Border War foes Kansas and Missouri have reunited five times on the basketball court in recent seasons, rekindling a rivalry that went dormant for nearly a decade after the Tigers left for the SEC.
KU has won four of the five matchups, which have been split between Allen Fieldhouse, Mizzou Arena and the T-Mobile Center, dating back to 2021.
But the sixth game this December — again at the T-Mobile Center, technically a Missouri home game, set for Dec. 6 and featuring an unusual new element in the wake of Bryson Tiller’s cross-rivalry transfer — is set to be the last one in the series.
That’s pending any potential extension, a topic about which reporter Jon Rothstein asked KU coach Bill Self in an interview on the “Inside College Basketball Now” podcast that was released on Thursday.
“I’m certainly open to it, but I don’t know if there’s an update yet,” Self said.
Self then reiterated a sentiment he has previously expressed, which is that agreeing to any given series is an uncertain proposition when KU already has so many commitments on the calendar: the CBS Sports Classic, the Champions Classic, the Players Era, an Indiana game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas during the 2027-28 season, and so on.
“You’ve still got to get a marquee home-and-home, so that’ll be one game home, one game away,” Self said. “It starts running into, hey, how much do you want? Because our league is a monster.”
And Self said that he also thinks it is the “percentage play” that the Big 12 returns to 20 league games, a model it briefly employed during the 2024-25 season that coaches did not appreciate — and one to which it may return now that the regular season as a whole has expanded to 32 games.
“Us coaches, we wanted 18 (league games) so we could control our schedule a little more,” Self said. “When they went to 32, I think there’s a chance the ADs now want 20. And it’s being discussed, which I think is fair. But from my standpoint, I would rather be at 18 at Kansas and then I could control my schedule.”
Under a 20-game league schedule, KU would be limited to 12 nonconference slots.
Whatever the case, Self did not offer an enthusiastic endorsement of the Border War’s continuation, which puts him at odds with his counterpart at Missouri.
Dennis Gates previously said he wants to “renew that contract for the next 50 years,” according to the Columbia Daily Tribune, and in his own recent Rothstein interview said in part, “It won’t be me holding it up. I know that. I would sign a contract right now, but sometimes there’s other things that a play a part of it that I’m not a part of.”
KU leads Missouri 178-96 in the all-time series, including most recently an 80-60 victory at the T-Mobile Center last December.
AP Photo/L.G. Patterson
