The Kansas men’s basketball team officially has finished the season as the No. 1-ranked team in college basketball.
The 28-3 Jayhawks, by a comfortable margin, held onto their top spot in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll of 2019-20 and will enter the 2020-21 season on the brink of another record.
This week’s poll, which was released late Wednesday morning, marked the 220th consecutive week that Kansas had been ranked in the AP Top 25.
That streak is just one week shy of UCLA’s all-time record of 221 consecutive weeks, meaning, that if the Jayhawks open next season’s poll ranked anywhere in the Top 25 they will tie the Bruins for poll longevity and add another NCAA record to the record books.
Several of those “way-too-early” 2020-21 polls from national college basketball analysts already have been released and almost all of them have KU in the preseason Top 10.
Bill Self’s Jayhawks, which entered the final week of the regular season as the unanimous No. 1 team in the country, received 63 of 65 first-place votes in this week’s poll. No. 2 Gonzaga and No. 3 Dayton each picked up one first-place vote in the final poll.
Florida State and Baylor rounded out the final Top 5 and the top nine spots in the final AP poll were unchanged from a week ago.
That fact led many to believe that the Jayhawks were headed toward the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament before concerns over the spread of the coronavirus led to NCAA officials calling off March Madness.
KU coach Bill Self said earlier this week that, “nobody in America had a better season than we did,” and added that both he and his players believed the Jayhawks were poised for a “special” run in the postseason.
“I think this team thought (it was ready), from a toughness standpoint, from having to deal with the pressure of you can’t lose again in an unbelievably difficult league after Baylor beat us and then (from) dealing with the distractions,” Self said. “I think that most people that follow our team would agree they could not have handled more maturely or better than what they did.”
Wednesday marked the fourth time since the inception of the men’s AP poll for the 1946-47 season that Kansas finished on top. The Jayhawks, who earlier in the week were ranked No. 1 in the final USA Today coaches poll, finished 8-3 this season against teams either in or receiving votes in the final AP poll.
The AP said Wednesday it does not declare a national champion in the sport because of the NCAA Tournament.
Here’s a look at the final AP poll of 2019-20:
1 – Kansas, 28-3, 1,623 (63)
2 – Gonzaga, 31-2, 1,547 (1)
3 – Dayton, 29-2, 1,505 (1)
4 – Florida State, 26-5, 1,381
5 – Baylor, 26-4, 1,337
6 – San Diego State, 30-2, 1,279
7 – Creighton, 24-7, 1,154
8 – Kentucky, 25-6, 1,118
9 – Michigan State, 22-9, 1,023
10 – Villanova, 24-7, 1,011
11 – Duke, 25-6, 990
12 – Maryland, 24-7, 924
13 – Oregon, 24-7, 892
14 – Louisville, 24-7, 768
15 – Seton Hall, 21-9, 272
16 – Virginia, 23-7, 586
17 – Wisconsin, 21-10, 539
18 – BYU, 24-8, 537
19 – Ohio State, 21-10, 459
20 – Auburn, 25-6, 453
21 – Illinois, 21-10, 263
22 – Houston, 23-8, 179
23 – Butler, 22-9, 165
24 – West Virginia, 159
25 – Iowa, 20-11, 109
Others receiving votes: Stephen F. Austin 78, East Tennessee State 66, Providence 63, Michigan 62, Utah State 36, Saint Mary’s 33, Penn State 21, Arizona 7, Rutgers 6, Richmond 6, USC 4, New Mexico State 4, Texas Tech 3, UCLA 2, Vermont 2, Purdue 1, Belmont 1, Liberty 1, Utah 1.