After losing five consecutive road games during January and early February, KU on Saturday finally boarded a bus after a win following a 64-50 victory at Iowa State.

“I wouldn’t say we had to prove it (to ourselves),” KU big man David McCormack said of winning on the road. “Because we definitely know we can. We just have to make sure that we lock in defensively and just do what coach asks of us and everything will come easy.”

The win improved KU to 3-5 in true road games this season and 5-6 in games played outside of Allen Fieldhouse.

Kansas coach Bill Self, unlike McCormack, said the mental part of winning away from home again was important for this team, which has now won three straight games heading into the homestretch of the regular season.

“I’ll be honest; that never came up in our talk,” Self said of the road struggles. “But I do think we needed that,” Self said.

Confidence soaring

Having won three games in a row heading into the home stretch of the 2020-21 season, the Jayhawks continue to have high hopes and big expectations for the rest of their run.

“Within the team, we know that we can compete with any team in the country when we’re at our best,” sophomore guard Christian Braun said this week. “We’ve seen it and we’re just trying to get better every day and let our game work our way into (a rhythm) and not worry too much about it.”

Added redshirt freshman guard Jalen Wilson, who started the season hot, hit a slump in the middle and has started to assert himself again late: “We’re on a good pace right now. We’re playing well. And I’m just confident in myself and the team and what we can do now.”

Jayhawk-less bracket teaser

The NCAA Tournament selection committee on Saturday released the identity of the top 16 teams in the country as things currently stand.

For the first time since they began providing a sneak peek at the bracket a few years ago, KU was not included.

The 16 teams make up what would be the top four seeds in each region, and any of them can play their way up or down in the seedings between today and the start of the NCAA Tournament in mid-March.

What was both no surprise and the easiest thing to predict about the first look was the fact that unbeaten Gonzaga and Baylor were in the top two spots.

“To no one’s surprise, these two teams are considered the best of the best,” said Mitch Barnhart, Kentucky athletic director and the chair of the committee. “Gonzaga and Baylor have been dominant teams to this point, and while there’s no reason to think that won’t continue, the beauty of college basketball is that anything can happen on a given night.”

Michigan and Ohio State were the other No. 1 seeds as of Saturday, and Big 12 schools Oklahoma (11), Texas Tech (13) and Texas (14) also made an appearance on the list.

Selection Sunday, when the full 68-team bracket is revealed, is set for March 14.

Prior to Saturday’s victory, KU jumped up to the 5 seed line in Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology on ESPN.com. The Jayhawks had been as low as a 6 seed in Lunardi’s projections.

Bigs be gone?

While the game of basketball, at all levels, has moved to smaller lineups and less reliance on true big men in recent years, Self recently said that forwards and centers still have a place in the game.

“You know, teams are still playing inside-out,” Self said. “They’re just playing inside-out off the bounce rather than the pass.”

After a rough start to the season by its primary big man, Kansas has seen junior forward David McCormack become much more productive since the start of conference play.

McCormack (13 points and 8 rebounds on Saturday) now has scored in double digits in 10 of KU’s 14 Big 12 games — including six in a row — and Self has asked his team to play through the 6-10 junior more and more each week.

Self said that the 3-point line, which was not fully implemented in college basketball until 1986, has changed the game so much throughout the years and its importance has sky-rocketed in the past decade. Even with that being the case, though, Self believes teams with quality big men will still use them. He added that it’s a major bonus if teams have big men who can hurt opponents with the 3-point shot.

“I think people will play to their strengths,” Self said. “I don’t want to say exactly what the next trend will be, but to say that (traditional two-big lineups are) a thing of the past I think would be an exaggeration. But we do want bigs that can shoot. I think that would still be something that would work quite well.”

This and that…

Saturday’s victory marked KU’s fourth consecutive win over the Cyclones and improved KU’s lead in the all-time series with ISU to 186-66… The Jayhawks have won four of the last five against the Cyclones and Self is now 31-10 all-time against Iowa State, with all but one of those games (a victory) coming during his time at Kansas.