Back-to-back Big 12 wins, including one on the road, earned the Kansas men’s basketball squad another first-place vote in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll.
The Jayhawks, who landed eight first-place votes, remained at No. 3 overall, behind No. 1 Houston, with 49 first-place votes, and No. 2 Alabama, with five.
Bill Self’s team has won six in a row in Big 12 play and eight of their last nine, following that three-game losing streak in the middle of the conference race.
As such, KU (24-5 overall, 12-4 Big 12) is currently in sole possession of first place in the Big 12 standings, one game up on Texas and two games up on Baylor and Kansas State, with two games to play.
Kansas can clinch a share of the 2022-23 Big 12 title with a win on Tuesday night at home against Texas Tech. The Jayhawks can win it outright with one more win and another Texas loss.
KU finishes the regular season schedule at home against Texas Tech (8 p.m. ESPN) and at Texas on Saturday. The Longhorns travel to TCU on Wednesday night before hosting Kansas at 3 p.m. on ESPN on Saturday.
This week’s AP poll featured five Big 12 teams, with Iowa State dropping out and falling to No. 31. Four of those — No. 3 Kansas, No. 7 Baylor, No. 9 Texas and No. 11 Kansas State — are in the AP’s top 11.
The Jayhawks were just 11 points shy of moving into the No. 2 spot and they finished well ahead of No. 4 UCLA and No. 5 Purdue.
Marquette, Baylor, Arizona, Texas and Gonzaga round out this week’s Top 10.
Kansas, which leads the NCAA by a wide margin in Quad 1 victories with 15, is 6-4 this season against the current Top 25. All of KU’s five losses have come against Quad 1 foes and Kansas is the only team in the country that has not lost to a team outside of the Top 25 at the time they played them.
In addition to a Big 12 title, the Jayhawks are vying for a No. 1 seed in next month’s NCAA Tournament. That’s where they’re projected right now by nearly all of college basketball’s top prognosticators, and if they get it, it will mark the 10th time in 19 tournaments under Self — the 2020 tourney was canceled because of COVID — that the Jayhawks have landed on the 1 line.
The bracket will be revealed on March 12, one day after the competition of what promises to be a wild Big 12 tournament in Kansas City, Missouri, which is slated for March 8-11 at T-Mobile Center.
