Road woes may put end to impressive Kansas basketball streak

This year’s squad, which has dominated folks at home, looks more like the Bad News Bears version of basketball than the program that has more conference titles than any other Division I school in the country.

Every Jayhawk fan in the world wishes there was some formula that could point to why Kansas turns into a pumpkin after leaving Lawrence, but the answer might just be the power of Allen Fieldhouse. It could be that the lack of depth — and apparently heart — aren’t quite bad enough to overtake the aura of college basketball’s Mecca.

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The Phog has produced just 13 losses since Self walked through the tunnel for the first time in November of 2003. While talent and great coaching have played a huge role in that, no one goes 249-13 over 15-plus years without a little help. Insert your Big 12 referee conspiracy theory here if you’d like, but let’s not act as if Duke doesn’t get calls in Cameron and Kansas State doesn’t get calls in Allen Fieldhouse West.

The original Allen Fieldhouse is as electric as it gets, and even a team like this year’s bunch can receive a boost big enough to look like a Final Four team. Just ask Texas Tech coach Chris Beard, whose team — yes the same team that whacked Kansas on Saturday — lost by 16 to the Jayhawks on February 2nd, causing Beard to say afterward: “You’d have to be an idiot not to understand what we were walking into,” per the Associated Press.

Maybe it’s just time to admit the 2018-19 Kansas Jayhawks, at least the version that includes missing four big-time contributors, could be the least talented team we’ve seen in Lawrence in a decade and a half.

Lack of talent makes road games even more difficult, and this is something the Jayhawks aren’t used to.

But let’s not count them out just yet.

Should they take care of business against a very good Wildcats team Monday, a game in which they are favored in, they will trail Kansas State and Texas Tech by just one game each for first place. The Jayhawks will be favored in each of their remaining three games (at Oklahoma State and Oklahoma and in Lawrence against Baylor), and it would take just one loss by the Wildcats and Red Raiders for there to be a three-way tie for the title.

That is plausible. But it also means Kansas basketball would have two win as many road conference games in a week as it has all season. If history tells us anything, it’s that the Jayhawks could win them both. If 2018-19 tells us anything, it’s don’t place that bet just yet.