The 2019-20 Kansas basketball season is finally here. Starting tonight with a top-five matchup against Duke, Kansas will work their way toward another potential Final Four. In this article, I will detail my game-by-game predictions of the Jayhawks’ regular-season matchups.
The expectations for the 2019-20 Kansas basketball team are as high as they’ve ever been. Of course, the talk about “expectations” has become trite at this point considering Kansas has the same goal every single year: Make it to the Final Four, and hopefully, win the National Championship.
While the expectations are always the same, the stakes have increased considerably in light of the recent notice of allegations sent to Kansas by the NCAA in September.
In past years, early NCAA Tournament defeats have been easier for Kansas basketball fans to swallow because there is always the hope for a national championship “next season.” However, there may not be a “next season” in 2020-21. If Kansas basketball fails to exonerate the program from the alleged recruiting violations, it’s entirely possible that they will be suspended from postseason play next year.
With that being said, this year’s team is not only expected to make the Final Four, but they are also expected to WIN the Final Four. Anything less than that will be considered a colossal failure.
Luckily for the Jayhawks, it’s only November. They have four months to tune their game in preparation for the big dance in March. But as always, it’s not going to be an easy four months. Everyone knows about the cannibalization that happens during the tumultuous Big 12 Conference regular-season; but before that even starts, Kansas has to play no. 4 Duke, no. 10 Villanova, and potentially no. 1 Michigan State during the non-conference portion of the schedule.
You won’t hear Bill Self and company complain about the difficult schedule, though. He knows, the team knows, and the fans know, that the team is really, really, really good. So good that (if healthy) they should be favored in 95% of their upcoming regular-season games.
Without further ado, here are my intrepid predictions for those said 2019-20 Kansas basketball games.