On an injured ankle, Kevin McCullar Jr. helps lead Kansas basketball to win at Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Kentucky — There was a stretch Saturday in the second half when it looked as if Kansas basketball was going to have to beat Kentucky with only nine scholarship players available.

The Jayhawks entered the game with both redshirt freshman guard Kyle Cuffe Jr. and super-senior forward Cam Martin unavailable. In the first half, freshman Zuby Ejiofor turned his ankle and was ruled out for the remainder of the game. And then early in the second half, redshirt senior guard Kevin McCullar Jr. turned his ankle as well.

But while the nearly five minutes that followed McCullar’s injury saw the Wildcats trim Kansas’ lead from nine to six, McCullar did end up returning with about 14 minutes left in regulation. He played out the remainder of the game. And the No. 9 Jayhawks pulled out a 77-68 win on the road at Kentucky.

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“I was more confident when (McCullar) came back,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “But, yeah, I mean I think our guys are capable of doing well. But the way that we were trying to trap the post and stuff, if we didn’t have Kevin it would have been dead. So, Oscar (Tshiebwe) would have had a much bigger night if Kevin hadn’t have come back.”

A win for the Jayhawks was always going to be significant, given this was a matchup of two blue-blood programs. It was also the two sides’ part in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. And there was the three-game losing streak Kansas entered the contest with.

It was rare enough in the Self era for a three-game losing streak to happen. But under Self, who took over ahead of the 2003-04 season, the Jayhawks (17-4, 5-3 in Big 12 Conference) had never lost four straight. With a return to the Big 12 gauntlet looming, they could have returned home from this road trip making the kind of history they would never have planned on making.

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Self and some of his players seemed to downplay the pressure of that postgame. Playing this kind of a matchup inside Rupp Arena, especially after losing at home by almost 20 points last season against the Wildcats (14-7, 5-3 in Southeastern Conference), was where their comments skewed toward. There was, though, a degree of acknowledgement of the confidence this can bring them moving forward.

McCullar finished with 11 points and 12 rebounds for his second-straight double-double. For the most part, he was an asset defensively. And a 3-pointer he hit late in the second half to put Kansas up 73-66 seemed to be the final blow the Jayhawks needed to deliver.

“I asked Kevin if he wanted to go back, and he said, ‘Heck yeah, I’m already hurt. I might as well play,’” said Self, who praised how all his starters performed against Kentucky. “So, yeah, he was great. He rebounded the ball. He got his hands on several balls. We were trapping and our rotations weren’t great, but he made up for others’ mistakes because he’s so smart defensively. And he hadn’t shot the ball great of late, but then he makes the biggest shot of the game, probably, to kind of give us a little cushion there late. I’m really happy with him.”

Freshman center Ernest Udeh Jr. added about McCullar: “He was on the bench with me, I was talking to him, I was like, ‘You feel like you could go back in?’ He told me, ‘Yeah.’ So, it was really huge. He made that shot, and I feel like we really needed that shot. And, ultimately, we won the game.”

The road really doesn’t get any easier for Kansas moving forward. On Tuesday, the Jayhawks will welcome Kansas State (18-3, 6-2 in Big 12) to Allen Fieldhouse in a rematch of an overtime thriller earlier this season in Manhattan. Then come games at Iowa State, vs. Texas and at both Oklahoma and Oklahoma State to take Kansas through the first half of February.

It’s unclear if Ejiofor will be healthy enough to return Tuesday for the Kansas State game, or if his recovery timeline will force him to miss some time. He was wearing a boot on his left foot when he returned to the bench in the second half, and Self didn’t have anything to add on his status. But it doesn’t seem like anyone needs to worry about McCullar potentially missing out as well.

“I just cut to the basket, I stepped on a dude’s foot, I just tweaked my ankle a little bit, but I’ll be good,” McCullar said. “Got the best trainer in (Bill Cowgill), he’s going to get me back right and I’ll be ready for Tuesday.”

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: On injured ankle, Kevin McCullar Jr. leads Kansas to win at Kentucky