Kansas Basketball: 2019-20 season review of the Jayhawks
By Neil Adler
Assessing the Jayhawks
Kansas embarked on 2019-20 with lofty aspirations. The AP top-25 and coaches’ polls slotted the Jayhawks at No. 3 in the pre-season. Kansas closed the stanza at No. 1 in both polls. Therefore, Kansas exceeded expectations in that regard, albeit ever-so slightly.
In the Big 12 pre-season poll, the Jayhawks clocked in at No. 1, followed by Baylor and Texas Tech. As an aside, a shout-out to the Bears for one heck of a term.
Before the 2018-19 campaign, Kansas had rounded up 14 regular-season league crowns in a row, an NCAA record. That’s insane. But then, a year ago, Kansas State and Texas Tech snapped the Jayhawks’ streak.
For Kansas to reclaim conference glory in 2019-20, in the midst of a massively public conflict with the NCAA over alleged recruiting violations, is a testament to the unit’s coaches and student-athletes.
Other than the Jayhawks’ race to the national title in 2008, I adamantly believe that Self did his most exquisite coaching job at Kansas in 2019-20.
The Jayhawks’ out-of-conference bulletin entailed a bunch of challenging clashes. The Big 12 may not have proven the premier league in college hoops, but Kansas and Baylor are a formidable one-two punch, and a couple of other conference crews likely would have suited up in the Big Dance.
As I noted earlier, the Jayhawks had merely three losses, all to fantastic crews, with two of them away from home. Kansas brought in a slew of top metrics and rankings.
Azubuike and Dotson lived up to the hype, and then some, by nabbing All-American and Big 12 recognitions. Garrett and Agbaji emerged as future stars.
The Jayhawks truly fulfilled the soaring forecasts put on them by the media, fans and everyone else involved in the sport. Now the questions turn to, how will Kansas progress in the upcoming stanza, and what will become of the NCAA allegations?