The Kansas football team just returned from a first-of-its-kind trip to London for the Union Jack Classic.
The Jayhawks came away with $2.7 million, an appearance on “Big Noon Kickoff” and a memorable experience for their players and staff — though not the outcome they would have wanted, as they lost to Arizona State at Wembley Stadium. Athletic director Travis Goff said that KU is now “thirsting” for more international opportunities.
Don’t expect the KU men’s basketball team to raise its hand for anything in that realm any time soon, at least if it comes during the regular season. Head coach Bill Self, now in his 24th year, was asked if he would be eager to do something like going to London and provided a firm denial.
“Absolutely not,” he said on Wednesday. “I would never do that. Basketball season is too short, so you could go over there and I think it could wipe you out for two or three weeks. (The football team is) waiting two weeks to play their next game, which is smart. You can’t do that in basketball season.”
It’s true that the basketball schedule proceeds at a much faster pace with narrow windows for acclimation to time zones and environmental conditions and such. The Baylor women’s basketball team managed to get a little more than six days before its next game when it faced Duke in Paris to open last season.
At one point, it seemed like Self might find himself involved in one of these initiatives. The KU men’s and women’s basketball teams were supposed to face Houston in Mexico City in December 2024, but the Big 12 postponed that initiative and indeed has still not put on a sporting event in Mexico.
Self and Houston men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson were both opposed to the Mexico idea at the time, and Self says now that he isn’t aware of any efforts to renew it.
CONFERENCE CREEP
Another Big 12 initiative to which Self was opposed was the league’s brief move to 20 conference games for the 2024-25 season. He criticized that idea at the time because it infringed on possible nonconference commitments and also provided less time to get young players acclimated to college play.
The Big 12 went back to 18 for 2025-26 and 2026-27, but the overall duration of the season has increased to 32 games, and now the conference is reportedly pushing for 20 again.
Self said it’s “one of the discussion points,” but that he and most coaches still prefer the idea of 18.
“With us, we can schedule good games,” he said. “So I’d rather play 18, but I don’t think that’s been settled on yet.”
Indeed, a marquee nonconference game at Allen Fieldhouse is likely more financially valuable to KU than the average comparable game for many of its league foes.
SCHEDULE THOUGHTS
The Jayhawks open this fall with a more robust exhibition slate than usual, featuring Pittsburg State on Oct. 16 for the newly redesigned Late Night in the Phog, but also Louisville (Oct. 21) and Duke (Oct. 25) soon afterward.
The Louisville matchup is the return date of a preseason home-and-home that started at the KFC Yum! Center last fall. The Duke game will serve as the first leg of its own home-and-home, something the schools are calling the Blue Blood Classic. Self pointed out that KU “can make some real money” off the game because it is not included as part of the season-ticket package.
KU’s nonconference schedule has been out for a while, but the Big 12 announced league slates recently. Overall, Self said he thinks the Jayhawks’ schedule is difficult, and their road games in particular. They travel to UConn in December and then have Utah, BYU, Cincinnati, Kansas State, Houston, Iowa State, Arizona, TCU and Baylor away from home over the course of the next several months.
There’s a chance KU could see some of its conference foes before the calendar even flips to 2027. Both West Virginia and Houston are included in KU’s Players Era bracket and could potentially run into the Jayhawks along the way in Las Vegas.
Self wasn’t particularly concerned about that possibility, noting that the Jayhawks only encounter each team once in Big 12 play. He noted that one time during his Illinois tenure, the Illini inadvertently faced nonconference foe Arizona three times: once in a previously scheduled game, once in the Maui Invitational and once in the NCAA Tournament.
“So I don’t look at that that much — that doesn’t mean that much to me,” he said.
