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Kansas Basketball Players 'Humbled' Against French Club Team

The Kansas Jayhawks are taking their trip overseas for one primary reason: experience. Some of that comes in the form of seeing cities like Paris for the first time. Some of that also comes on the court when being defeated by a team that head coach Bill Self said his players expected to defeat. After defeating the Swiss national team earlier this week, Kansas players found a different tune on Saturday with a 74-73 loss to AMW Team France.

"You've got four returning guys that have been told for three months how great they are and all this and all that. Hey, they were humbled," Self said. "All of them got their butts handed to them by pro players in France. So if you think you're an NBA guy, and you can't handle a guy in France, then probably you're not an NBA guy. So they've all been humbled. They know now they've got to get to work, because that was a good water in the face for all of us to know that, ‘Hey, nobody cares what happened last year.'"

Self continued to use this moment as a tough teaching opportunity heading into the fall by talking up the need for improvements everywhere.

"We're not very good at all. We can improve on everything," Self said. "I would just like to be able to pass and dribble and catch. That would be a good starting point. Forget about shooting or guarding or anything."

Ben McLemore sat the game out once again for the Jayhawks with a groin injury.