Kansas basketball is going through another season it may want to forget. The Jayhawks lost their 12th game of the campaign on Thursday in the Big 12 tournament. That’s the most losses in a single season the program has had under Bill Self, per basketball reporter Jon Rothstein.
Kansas is now 21-12 on the year after losing to Arizona in the tournament quarterfinals. The Jayhawks got beat, 88-77, in Kansas City. It is disappointing for Kansas fans, who are used to seeing the team play in the tournament championship game.
Things have not been the same for Self the last two seasons. Last year, Kansas lost eight conference games. It was the most conference losses since Roy Williams was at the school in the late 1980s. This season, things only got worse for the club.
Kansas is still going to the NCAA tournament as an at-large bid.
Kansas has struggled in the new look Big 12
The Big 12 now has 16 teams, and the conference no longer plays a round-robin league schedule. This season, the Big 12 scheduled 20 league games for each team. Next season, that number drops to 18 contests.
Houston, Cincinnati, UCF and BYU joined the conference before last year. The conference then added Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah before this campaign. That infusion of new schools has caused some problems for Kansas.
The Jayhawks struggled against Arizona in the Big 12 tournament, as they have at many times this season. Kansas basketball has a thin bench and struggles to defend at times.
“Scoring 77 points should be enough,” Self said, per CBS Sports, following the loss to Arizona.
Kansas basketball players including Hunter Dickinson say this team can be inconsistent. The squad finished 11-9 in the conference standings this season.
“I’d say we’re one of the volatile teams in the country,” Dickinson said. “When you look at it, we’ve played the best in the country and been neck-and-neck with them. We’ve been neck-and-neck with a lot of average teams. It depends on which Kansas team shows up.”
Kansas must now wait to hear its seeding on Selection Sunday, for the NCAA tournament. The squad will get a lower seed than it has seen in recent years.
“We need a couple of days of rest,” Self added. “We’ve got a tired team.”
The Big 12 tournament continues on Friday. Arizona advanced to play Texas Tech in a semi-final game. Houston faces BYU in the other semi-final.
The post Kansas sets ugly Bill Self-era record with Big 12 Tournament loss to Arizona appeared first on ClutchPoints.
