ORLANDO — Kansas basketball struggled offensively Wednesday during its loss against UCF, especially with senior center Hunter Dickinson out of the game.

The No. 3 Jayhawks couldn’t sustain quality possessions. They scored the second-lowest amount of points they had all season. UCF’s varying defensive strategies foiled what Kansas came into the night attempting to accomplish during Big 12 Conference play.

But after the 65-60 defeat, Kansas coach Bill Self volunteered that the issues his team — and Dickinson — had weren’t just because of what the Knights were able to do. According to Self, Dickinson is dealing with a knee issue. The Jayhawks (13-2, 1-1 in Big 12) lost against UCF (10-4, 1-1 in Big 12) for a multitude of reasons, and this was another one.

“If he didn’t have a bad knee, I’d say, ‘Yes, for sure,’” said Self, as he reflected on why he didn’t play Dickinson more despite those issues offensively. “But yeah, he’s been struggling with his knee and all of that stuff in practice and everything. So, we knew going into it, it would be really good if we could get him less minutes. He told me even in the first half, when things were going well, that he was really laboring.”

Dickinson finished the game with 12 points, four rebounds and an assist. That came along with a couple of turnovers and four fouls. The foul trouble also contributed to the amount of time Kansas played without its star big-man.

Dickinson played the fewest minutes he had since the Jayhawks’ first couple games of the season, wins against North Carolina Central and Manhattan. Kansas tried to go with junior forward KJ Adams Jr. as a small-ball five-man in Dickinson’s absence, but it never led to the kind of success the Jayhawks were able to enjoy last season with Adams in that role. Adams himself struggled, and finished with the second-most turnovers among Kansas players.

Graduate senior guard Kevin McCullar Jr. acknowledged postgame that Dickinson’s foul trouble affected the Jayhawks. However, he also assumed some responsibility for letting that occur. UCF’s bigs had the better night Wednesday, and that’s not all on Dickinson.

“(Dickinson) being in foul trouble, of course, hurt, being able to go inside to the big fella,” McCullar said. “We’ve got to do a better job helping him not get in foul trouble, us guards guarding the ball a little better so they’re not going in, driving at him. And, yeah, it hurt us a little bit but we’ve got to learn how to play without him, too. In big games, you never know who’s going to go down or be in foul trouble. So, we’ve got to have a next-man-up mentality.”

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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: Kansas basketball center Hunter Dickinson dealing with ‘bad knee’