tie through the first half. The Bearcats trailed 53-49 with 9:24 left, 67-61 at the 1:31 mark and 72-67 with 12 seconds to go.

The Bearcats, 22-15 a year ago, went 7-11 in their inaugural season in the Big 12, winning two games in the postseason NIT.

“They’ve got a good team,” Self said. “You understand 10 days ago they were ranked 14th in the country. This league’s good.”

Cincinnati opened Big 12 play with a 70-67 loss to Kansas State on Dec. 30 in Manhattan. The Bearcats then lost to Arizona 72-67 on Jan. 4 in Cincinnati and fell 68-48 at Baylor on Tuesday.

“You lose a heartbreaker in Manhattan,” Self said. “The Arizona game ends up being a one- or two-possession game and we see how good Arizona is. Arizona just went to West Virginia and won by 20.

“We will have to play from an energy standpoint like we have for the last two games (win at UCF, win at home versus ASU) in order to have a shot.”

Self said Miller’s teams “always guard. They run a lot of sets and they score out of their sets. I like their personnel. The kid that just killed us last year was Skillings a good looking ballplayer. I mean he can score at all three levels and he’s got size. They’ve got a nice team. Even when we beat them at our place last year, that was a hard game and then we played them again (in the Big 12 tourney).”

Of the matchup, KU junior guard Rylan Griffen said: “I think that it’s another must-win game. Every game is a must- win game, but they are coming off three losses in conference play. So it’s really, really a must-win game for them. They know that. We know that. We are going to get their best effort I feel like with their home crowd. We’ve got to do the same to get the victory.”

After playing Cincinnati on Saturday, KU will travel to Iowa State next Wednesday for a game scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m.