Postgame Notes and Quotes - Kansas

Postgame Notes
*-Freshman Thomas Allen finished with a season-high 13 points, topping his previous high of six in the season opener against Eastern Illinois. Allen hit a career-high three 3-pointers in the loss.
*-Thomas Allen went 3-for-4 from three-point range after entering the night with four three-pointers on the season through his first 10 games.
*-Isaiah Roby finished with four blocked shots, the third time in his career he had four or more blocked shots. Roby played a career-high 30 minutes and had eight points, six boards, four blocks and three assists.
*Nebraska held Kansas to 44.6 percent shooting, the Jayhawks’ second-lowest total of the season. KU entered the game eighth nationally in field goal percentage.
*-James Palmer Jr. grabbed a season-high eight rebounds, bettering his previous high of five set four other times this season.
*-James Palmer Jr. had his 11th double-figure scoring effort in 12 games this season, as he finished with 14 points.
*-Nebraska suffered its first home loss of the season after a 5-0 start.
*-Kansas won its 19th consecutive game against Nebraska, and leads the all-time series, 172-71.
*-Nebraska is now 1-2 against ranked teams this season.

Nebraska Head Coach Tim Miles
On Nebraska's last possession:
"It didn't have as much rhythm has we hoped. It was a counter to something we had run to get James [Palmer Jr.] to the rim earlier and he had the option to kick it out to Anton [Gill]. I think he was open and [Lagerald] Vick made a really good defensive play to contest that shot and James had gotten knocked down on the rebound. That's a 50/50 deal, max. I think we thought he was going to travel. He got the shot up and you can't put anything weak up against a team like that - too much length and athleticism. We had it drawn up in the timeout. We felt good about it. We'd run it before, so we didn't burn the timeout unnecessarily and we'd been scoring, I think. It felt like we were anyway. And we trust our guys."

On Thomas Allen:
"[Thomas] is so good. I'm so proud of him. He came in and lit them up and then kind of got overzealous and made some mistakes, but he was really good. His points per 40 (minutes) was probably 100. I was happy for him. [He] has been doing good. Anton and Evan [Taylor] do a little bit better job defensively. They're a little bigger and it's hard for me to play two little guards at one time, although tonight we did for awhile, but I said, 'Tom you're on the verge of breaking through.' I met with him this week and said, 'I see your role getting bigger as the year goes on, not smaller. Sometimes you ice guys out of rotation. I think you're going to grow in rotation. If you weren't here when Glynn Watson was here, you'd be playing 27 minutes a night, but we just have more right now. That's good, because next year is going to be your time. We're going to lose two guys and you've got to be a star,' and I think his potential is really good."

On what he said to Anton Gill in the locker room:
"[Nothing] specifically. We were all in it together. I just said, 'Listen guys. I'm proud of you. They just made one more play than we did. That's they way I see it. That's the way I look at it. Don't let this game beat us twice. We've got to come to work Monday and be ready to roll.'"

On his team:
"This is what hurts. It means something to these guys. They're fun to coach. We'll get better. I love my guys. I thought they played a heck of a game."

On what the team needs to improve:
"We have a lot of work to do on offense. I thought we were better on defense. I thought we held them down pretty good. That's a good basketball team and we've got to get better in the post and get better on offense and keep improving on defense. Get fouled, and we're just done getting fouled. I thought we defended the three okay and we were okay at the three-point line. Those are two things we need to get better at. We'll get better. It's just a tough night."

On the Scott Frost introduction pregame:

"I said, 'I want Scott out there at the beginning with us.' He talked about unity and I want them to know we're behind him. We want him out (there). Scott doesn't want to screw with our mojo or anything that's going on. He's so humble, it's ridiculous, but that's what everybody loves about him. I've known him for three or four years. We played golf and went out for dinner. I just thought it'd be a really cool thing to start the game off with and I thought it was. I got chills."

On the environment:
"It was a good game, great environment. Thanks to our fans. They were awesome. I hope our [volleyball team] wins the national championship. I can't wait to get back on the floor next week."

Junior Guard James Palmer Jr.
On NU’s final offensive possession:
“He (Anton Gill) shot it, and we just tried to crash the glass. I got the rebound, and tried to go back up, but I was off balance. Things didn’t go my way.”

On his drive to put Nebraska up 72-70:
“I just made a good drive and finished the lay-up.”

On the crowd tonight:
“I think we’re always going to get a full game like this, especially the blue-blood games. The crowd was great tonight. We both made runs. They just came up and made one more play than we did.”

On what was working to come back from a 7-0 run:
“I think that was the time we went to the 1-3-1 (zone defense), and that really changed the pace of the game. We had them standing around for a little bit and that’s when we made our run. We had some stops, made some changes.”

On how the 1-3-1 worked differently tonight than it has in the past:
“Just getting other teams to stand around. The change of defense always helps.”

Freshman guard Thomas Allen
On his season-high performance:
“I just wanted to win the game. That’s pretty much it, I just wanted to win the game.”

On if they’re tired of coming up short in games:
“Yeah. I think we are. We just got to finish hard at the end.”

Kansas Head Coach Bill Self

On whether or not the game went as planned:

“I don’t know about that. We went a lot of possessions where we didn’t draw anything up very well. Certainly we executed pretty good on that last one. [Svi Mykhailiuk] has been struggling and hasn’t been himself for about two weeks now, and it was great to see the ball go in the basket for him.”

On Nebraska coming back:

“We actually talked about that. I’d have to remember exactly when they went 1-3-1, but I think it was after they got their lead there late, after five or six minutes. I overcoached, should have never called the timeout to end the first half. Never. Because they went 1-3-1 and we didn’t get a good shot. So we knew they’d go to the 1-3-1 late. We actually talked about in the timeout exactly what we wanted to do and it wasn’t working the way that I had envisioned. The last thing that we said was let’s just throw a lob and we end up getting a lob out of a timeout.”

On his concern about a lack of depth behind point guard Devonte’ Graham:

“I think it’s my concern now. We don’t have a second point guard. [Lagerald Vick] would be the closest thing we have to a second point guard.  He’s going to have to play 35, 37 (minutes) a game. I think he played 38 tonight or something like that. That is a concern, but as long as he’s healthy he can do that. But we need more depth so that way guys don’t have to play 37, 38, 38, or whatever they’re playing. And hopefully we’ll get some more here relatively soon, I don’t have any information for you to lead me to believe that that that’s positively going to happen but I’m pretty optimistic that that’ll happen.”

On being tougher defensively today than in recent games:

“Well we were better today. But still, statistically we weren’t any good. I actually thought Nebraska played great. I thought they played well, I thought they executed. They shot the ball well. We made them take some longer twos and they shot those well. I thought Tim’s group played very, very well. Our defense was better even though statistically it probably won’t show up that way.”

Kansas Senior Point Guard Devonte’ Graham

On what it’s like to come to Nebraska and win:

“We just needed this win, period.  Especially after last week. It was a great win for us, get the monkey off our back. It was a great team win. Everybody just tried to chip in, do what they can to help the team.”

On what he was thinking when Svi Mykhailiuk shot his game-winning three pointer:

“Cash. It’s gotta go in. I could just tell, I’ve been around him a long time and seen him shoot a lot of shots, and I can just see it when he released it.”

On how he thought Kansas’ defense was overall:

“I think it’s been better than it has been. We can always improve. I think our energy was there though.”

On what Coach Self said when the game was tied at 51: 

“We just needed to grind it out. You've got to win basically. With our last two games struggling with getting big stops when it really mattered. We gave up a layup and then had a stop at the end. Other than that, just keep running defensively and stay tight.”