Last Saturday, after a massive home win over No. 9 Baylor, Kansas basketball coach Bill Self said we had reached the point where it was OK to start talking about the league race.
On Monday night, after a 63-58 win at No. 24 TCU — the very same TCU team that rocked Kansas 83-60 in Lawrence a few weeks back — Self went one step further and actually started talking about this team’s postseason chances in the smallest, slightest, squint-and-you’ll-see-it sort of way.
Asked flat-out if he could envision the 2022-23 Jayhawks contending for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament when the season began, Self said he could not.
“I didn’t think that would be something that would be realistic,” he said. “I’m proud of this team. They’ve done great. We haven’t accomplished jack. But we’ve put ourselves in a favorable position to maybe do something.”
Classic words from a demanding head coach.
But it’s that standard and the expectations that come with trying to play up to it that have put the Jayhawks in this type of position, as co-leaders in the Big 12 race with the most favorable path remaining and in line to be a 1 seed — quite possibly the No. 1 overall 1 seed — on Selection Sunday in a little more than two weeks.
No one saw that coming when the Jayhawks lost three in a row in mid-January or even as recently as Feb. 4, when they fell flat and looked uninspired in every way during a road loss at Iowa State.
“We’ve recovered pretty good since then,” Self said Monday night.
Asked if he had been able to identify a common denominator that aided that recovery and led to the Jayhawks’ winning five games in a row (including three on the road), Self pointed to his team’s pride and desire.
“We complained about our energy level at Iowa State,” he said. “Since then, our energy and try level has just been off the charts.”
“I think we’ve got a nice team,” he added. “I don’t know if we’ve got a great team or exceptional team, but I think I’d stack our metrics up against anybody right now.”
KU is currently ranked 6th in the NET rankings, with 14 Quad 1 victories, four more than second-place Texas, which is tied with Kansas atop the Big 12 standings at 11-4 after its home win over Iowa State on Tuesday night.
For what it’s worth, as the list goes on, only two teams have exactly nine Quad 1 wins (one is Baylor) and still only two more have exactly eight — Kansas State and Iowa State. Everyone else in the country has seven Quad 1 wins or fewer.
The Jayhawks sit at No. 7 in the latest KenPom.com rankings, with the nation’s 19th most efficient offense and 9th most efficient defense. And KenPom ranks KU’s schedule as the hardest in the country to date.
The Jayhawks also are ranked third in the Associated Press Top 25 and fourth in the USA Today coaches poll.
Despite its favorable position and stacked resumé, the Jayhawks remain focused on doing the things that got them to this point, particularly of late after overcoming that mid-season losing streak.
“I think we just control our own destiny,” KU forward Jalen Wilson said after Monday’s victory. “(But we’re) taking it one game at a time and (we) understand that it’s still a long way from being over.”
Added senior guard Kevin McCullar Jr. of what’s left on the schedule: “It’s a gauntlet. We’ve just got to take care of our job and just lock in on every game, one at a time.”
Next up, the Jayhawks will play host to West Virginia at 3 p.m. Saturday before welcoming Texas Tech to town next Tuesday night for the regular season home finale.
It will mark the first time since the final week of December that Kansas will face back-to-back teams that are not ranked or receiving votes in the national polls and just the fifth time that has happened all season.
Before then, though, Kansas will get some rest.
“It’s an advantage that we can take two days off,” Self said after Monday’s hard-fought win at TCU. “And we’ll take two days off. We’ll reconvene on Wednesday and watch tape, but we’ll stay off our feet until Thursday, I’m sure.”
