What’s the deal with the Kansas Jayhawks’ defense?

It’s time we take a look at what the Kansas Jayhawks are doing on the defensive end this season

On Wednesday night, the Kansas Jayhawks clinched at least a share of their 13th straight Big 12 regular season conference title with an 87-68 win over the TCU Horned Frogs.

No. 13 didn’t come easily, though. In a better-than-expected Big 12, the Jayhawks have scraped out nine of their 13 conferences wins by single digits. In addition to battling against a top flight level of competition — KenPom ranks this season’s Big 12 as the best conference by adjusted efficiency margin since 2004 — there have been stylistic changes on the floor as well.

On offense, head coach Bill Self abandoned his traditional two big, high-low scheme in favor of a more modern small ball approach that maximizes the strengths of superstar freshman Josh Jackson. With more spacing and freedom of movement, Kansas has been one of the best offenses in the land behind the play of Jackson and National Player of the Year favorite Frank Mason.

Defensively, this title run has also been unique. Self has always prided himself on his team’s defensive prowess, but the current roster is different. For the first time since the 2004-05 season — the one that started the streak — the Jayhawks are set to finish outside of the top two in the Big 12 in defensive efficiency during conference play.

The defensive woes didn’t just pop up during the Big 12 schedule either. The Jayhawks have conceded an adjusted 95.1 points per 100 possessions (28th nationally) over the full duration of the 2016-17 season. Self has called this team “the poorest defensive team that we’ve ever had,” and he’s right. Its adjusted defensive efficiency is the worst mark for a Kansas team during the 13-year streak.

A quick peek at the roster, which is loaded with guards but light on frontcourt players, especially after losing freshman Udoka Azubuike for the season after just 11 games, would suggest that the struggles are a result of poor interior defense. It’s a logical conclusion and one that is founded in some reality. This season opponents are shooting 44.4 percent on 2-pointers against Kansas. It’s the second highest percentage during the streak and is magnified by one of its lower block rates (11.7 percent).

Given that 2-point percentage is one of the statistics defenses have a decent amount of control over, good 2-point defense is usually equated with good overall defense. For Self, taking away easy baskets is a core tenet of his coaching philosophy. “I just think basketball can be summed up very easily: If you’re good, you get easy baskets and don’t give them up,” he’s said previously. Historically, that’s been on the money for Self as his worst defenses (on the right in the below chart) have given up the highest 2-point percentage:

This season’s frontcourt is anchored differently than many of those that came before it, which is likely a contributing factor to some of the interior struggles. Senior Landen Lucas isn’t built in the same mold as prior centers to put on a Jayhawks’ uniform. He’s a high-IQ player, but lacks the length and athleticism that has typified the bigs at the center of Self’s best 2-point defenses. Lucas’s 4.0 percent individual block rate lags well behind former rim protectors Jeff Withey (13.7), Cole Aldrich (13.0) and Sasha Kaun (8.0). And yet, the 2-point defense doesn’t seem to tell the whole story.

For starters, while Kansas isn’t elite at 2-point defense, it’s still really good relative to the rest of the country. The Jayhawks rank 24th nationally in defensive 2-point percentage. Only three top 10 teams — Baylor, Gonzaga and Louisville — have been stingier inside the 3-point arc. More granular numbers make an even more compelling case.

On halfcourt post-ups, opponents are averaging just 0.77 points per possession (PPP), per Synergy Sports. That ranks in the 90th percentile in college basketball. Although Lucas doesn’t offer much in terms of rim protection, he’s a big help on the low block where he can use his strength and IQ to prevent opposing players from getting deep position and the easy shots that come with it. On non-post-up shots taken around the basket, Kansas also fares well by surrendering just 1.00 PPP (93rd percentile), per Synergy Sports. Jackson, notably, helps here as his weak side rim protection from the wing is some of the best in college basketball. Based on those numbers, it would appear that this is a more traditional Bill Self defense.

Kansas also hasn’t exactly been punished by interior scoring in its losses. Sure, some big men have had some big games against the Jayhawks this season — Georgia’s Yante Maten hung 30 points on them back in November, Texas center Jarrett Allen gave them 20 points and 19 boards in January and Baylor’s Johnathan Motley has played well in both meetings — but the Jayhawks have won all of those matchups. As NBC Sports’ Rob Dauster pointed out, if Kansas’s win-loss record hasn’t been swayed by performances like these, then will it ever be?

One could make an argument that the Jayhawks struggled on the inside in their opening night loss to the Indiana Hoosiers when sophomore Thomas Bryant piled up 19 points while shooting 4-of-9 inside the arc, but that loss hints more at the actual heart of Kansas’s defensive struggles. Indiana nailed 15 3-pointers while shooting 48.4 percent from deep in its 103-99 win. The story has been somewhat the same in the Jayhawks’ other two losses. West Virginia hit 40.0 percent of its 20 3-point attempts in a blowout win in Morgantown and Iowa State canned 18-of-34 (52.9 percent) 3s to steal a victory in Allen Fieldhouse.

Opponents on the whole have made 36.5 percent of their 3-pointers against Kansas this season. That’s the highest mark of the Self era in Lawrence and the 250th worst number out of 351 teams in Division I this season, per KenPom. That translates directly into efficient possessions for opponents. According to Synergy Sports, the Jayhawks are conceding 1.19 PPP on halfcourt 3-pointers (17th percentile). The toughest thing to do here is figure out why that’s happening. 3-point defense is inherently one of the noisiest statistics in basketball and also one that is heavily influenced by the offense.

To some degree, Kansas has simply been unlucky as variance hasn’t played out in its favor over the course of the season. Synergy Sports keeps a log of catch-and-shoot opportunities for opponents. This isn’t a perfect measure because what qualifies is a subjective and the site doesn’t differentiate between 2s and 3s, but most of the logged shots are 3-point attempts and it at least gives us some insight into what might be going on here. On 395 catch-and-shoot possessions by opponents this season, the Jayhawks are giving up 1.17 PPP (338th nationally, 4th percentile). Even more, 60.3 percent of those possessions have been “guarded,” but teams are still averaging 1.15 PPP (333rd nationally, 5th percentile) on catch-and-shoots with a defender in the area. Simply put, on a bunch of possessions Kansas is getting a hand up, but it hasn’t mattered because good offense beats good defense in college basketball.

It isn’t just luck stinging the Jayhawks, though. A combination of commitment to the defensive scheme and mental mistakes have also produced efficient chances for opponents. One of those schematic demands falls on Jackson who is the de facto rim protector in a number of situations like when Lucas gets pulled out of the paint to defend pick-and-rolls or when an opposing guard comes driving down the lane. Kansas likes to help from the corner in these situations and as a result, those actions drag Jackson away from his man — rightly or wrongly — and create open 3-point chances for opponents:

Jackson also can’t recover too aggressively in these situations because he might get beat off the dribble and there’s no real rim protector behind him. It’s a Catch-22 for Kansas: either let someone get to the rim with minimal resistance or leave a shooter open on the perimeter. Self’s defensive philosophy almost always dictates that the choice is the latter one.

The Jayhawks are also prone to defensive lapses at times, occasionally losing shooters as men and the ball move at the same time. In some cases, it might be a miscommunication on a switch. In others, a screen simply takes someone out of the play and the necessary rotations don’t come. This is what giving up open 3-point attempts looks like:

Letting teams hoist uncontested 3-pointers is never a good idea even if getting a hand up won’t have a massive effect. Kansas, while somewhat unlucky, has also picked its poison. If teams want to shoot, they’ll be able to as the Jayhawks continue to look to take away the easy buckets.

So, what does all of this mean for Kansas going forward? Are there ramifications for March? The answer to the second question is almost certainly yes. No team in the KenPom era has won a national title with a pre-NCAA Tournament defensive rating worse than 93.3. The Jayhawks are currently nearly two points per 100 possessions worse than that. Nor has any team in the KenPom era won the title with opponents shooting better than 34.1 percent from deep. Kansas is giving up 36.5 percent. Factor in that the closest comparison defensively to the 2016-17 Jayhawks is the 2013-14 squad that lost in the second round of the tournament to Stanford and things can seem understandably sketchy.

Self has built a reputation as a defensive savant in college basketball circles, but his team this season isn’t living up to the standards set by past iterations on the court. The Jayhawks are good, not great, on the interior and have allowed teams to run wild from behind the 3-point arc this season. It’s all equated to Self’s worst defensive team since he arrived in Lawrence.

None of this means that Kansas can’t cut down the nets in Phoenix. After all, the Jayhawks have already clinched their share of the Big 12 championship with the same maligned defense and at some point, a team with a worse adjusted defensive rating than the 2015 Duke Blue Devils will win a national title. We’ve seen them turn up the defense for small periods and those guarded shots may start to fall their way. Winning is just always tougher when you can’t keep points off the board. Kansas has struggled with that, for one reason or another.