Kansas title streak is just history now

Over the last 14 seasons, the ACC and Pac-12 have each seen five different programs win or share their regularseason titles. Six teams have claimed the SEC crown. In the comparatively freewheeling Big Ten, there have been seven such programs.

The Big 12 has had no such top-level parity, with just one team — Kansas — winning or sharing every regular-season title since 2004-05, a 14-season run of dominance that even the juggernaut UCLA teams of the 1960s and ’70s did not match. But now that’s all over: With Tuesday night’s 81-68 loss at Oklahoma, the Jayhawks were eliminated from Big 12 regular-season championship contention.

Sitting two games behind conference co-leaders Texas Tech and Kansas State with just one game remaining, Kansas will not be the No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the Big 12 tournament for the first time since 2004.

“You know, I haven’t talked of the streak to the team very much,” Kansas coach Bill Self told reporters after addressing his team for 30 minutes following the game. “But it’s pretty cool, at least from our perspective, that we’ve hung in there for a pretty substantial amount of time and taken most people’s best shot most every night and we’ve had teams that were tough enough to be able to combat that and talented enough to, because you can’t do it without talent.

“We’ve certainly had our fair share of talent. And we have talent now. It’s just young talent. A coach, better than anybody, knows the potential and the ceiling for each and every team, and for us to be 22-8 right now, even though we’ve had some pretty bad losses on the road, I don’t think is anything for this team to hang their head (about) considering some of the stuff they’ve had to go through.”

Kansas sat atop the polls when the season began and won its first 10 games even though standout center Udoka Azubuike had missed three of them with an ankle injury. But then the junior tore ligaments in his right hand in practice the day before the Jayhawks’ game at Iowa State on Jan. 5, an injury that ended his season. Kansas went on to suffer their most lopsided loss to the Cyclones in 46 years, and they have gone just 13-8 without Azubuike.

It wasn’t the only issue. Guard Lagerald Vick began a leave of absence after the Jayhawks’ loss to Kansas State on Feb. 5 and has yet to return, depriving Kansas of a key weapon (even with all of the games he has missed, Vick still is the team’s leader in both 3-pointers attempted and made). The Jayhawks’ heralded allfreshman backcourt of Devon Dotson and Quentin Grimes has struggled at times. Sophomore forward Silvio De Sousa, a key contributor to last year’s Final Four run, never saw the court at all, at first held out by Kansas because of concerns about his guardian’s role in the Adidas scandal and then ruled ineligible for this season and next by the NCAA in February.

“We had a pretty good team when we had our full complement of guys,” Self said. “But I tell our guys all the time ... everybody deals with some adversity or obstacles, and the good teams fight through that.”