In a season that has seen an array of longstanding Kansas men’s basketball streaks fall by the wayside, the Jayhawks have a chance to preserve one of their most durable on Saturday afternoon.
KU will attempt to win in its regular-season home finale for the 42nd straight time, as it hosts Arizona for senior day at 3:30 p.m., sporting its traditional crimson uniforms.
“We don’t lose in those jerseys,” sixth-year senior point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. said. “We got to get that dub. And it’s against a really good team, Arizona. We come out how we’re supposed to come out, we could get the dub for sure and keep that tradition for sure.”
This is the first game between the two schools as league rivals, and it takes place on the final day of the Big 12 season; there was some offseason consternation in the college basketball world that the Jayhawks did not also have a return date at the McKale Center this year, even as Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark conceded that KU and UA made for a “marquee matchup.”
In any case, for KU this is simply the next game on the schedule, as the Jayhawks have lost two straight after lackluster late-game sequences and have a chance to improve their prospects for the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments by beating the 24th-ranked Wildcats.
“It’s just going to be a really good game,” Harris said, “and we got to come ready to play because we already lost games in Allen before this year and we can’t keep adding onto it, and then it’s senior night.”
Arizona has lost four of its last seven games after opening the Big 12 slate 11-1, but the Wildcats come to Lawrence in better form after beating rival Arizona State 113-100 on Tuesday night, a performance befitting the Big 12’s top scoring team (80.2 points per game) and one of its lesser scoring defenses (13th, 74.1 points per game).
A big part of that offense is Caleb Love, who once attempted the potential game-tying 3-pointer that fell short for North Carolina in the 2022 national title game against KU. Now a fifth-year senior, Love ranks among the leading scorers in the Big 12 with 17.1 points per game since the start of league play, but he’s accomplished that on a league-high shot total — making him an outlier with 36% shooting on what is generally one of the league’s most efficient offenses.
“He’s certainly a guy that can get his own shot pretty much when he wants to, which is rare in college basketball,” KU coach Bill Self said on Thursday.
A key strength for the Wildcats is their rebounding margin, a category in which they outperform anyone else in the league, including Houston by about one board per game. That’s largely thanks to 6-foot-8 forward Tobe Awaka, a Tennessee transfer averaging eight rebounds to go with his 8.5 points, as well as six other players grabbing at least 3.9 boards per game (KU only has four total players above that mark).
“Obviously Caleb is a terrific player but he’s not a one-man show by any means,” KU coach Bill Self said. “They’ve got guys at all spots.”
Guard Jaden Bradley joins Love in the backcourt as the only other player to start all 30 games, putting up 11.6 points per game; Arizona also has KJ Lewis providing a spark with 10.8 as the first man off the bench.
The Wildcats don’t usually start a player taller than Awaka, but they get about 20 minutes per game from 7-foot Estonian center Henri Veesaar, who is coming off a career-high 22 points in the ASU game.
The matchup between KU and UA will cap off a challenging three-game stretch and complete the regular-season careers of many of the Jayhawks’ longest-tenured players.
“It’s my last game at Allen, so I got to go out with a bang, try to play my hardest out there because I won’t step on that court ever again,” Harris said.
Kansas Jayhawks (19-11, 10-9 Big 12) vs. No. 24 Arizona Wildcats (20-10, 14-5 Big 12)
• Allen Fieldhouse, Lawrence, 3:30 p.m.
• Broadcast: ESPN
• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KMXN FM 92.9)
Keep an eye out
A whopping seven seniors will be honored as part of Saturday’s festivities: KJ Adams, Hunter Dickinson, Harris, Zeke Mayo and Shakeel Moore, plus walk-ons Patrick Cassidy and Dillon Wilhite.
All but Dickinson and Moore will give postgame speeches, as Dickinson spoke last year and Moore (currently out with a foot injury) did so at his previous school, Mississippi State.
Self said on his “Hawk Talk” radio show on Wednesday that Adams and Harris, “particularly those two more so in my mind, deserve to be recognized as much as any that we’ve had here in a long time.”
He explained that fans have gotten the chance to watch them grow up and triumph over adversity over the course of their extended stints on campus (four years for Adams, six for Harris).
“Juan and KJ are going to be the exception rather than the norm moving forward of guys that have spent a combined 10 years in your program,” Self said on Thursday.
“Me and Dajuan are forever interlocked with each other,” Adams said. “… Our journeys and everything has been the same, that’s why everybody kind of interlocks us together as a whole, and me and him are just grateful for it. I wouldn’t change the world for a better point guard and I hope he feels the same. I think we both feel the same emotions. I feel like we kind of made this us — this place, the University of Kansas, we made this who we are.”
Notably absent from the senior-day list is guard David Coit, who received an extra year of eligibility due to an NCAA blanket waiver for former JUCO athletes whose careers would have ended with the 2024-25 season, and who has previously said he wants to return to KU for the 2025-26 campaign.
While senior day often features special one-time starting lineups, Self said he expects to keep the lineup the same as it has been heading into the Arizona game, with as many seniors as KU has available this season (including four of its usual starters).
“I think senior night is a big night for a lot of people,” Adams said. “It’s a bigger night for the parents of the players that have sacrificed everything for them, and I think that’s kind of who all the seniors are playing for.”
Off-kilter observation
Harris is now not only the leader in all-time games played at KU but in the Big 12 Conference as a whole. He will play his 170th on Saturday.
Kansas forward KJ Adams Jr. (24) roars after a dunk during the second half on Saturday, March 1, 2025 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
Kansas’s Hunter Dickinson (1) goes up for a shot as Houston’s Ja’Vier Francis defends during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Monday, March 3, 2025, in Houston.
Kansas guard Dajuan Harris Jr. controls the ball against Colorado on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, in Boulder, Colo.
Kansas guard Zeke Mayo (5) pumps up the crowd as he gets back on defense during the first half on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
Kansas guard Shakeel Moore (0) drives up court during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Iowa State Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, in Ames, Iowa.
Kansas guard Patrick Cassidy fires a 3-pointer during a scrimmage at Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena in Lawrence on Tuesday, June 4, 2024.
Kansas forward Dillon Wilhite, left, is defended by Central Florida guard Tyler Hendricks during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025 in Orlando, Fla.
Nick Krug
AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Kansas Athletics
AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
AP Photo/Kevin Kolczynski