USA TODAY International Edition
Kansas closes in on 13 in Big 12
You’ll never believe this, but Kansas appears headed for another Big 12 regular- season championship, the 13th consecutive year in which the Jayhawks under men’s basketball coach Bill Self have won the league outright or shared the title.
Of course, you do actually believe that. It’s one of the only certainties in a sport defined partly by its parity and partly by its unpredictability.
The Streak — it needs no modifier — is one of the most astonishing in all of sports. Other Big 12 coaches remain amazed yet motivated by it at the same time, even those coaches who have been dealt more than their fair share of losses to Kansas over the years.
“Everybody’s goal at the start of conference ( play) is to win the conference, and that’s why it’s amazing what Kansas has been able to do for as long as they’ve been able to do it,” Baylor coach Scott Drew told USA TODAY Sports last month. “Because of parity in college basketball, I don’t know if anyone will ever be able to match it, when that streak does come to an end at some point. I know everybody’s trying to be the one that breaks it.”
Baylor, ranked fourth in the nation and still in the mix for a No. 1 seed come NCAA tournament time, certainly has tried this year: two agonizingly close games, two agonizingly close losses — including Saturday’s in Waco that came after two Kansas free throws to grab the lead for good in the final seconds and a painfully bad final Baylor possession that, had it not been painful or bad, could have tied the score or won the game. Kansas finished the game on an 8- 0 run.
Yes, Kansas was the winner of a Big 12 game in mid- February. The victory gives the Jayhawks a seemingly insurmountable threegame lead in the league with four games to play, and with their two head- to- head wins against second- place Baylor, it’s time to ship the champagne to Lawrence. Self knew it, too; his reaction to Saturday’s win included far more emotion than we’re used to seeing from a coach who has won so much. He can smell No. 13.
What’s perhaps most impressive about The Streak is not how good the Kansas teams that have been part of it have been. It’s how good other Big 12 teams have been without ending it. This year’s Baylor team certainly qualifies, led by dominant Johnathan Motley in the paint and dynamic Manu Lecomte ( who hobbled through the final minutes of Saturday’s game after a hard fall) outside it. And they’re not alone. Last year’s Oklahoma team — led by Buddy Hield and that reached the Final Four — was swept by the Jayhawks in Big 12 play.
But it’s clear from the way that Kansas has won the league — with its dramatic comebacks, its stellar Player of the Year- caliber contributions from Frank Mason, the acrobatics from Josh Jackson and even the uncharacteristic reliance on a 2- 3 zone defense — that the Jayhawks have a stranglehold on the Big 12 for a reason.
They adjust. They adapt. They beat you with their strengths or your weaknesses — or both. But most of all, they win.
It’s the surest thing in sports.