Report: Kevin McCullar a game-time decision for Kansas vs. Baylor
Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks are hoping to have star Kevin McCullar healthy for their NCAA Tournament run, but they need him back on the court before that.
A great time to return for McCullar would be during Saturday’s game against the Baylor Bears. However, it seems as if it’s no sure thing regarding McCullar’s health, as he’s reportedly a game-time decision against the Big 12 rival.
“Kansas’ Kevin McCullar is a true game-time decision today at Baylor, source told @TheFieldOf68,” Jeff Goodman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The Jayhawks leading scorer has missed 4 of the past 5 games due to a knee injury.”
As Goodman noted, McCullar hasn’t seen the court much over the last couple of weeks. He’ll need to be back into the swing of things before March Madness begins, especially if Kansas wants to make a run at another championship.
We’ll see if Kevin McCullar is on the floor for Kansas on Saturday, as the Jayhawks search for another big win for their resume against one of the best teams in the Big 12.
Bill Self could feel loss vs. BYU coming at shootaround
Meanwhile, Bill Self noticed that the energy was off as Kansas prepared to face BYU on Tuesday night. The Jayhawks were playing without leading scorer Kevin McCullar, and Self got the feeling it was going to be a difficult evening.
That suspicion turned out to be correct as KU suffered a 76-68 loss, snapping a 19-game winning streak at Allen Fieldhouse. Speaking postgame, Self opened up on where things went wrong.
“They were pretty defeated and down and all that,” he said. “But hey guys, 50% of teams in America lose every time you throw one up. This happens and right now our team is such where we’ve gotta really work our butts off and have some good things happen in order to win playing a little shorthanded right now. So things like this happen. But also to me, you could feel this coming today at shootaround. We had a terrible shootaround and the focus wasn’t very good.”
Regardless of the sluggish showing at shootaround, the Jayhawks led the entire first half. They expanded their lead to as many as 12 points in the second half, leading 41-29 with 18:27 to go.
BYU refused to go away, however, and continued to chip away at the deficit with some sharpshooting from 3-point range. The Cougars took their first lead of the game with 4:50 remaining after a pair of free throws from Dallin Hall.
Teams traded blows for the next couple of minutes, but Hall’s 3-pointer with 1:34 left made it a five-point lead that they would never relinquish. BYU finished 13-of-34 from beyond the arc while Kansas hit only three 3-pointers all game without McCullar, who has played one game since Feb. 5.