It was another rough day for Kansas in a season that has been all too full of them. The Jayhawks almost never lose at home, but they fell on Saturday 78-73 to Texas Tech, their third setback this season in Allen Fieldhouse. Last week, after losing back-to-back games at Utah and BYU (the latter by 24 points), KU fell out of the AP Top 25 for the first time in four years. All of that is a remarkable downturn for one of the sport’s true bluebloods, especially since Kansas started the season as the consensus No. 1 team.
No one in Kansas’ locker room likes losing, but Zeke Mayo took Saturday’s setback especially hard. The 6-foot-3 senior guard is a native of Lawrence and played his first first three seasons at South Dakota State, where he averaged 18.8 points as a junior. When Mayo entered the transfer portal last spring, he leapt at the chance to return home to play for the Jayhawks. He has been up and down this season, but he has struggled of late and was awful against the Red Raiders, scoring five points on 1 of 7 shooting in 31 minutes.
When the game was over, Mayo did something he hadn’t done much this season — check his social media accounts. He looked at his Direct Messages and saw messages from anonymous strangers that went well beyond critical and angry. They were hateful, threatening and overtly racist. Mayo posted a screen shot of some of the messages on Twitter and offered this apology to Kansas fans: “I 100% deserve all the criticism in the world. My performance was beyond pitiful today, and has been for a while now. I work my ass off everyday to be great, but I can’t be perfect all the time. I’m sorry to our fans and my teammates, I will continue to get better.”
Shortly after that post, Mayo deleted his Twitter account and has vowed to stay off social media. But his coach, Bill Self, felt the need to rise to his player’s defense. So he released his own statement to the media, which did not reference Mayo specifically but echoed his player’s sentiments. “We haven’t had the overall year that we had hoped for ourselves, nor the year that many other people have expected, but it hasn’t been from a lack of caring,” Self said in the statement. “Any criticism about the team should be directed at me. I’m the head coach.”
No doubt Self had the best intentions. But he also drew more attention to people who didn’t deserve it and inflamed a situation that didn’t need any more heat. By Sunday night, he deciced he had probably made a mistake. “I shouldn’t have done it, because all it did was bring more attention to what was said,” Self told Hoops HQ during a telephone interview Sunday night. “I feel like there’s been some unfair personal attacks and criticism, but not by people that matter. A lot of that comes from people who are not KU fans. They’re gambling and lost a bet or whatever. But so much of young people’s identify is what people are saying about them on social media. I wanted to get that point out that these kids care. They’re trying.”
Concern over young people’s exposure to social media extends well beyond sports, of course, but it can be a particularly intense experiences for student-athletes at a high-profile program like Kansas. The proliferation of social media, combined with the rapid professionalism of college sports, has combined to produce a lethal cocktail if the person allows him or herself to drink it. “This is the world that we live in now. Everything is fair game these days,” Self said. “People don’t look at them as amateurs at all anymore. These guys are pros and they’re getting paid to do a job. And trust me, they may say they understand that, but they don’t. It’s a different world for them. It’s a different pressure.”
“I shouldn’t have done it, because all it did was bring more attention to what was said. I feel like there’s been some unfair personal attacks and criticism, but not by people that matter.”
What advice does Self give to Mayo and his other players about social media? The same advice that so many parents give to their own children: “You’ve got to stay off of it. You’ve got to stay away from it. Because if you don’t, it can just consume you.”
This latest flare-up was a minor distraction, but it is one that Self and his players surely did not need. The Jayhwaks were voted No. 1 in the preseason because of the addition of their transfers, not only Mayo but also 6-foot-7 junior guard A.J. Storr (from Wisconsin) and 6-foot-6 junior guard Rylan Griffen (Alabama). Mayo has a had a relatively good season; the other two, candidly, have not. Ultimately, the Jayhawks’ inconsistent play underscores the challenges of building a championship culture in the transfer portal era. There’s a lot of guesswork being done not only as to who is good enough to play where, but how well they will fit. Kansas has some nice pieces, but all too often this winter they have not fit well together.
“Every coach is going to say they got the best kids, but we really do,” Self said. “Guys get along. But in today’s time, when kids are only here for a year, how can they be as invested as the kids you’ve coached over the last 20 years? It’s not fair to them sometimes. No question, it is different. It’s something that I personally have struggled with.”
Kansas has struggled on offense, but its defense has been superb at times. The Jayhawks are ranked No. 6 in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom. If they are going to advance in the tournament, they need to be near-perfect at that end of the floor. “Our defense has been so freaking good this year, but when it’s been bad, it’s been horrible,” Self said. “We gave up 60 in a half and we held Iowa State to 52 in a game. We held one team in the Big 12 to 40, we held another team to 48 and we gave up 15 threes the other night (against Texas Tech). So that has been all over the map, but we’ve got to defend and rebound if we’re going to go far in the tournament. If you score 70, that should be enough, but we’ve got to be turned up defensively in order for it to be enough.”
If Kansas’ challenges were strictly between the lines, then Self would be as well-equipped as any coach in the country to handle it. When it comes to distractions and outside voices, however, the challenge gets steeper. Self learned the hard way this weekend that the worst thing you can do to those outside voices is let them know they’re being heard.
