Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball's bonkers AP poll streak snapped
Yesterday at 03:03 PM
The Kansas Jayhawks are unranked in the men’s college basketball AP Poll for the first time since February 2021.
The latest edition of the poll, released on Monday, made official what many suspected last week when Kansas lost by 34 at BYU: the Jayhawks’ 80-week streak as a ranked team is over. It was the second-longest active streak behind their Big 12 rivals, the Houston Cougars.
Kansas is now 18-9 on the season with a road game coming Monday night against the Colorado Buffaloes. The Jayhawks are also 9-7 in conference play, good for sixth place.
Even unranked, Kansas still has plenty of reason to believe it can be a major contender come NCAA Tournament time. The Jayhawks had a stellar start to the season with wins over Michigan State and Duke in the first month. Both of those teams are in the top eight of the AP Poll. They also routed No. 9 Iowa State at home earlier in February.
The metrics show promising signs for the Jayhawks as well. They’re ranked fifth in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency, according to KenPom, and Hunter Dickinson is in the top 10 in the KenPom Player of the Year rankings.
Bill Self is in the midst of his worst 2 seasons as Kansas men’s basketball coach
For almost any other program, Kansas’ last two seasons would have been perfectly satisfactory — exceptional, in some places. But this is Kansas, a blueblood program used to being a national championship contender almost every season.
Kansas finished tied for fifth in the Big 12 last year, closing the season hobbled by an astounding lack of depth. That was supposed to have been fixed this season, but players like AJ Storr and Rylan Griffin have regressed relative to their previous seasons at Wisconsin and Alabama respectively. Dickinson has posted the numbers we’ve come to expect from the fifth-year senior and Zeke Mayo has been a sparkling addition via the transfer portal. But Kansas needs more consistency on offense and it’s hard to see from where they can get that extra push.
For now, head coach Bill Self is in the middle of his second subpar season in as many years. Prior to 2024, Self had never won fewer than 12 games in a conference season in Lawrence. Now, it’s likely he will fail to hit that mark for a second straight year. The program that hardly ever finished outside of the top two in the Big 12 is now three games out of the No. 2 spot with four to play in the regular season.
Kansas still has a ton of potential but these are not the same Jayhawks you’ve become accustomed to.
The post Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball’s bonkers AP poll streak snapped appeared first on ClutchPoints.
