Minutes ago, the Kansas Jayhawks were nominated as the 19th-best team in the nation according to the Associated Press.
This is a Kansas team that has stumbled over the past couple of years under head coach Bill Self. Since the 2021-22 NCAA National Championship, the Jayhawks have gone 68-32, while giving up Big 12 superiority to the Houston Cougars, who are led by Kelvin Sampson.
Since moving to the Big 12, Houston has gone 67-10 in its two full seasons, with last season ending in the Cougars falling narrowly short in the National Championship with a 65-63 loss to the Florida Gators.
Houston leads the Big 12 and is second in the nation, with BYU falling in at No. 8, Texas Tech at No. 10, Arizona at No. 13, and Iowa State at No. 16, all ranking above the Jayhawks.
Last season, the Jayhawks finished with a 21-13 record; those 13 losses are the most for Self since his second year at Oral Roberts in 1994-95, when Self managed a 10-17 record during that time.
Kansas has reloaded from last season with an elite recruiting class, which 247Sports rings as the ninth-best recruiting class in the nation. That class is led by the nation’s No. 1 recruit, (G) Darryn Peterson. Joining Peterson are two other top-100 recruits in (G) Kohl Roasario (72) and (F) Samis Calderon (84). Further international recruits bring in (C) Paul Mbiya, who is touted as a four-star, along with three-star Corbin Allen
Kansas has also taken on the likes of transfers Jayden Dawson (Loyola-Chicago), Tre White (Illinois), and Melvin Council Jr. (St. Bonaventure). All three of these transfers were rated as four-stars in the portal and came in with a .9300, and are also seniors. Lastly, joining that group is graduate student Nginyu Ngala (International),
A placement around this part in the list was mostly expected. The Jayhawks have largely underwhelmed and have seen mixed results through the portal, leaving huge expectations on Peterson and on this core of transfers to turn things around immediately.
No other conference in the nation posts more teams in the top 25, with the Big Ten and the SEC also touting six teams, leaving the Big 12 as arguably the best basketball conference in the nation. It is up to Kansas to weave through a tricky schedule and bring itself back to national dominance.
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