CHICAGO — Even on a night Kansas couldn't shoot straight (22 of 56) or generate fast-break points (six) and got two rebounds from big man David McCormack and five points from All-American Ochai Agbaji, the Jayhawks had so stifled Providence that the Friars appeared to be reeling to the verge of submission.
By midway through the second half in their NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional semifinal game on Friday night at the United Center, though, the lone No. 1 seed still in the men's tournament had abruptly and inexplicably relented its grip on the game.
You weren't alone if you felt another familiar vibe, especially if you're a Chiefs-Jayhawks follower: When fourth-seeded Providence rallied from 13 down to take a 48-47 lead with 5 minutes, 49 seconds left, perhaps you had a flinching flashback to the AFC Championship Game collapse against the Bengals in January at Arrowhead Stadium.
But even with the Friars lurking within two possessions the rest of the way, what became a 66-61 KU victory ultimately was about the Jayhawks bristling when they had to, a lot of smothering defense, Remy Martin (23 points) and simply concocting a way — all the traits that have recently emerged as part of the DNA of a team that weeks ago had appeared to be more about offense than anything else.
"We never get rattled," said sophomore forward Jalen Wilson, who had made a layup 17 seconds after Providence finally tied it and put KU ahead for good with a three-point play 28 seconds after Providence took its only lead.
Just the same, coach Bill Self sputtered his lips and sighed with relief as he accepted congratulations on the way to the locker room and smiled when asked about Wilson's comment.
"I don't know that I totally buy in 100 percent that we don't ever get rattled," he said. "But I do think that ... (the Big 12) has prepared us in a way. We play so many close games. And every game is a fistfight."
It remains to be seen whether grinding out wins like the one over Creighton and this one are primarily revealing vulnerability or resolve, indicative of bearing fatal flaws or carrying that certain something, more symbolic of the ability to tighten up or just being too tight.
But KU absolutely should feel "ecstatic," to use Self's word, even as it prepares on Sunday to face twin challenges: the 10th-seeded Miami Hurricanes, who beat Iowa State, 70-56, later Friday to reach the Elite Eight for the first time in program history, and one of the few nagging nemeses in Self's career in the form of the Elite Eight round.
While Kansas advanced to the Final Four the last time it was in the Elite Eight, Self is just 3-7 overall in this round.
That reverberates all the more with the way this field has opened up in terms of seeding, harkening in some ways back to 2011 when top-seeded KU faced No. 11 seed VCU in the regional final only to fall 71-61.
And the fact there's no such thing as gift-wrapping via lesser seeds is reinforced by the fact Miami is coached by Jim Larranaga, who guided 11th-seeded George Mason to the Final Four in 2006.
Self in the past has offered a compelling reason for those struggles at this stage.
It's "the hardest game of the tournament," as he put it in 2017 ... just before KU lost to Oregon in an Elite Eight game at the T-Mobile Center.
Because the degree of difficulty goes up with the stakes and with teams clashing at peak momentum and the tantalizing prize before them.
"There's so much emphasis on (the) road to the Final Four," he said then. "It's almost like the Final Four could be the equivalent of the national championship 30 years ago, with the type of intensity and type of publicity that it gets. ...
"The goal is to win a national championship, but certainly all of the hoopla around it is (reaching) the Final Four."
And a different sort of standard comes with the territory at Kansas, again with a No. 1 seed and freshly minted (for the time being, anyway) victory leader in NCAA Division I men's history with the program's 2,354th win, surpassing Kentucky.
"If you lose in the first round, it stinks," Self said in 2017. "It stinks, especially at Kansas, but you were in the tournament. If you lose in the second round, at least you won a game.
"If you lose in the Sweet 16, we got to the second weekend. But the one you can't rationalize is the Elite Eight game."
All of that helps explain why Self was so uncharacteristically sentimental when KU beat Duke in overtime to return to the Final Four in 2018.
Not that he's unemotional. He's just not prone to showing that in prolonged ways publicly.
In this case, though, he was overcome in ways he never even exhibited when he took Kansas to the national title in 2008.
You could see it in how vigorously he hugged seniors Svi Mykhailiuk and Devonte' Graham. And in the video taken by KU Athletics in the locker room, the one in which Self had a quiver in his voice and choked up enough that he had to intermittently pause and even put his head in a towel for a moment to compose himself.
In fact, he appeared to actually cry ... though he scoffed at the suggestion in a call with The Kansas City Star the next day.
"I'm not that soft, to actually shed a tear over a game," Self said, in a tone that made you figure he was protesting too much.
So now KU is back at this pivotal crossroads, well-earned by winning about every way you can think of and with any number of things going awry along the way with Self navigating it all.
"We trust in our coach," Martin said, adding that he's the best out there.
Now they have a chance to help him burnish that record by exorcising the stigma of the Elite Eight to make all else possible.
