It’s no secret the Big 12 is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult conference to play in throughout college basketball. The conference has boasted two of the last three national champions and consistently sends five or more teams to the NCAA Tournament. KU will not only have to deal with multiple regular conference foes who will contend for the conference but also four new members in Houston, BYU, Cincinnati and UCF.
KU will enter the season as the presumptive favorite to win despite recent conference additions and remaining Big 12 contenders. The Jayhawks were picked to finish first in the conference and that’s backed up by a preseason No. 1 ranking, the first time they have been in that position since the 2018-19 season. It’s also the fourth time KU has been the preseason No. 1 team during Bill Self’s tenure.
Self said he hopes to change a trend that has followed his past top-ranked preseason teams and hopes it doesn’t add any more pressure to an already high-expectation season.
“In the years that we had, we’ve had good years, but they haven’t finished great,” Self said. “I’m certainly hopeful that we can change that trend. I really don’t know that it adds a lot of pressure. I don’t. I think the expectations are that we should be pretty good, and I do think we’re fairly talented. I’d just as soon be ranked there than not ranked there. It makes for energy, and it makes for maybe hopefully some recruiting positive mailouts and those sorts of things. But you said it, it means absolutely nothing. It will have no bearing on how good a team we have this year.”
In terms of the new competition pouring into the Big 12, Self said Houston will by far be the biggest challenge out of the newcomers. But also mentioned it’s important not to overlook the other incoming members.
“Well, I don’t think anybody will be afraid of anybody,” Self said. “The league is great. It got better when Houston came in it. There’s no question, from a team that could win a National Championship. I’m not saying the other three can’t, but we know Houston can. Of course everybody respects what Kelvin has been able to do over time and certainly in recent memory. But I think BYU, Cincinnati, and Central Florida are also great adds. It’s going to be unique in that I think our league is in the best position in large part due to leadership, in the best position we could be in, period, in today’s landscape of college athletics.”
Unquestionably, Houston not only poses the greatest challenges out of the newcomers, but possibly the rest of the conference. The Cougars were picked to finish second in the conference and garnered two first-place votes too while also coming in at No. 7 in the AP preseason poll. They also placed two on the Big 12’s preseason conference player selections with L.J. Cryer on the All-Big 12 team and Jamal Shead voted an honorable mention.
But other familiar foes will pose stiff challenges too. Texas and Baylor are the other two teams ranked in the preseason poll at 18 and 20, respectively. Both return multiple all-conference caliber players with the Longhorns adding new talent such as Max Abmams and brought back impact players such as Dylan Disu, Tyreese Hunter and Dillion Mitchel. All of them earned preseason honors. Meanwhile, Baylor boasts three players who earned conference preseason honors with Jalen Bridges, RayJ Dennis and Ja’Kobe Walter.
With a larger conference comes new changes in other regards too. The traditional round-robin format for conference play where each team plays the other twice is out the window. Instead, teams play five teams twice and the other eight once. Even though Self said the conference may be in the best position it’s ever been, the schedule changes is the one thing he’s a bit disappointed in.
“I think from the purity of the league and crowning a true champion, playing each other twice, the round robin and things like that, I think we have lost a little bit in that regard in natural rivals that we play home and home,” Self said. “But I’m real excited about where the league is, and we’ll probably be even more excited moving forward next year.”