Accidental free throw, late charge: KU’s Jalen Wilson, Kevin McCullar explain Arkansas loss

Kansas junior forward Jalen Wilson sat at his locker stall in Wells Fargo Arena. He faced a swarm of reporters with a towel draped over his head.

It was an entirely different visual than a year ago, when one of the heroes of KU’s national championship victory over North Carolina basked in the glory of being on top of the college basketball world.

On Saturday, he elected to shoulder a good share of the blame personally for No. 1 seed KU’s 72-71 NCAA Tournament West Regional Round of 32 loss to No. 8 seed Arkansas.

“That’s on me. I didn’t even give us an opportunity to have a shot,” Wilson lamented.

The 6-foot-8 junior consensus first-team All-American, who scored a team-leading 20 points and grabbed four rebounds, was fouled by Arkansas and sent to the line with three seconds left and the Jayhawks down by three, 72-69.

Wilson swished the first of two free throws — he was 9-of-11 from the line on a day KU hit 18 of 25 free throws to Arkansas’ 21 of 26 — and planned on missing the second to give KU a chance at grabbing the rebound and sinking a miracle stickback shot to force overtime.

Instead his second free throw banked in. Arkansas inbounded, the clock ran out and that was the game, the Razorbacks (22-13) winning by one point over KU (28-8).

“I don’t really practice a bank free throw. That’s a tough position to be in missing a shot, (wondering) which way to miss it. I knew when it went in it’d be tough to get a foul (on the inbound),” Wilson added. “It’s kind of draining, not even being able to get a shot up (because of the accidental free throw make).”

Still, Wilson understands a lot would have had to go right for KU to gather a rebound and score to force OT in a game dominated by guard Davonte Davis, who had 21 of his 25 points in the final half.

“It shouldn’t even have gotten that close. There is not one play that won or lost the game. It was play after play the entire second half. You can’t blame any one but all of us, still a team effort,” Wilson said.

Yes, there was plenty of blame to go around, considering the Jayhawks led by as many as 12 points (46-34) with 15:20 to play and 10 points with 13:14 left.

A crucial sequence in crunch time started with 0:23 left when Kevin McCullar was called for a block (in a 67-67 game) on a drive to the goal by Ricky Council (21 points, 5-of-18 shooting; 10-of-11 from line). McCullar fouled out on the play that easily could have been called a charge.

Council hit the first free throw to give Arkansas a 68-67 lead but missed the second. Instead of grabbing the board, KU saw it carom to Council, who was fouled and went back to the line at 0:20. This time he made both free throws and Arkansas led 70-67.

“Yeah, I thought it was a charge. If a ref calls it a block, it’s a block,” McCullar said. “It was a good play by Council to get downhill into my body. So that’s it.”

The Jayhawks were despondent about not getting the rebound after Council’s free throw miss. At that point KU trailed by one and still had more than 20 seconds left.

“I feel the rebound on the free throw is tough,” Wilson said.

As far as offense down the stretch. … KU had a questionable possession down 70-67 after Council’s free throws. Wilson, instead of firing up a three, drove and was fouled with eight seconds left. He made two free throws to cut the gap to 70-69.

At 0:07, Council hit two free throws making it 72-69. That led to the play in which Wilson was fouled at 0:03 and mistakenly made the second of two free throws.

Of the Wilson drive and foul at 0:08, acting coach Norm Roberts said: “We were trying to go for a three, too, whenever we could get (it), and ‘J-Will’ did a good job of getting fouled. And both options were there and Jalen took the two-point option.”

Wilson said on the play in which he drove to the goal with his team down three he was “just trying to get a shot up, trying to get the best play possible, honestly.”

No doubt Arkansas’ Davis was a major factor in ending the Jayhawks’ season and preventing head coach Bill Self from possibly returning to coach the team in the Sweet 16 starting Thursday in Las Vegas. He’s been out following last week’s heart catheterization.

“Davis played out of this world,” Roberts said. He really made a lot of shots, but we knew he was good at doing that and then he really hurt us on the glass (eight boards). We had some rebounds we needed to get and didn’t get them, but give them credit. They played very well in the second half.”

KU also was hurt by the foul trouble of bigs KJ Adams and Ernest Udeh. Adams had 14 points in 26 minutes. He sat nine minutes after picking up his fourth foul with 18:11 left. Udeh picked up four fouls in his six minutes. He did not score and had one board.

“It probably affected us both offensively and defensively,” Roberts said of foul trouble of the bigs, “because those two guys have been playing the bulk of the minutes. Our offense runs through KJ, and he wasn’t out there for a while, and Ernest picked up a couple of silly fouls early, which got him out of the rotation early, and the bench, which I thought those guys did a good job, they tried hard, but in this atmosphere it makes it tough.”

Roberts wound up using big men Zuby Ejiofor and Zach Clemence seven and three minutes respectively. The duo did not score.

“It was hard sitting on the bench,” Adams said, “when all the exciting stuff was going on, but I got in on the clutch moments and we just couldn’t roll. But everybody did well and everybody did well when I wasn’t out there.”

Wilson said he’ll never forget this season, which included a Big 12 regular-season title one season after his national title campaign.

“We persevered through a lot. No matter what was going on, we stayed true to who we are and true to our family, our culture that we’ve built through many years that I’ve seen,” Wilson said. “This is one of the tightest groups I’ve ever been around.

“One thing about all year, no one is going to feel bad about anything that Kansas goes through. We have rallied through (challenges) with each other and understood that it’s really us against everybody else. No matter what the outcome is, you know, I love these guys, I loved this year, and I will remember this forever.”