Kansas started the season as the No. 1 team in the country. Things were going great for the Jayhawks early in the season. KU started the season 7-0, going undefeated in the month of November. Among those seven victories, three of them included wins over Top-20 teams, including Michigan State, Duke, and North Carolina.
The Jayhawks looked very impressive and poised in their neutral site court wins over the Spartans and Blue Devils and were able to hold off a second-half run from the Tar Heels in their home matchup against North Carolina.
Wins at home over Howard, Oakland, UNC Wilmington, and Furman were expected, and then KU’s first true road game came on December 4th with a trip to Omaha to take on Creighton. The Blue Jays were a Top-15 team to start the season but hit a rough patch in late November to drop out of the top 25. Creighton is still a very good team who will be in the tournament. They have been a consistently solid program for well over a decade now. They even beat last year’s top team, UCONN, at home last season.
And so, for the second consecutive season, Creighton toppled the No. 1 team in the country on their home court, pummeling Kansas into submission, 76-63. The Jayhawks had their second consecutive road game less than a week later, this time on the road in Columbia, Missouri.
Missouri got out to a hot start in both the first and second halves and had Kansas in a 24-point hole with 14:00 left in the game. The Jayhawks fought back valiantly, cutting the lead to three points with 2:45 left in the game, but the Tigers were able to hold off the Jayhawks and win, 76-67.
Why can’t the Jayhawks win on the road? The trend goes back to last season when they finished the season 3-7 in their final 10 road games. The Jayhawks have struggled shooting from beyond the arch in both road losses this year, going 8-for-23 in both games. In the game against Creighton they only got to the free throw line eight times and only made five of those attempts.
Against Missouri, the Jayhawks were a little bit better, getting to the line 11 times and making nine of those attempts. There are big differences between this year’s team and last year’s team. The depth of this year’s squad is much stronger. The players Self brought in through the transfer portal should give Kansas an advantage in the three-point shooting game as well. Last year, the three-point shooting was dreadful for the Jayhawks. Two road games are a small sample for this season, but the new Jayhawk players will need to be more consistent when shooting from beyond the arc.
A positive development has been Dejuan Harris Jr’s ability to score. He is averaging just over 11 points per game and has made three 3-pointers twice in the last three games. Harris has always been the table setter, so it’s been fun seeing him eat a little bit more lately. For the Jayhawks to be firing on all cylinders, Harris will need to continue to be the facilitator he’s always been, but getting a bump in scoring won’t hurt this team. In the Jayhawks’ last game against North Carolina State, Harris had 15 points along with six assists. That will play going forward.
Kansas has one more non-conference game against Brown on Sunday before opening conference play against West Virginia on December 31st. Both of those games will be at home. They’ll open the new year on the road at UCF, a place where they suffered their first conference loss in a big upset last season. Every game in the Big 12 will be tough, especially on the road, where Kansas will have three road games in their first four games in the new year. Two of those road games will be against ranked teams, Cincinnati and Iowa State.
Buckle up, Jayhawk fans. It could be another rough season on the difficult road ahead that is the Big 12 schedule. The good news is that Self has a great group of players who have the opportunity to step up to the challenge and make up for what has been a rough start on the road early this season.
