Path to a Big 12 title still exists for Kansas basketball
By Mike Norris
The road to the Big 12 regular season men’s basketball championship runs through Lawrence, until it doesn’t. Could this be the year Kansas basketball plays second (or third, or fourth) fiddle to another team in the conference?
Fourteen years ago Kansas basketball head coach Bill Self was in year two at the helm of the Jayhawks, coming off a second-place finish in the Big 12 and was an overtime loss to Georgia Tech away from reaching his first Final Four.
He and the Jayhawks would eventually tie Oklahoma for first place in the Big 12. It was KU’s fifth regular season title in the nine years of the conference’s existence, so it didn’t seem like anything too special. However, it was the start of an NCAA record that may never be broken.
Self has won the past 13 conference titles since that 2005 season, some with ease and others after everyone had counted them out. But if his team is to win its 15th straight, it would come under the most improbable odds.
Kansas currently sits at second place in the Big 12 — nothing to frown at — but a full two games in the loss column behind in-state rival Kansas State — a team that has won nine straight conference games following an 0-2 start.
To its credit the Jayhawks, who lost three home games last season, are 14-0 at Allen Fieldhouse this year.
But they should be. Self has only lost 13 games in 15-plus years as coach, so fans expect near perfection in a building that is perfect itself.
Success on the road is what usually separates Kansas from the pack, but that hasn’t been the case this year. The Jayhawks’ 82-77 overtime win at TCU on Monday was just their second true road victory in eight games this season. For context, the Wildcats are 5-4 away from home and eighth-place Oklahoma is 4-5.
A total breakdown at the end of a loss at West Virginia last month could end up costing Kansas the streak. It’s about as bad a loss as the team could have, considering Texas won in Morgantown by 22 points on February 9th and West Virginia is 10-14 overall.
Kansas can exact revenge on Saturday at home, which will put them at 9-4 in conference play. It’s not a horrible place to be, but it’s also not where the ‘Hawks are used to being two thirds of the way through Big 12 play.
The question of whether or not the streak continuing should matter has been posed online by fans, but the fact remains it will be talked about until it ends.
It won’t be easy, but here a few ways Kansas can keep it going, whether the rest of the Big 12 likes it or not.