Bill Self was hired at Kansas on April 21, 2003.
Which means it took 7,957 days — until Saturday, specifically — for the Jayhawks to hit the low point of his Hall of Fame career.
Given that it’s Kansas and Bill Self we’re talking about here, even the low points are still pretty high. Most programs can only wish for their darkest moments to look as relatively bright as Kansas’ worst days. Keep in mind the 15-6 Jayhawks are well on their way to the NCAA Tournament for a 35th consecutive time. Slotted No. 11 in the AP Top 25 this week, they’ll still easily be ranked when the polls refresh Monday. Plus, KU is still cozily in the top-15 in multiple predictive metrics.
But Saturday proved for good that this team isn’t a 2025 Big 12 contender and, beyond that, it seems destined to do something next month that we haven’t seen in more than four decades. More on that in a minute.
First, let’s get into Saturday’s debacle in Waco, Texas, against Baylor. The Jayhawks fell 81-70 to an unranked Bears team that was without starting point guard Jeremy Roach, then lost likely top-10 pick VJ Edgecombe to a left ankle injury early in the second half. Before that, Kansas was up 21 points.
It proceeded to blow its biggest lead in a loss in school history. That’s more than 100 years of Kansas hoops.
I can’t believe a Self-coached team actually vomited away that game. On a Saturday filled with outrageous finishes and season-altering outcomes, Kansas getting tidal-waved by Baylor is as loud a result as any.
In the final 21 minutes of gameplay, BU outscored KU 64-32. Kansas became the first ranked team in 15 years to lose by double digits after holding a halftime lead of at least 15 points. Without Roach and Edgecombe, Baylor’s Robert Wright III, a freshman, saw an opportunity against Kansas to have his breakout moment. He scored 20 of his 24 after halftime, helping BU with multiple second-half double-digit runs.
Why couldn’t Kansas shut him down and, in turn, win the game?
On Kansas’ end, Hunter Dickinson put up 20 points (he continues to be KU’s best player, comfortably), while a hobbled Dajuan Harris Jr. was game to give it a good effort, but 12 points, eight assists and three turnovers kept KU from handling prosperity. Opposite Dickinson was BU big Norchad Omier, who stuffed the stat sheet with 18 points and 16 rebounds.
Oddly, KU freshman Flory Bidunga, who started over usual starter KJ Adams (on his way back from injury as well), logged just 15 minutes. His absence in the second half unquestionably played a role in Baylor’s historic surge. Why didn’t Self have faith in Bidunga?
The Bears are 16-4, with a 6-4 record in the Big 12 and might have found new life for the back half of the league slate.
Kansas? It’s on a path to disappointment, the likes of which hasn’t been in more than four decades.
Battle for the Big 12
The top of the Big 12 standings after Saturday’s games.
Self’s team has had a number of dramatic games this season. Earlier this week, against middling UCF, they flirted with their first back-to-back home losses since the late 1980s before winning 91-87. A week ago, Kansas found a way to blow two nearly un-blowable leads in regulation and overtime before losing 92-86 to Houston in double OT. Earlier this season, it was taken out in shocking fashion at home by West Virginia. Sixteen days later, it was routed 74-57 at Iowa State.
With a 6-4 record alongside Baylor and BYU, Kansas is fifth in the Big 12 race — the same place it finished in 2024. This is a program that made finishing first in the best league in the sport so routine, it was hard not to take it for granted.
Now, the historic path it appears to be walking: Kansas hasn’t gone back-to-back years finishing beyond the top two of the Big 12 since 1987-88 and 1988-89. That seems a near-lock.
And the last time it finished outside the top three in consecutive sesons? That was in 1981-82 and 1982-83 (ending a stretch of five consecutive seasons outside the top three in the Big Eight).
In fact, from 2001-2023, Kansas finished top-three in the Big 12 every year, with a top-two finish in every season except 2018-19 (third). Kansas fans must feel shellshocked at the moment.
The Jayhawks have been a mediocre team from 3-point range often under Self (not ranking anywhere near the top 10 since 2017-18) and this year is more of the same. KU is hitting 34% of its shots from beyond the arc. The transfer portal additions of Zeke Mayo, Rylen Griffen and AJ Storr have collectively fallen well short of expectations, and it’s combined with a tangible lack of verve between Dickinson, Adams and Harris that has KU in this limbo where the team is far from bad, but it’s also not an inspiring watch.
If you go back a dozen years, Self has a claim as the best coach in the sport. He can figure this out, but it also seems like his biggest challenge in 20-plus years with the school. For as great as Self is, I have doubts this team will figure it out, because it feels like — although the problems are different — the barriers to entry for elite status this season have similar vibes to what plagued Kansas most of last season.
That team, like this one, was ranked preseason No. 1.
Last year’s team barely got out of the first round before losing to Gonzaga in the second. These Jayhawks are pacing toward another Big 12 finish outside of the top three of the league’s standings. Is a similar March fate awaiting? A preseason No. 1 KU team has never made the Sweet 16.
Even the greatest programs face down periods. For most, that means missing the NCAA Tournament or worse. (Take a look at North Carolina this season or what Louisville was the past two years.) For Kansas, it means the horror of not being the best, or the second best, or even the third best team in the conference you’ve owned for decades.
At Kansas, the standard is different than literally every other program in the sport.
Can this team start playing like it?
Read the full article here