How high are the expectations going to be for Kansas Basketball as we prepare to tipoff the 2020-21 season?
There aren’t too many teams in the college basketball world that we expect to be elite year in, year out, but Kansas has always been one of those teams. As Bill Self enters his 18th year as the Head Coach of Kansas Basketball, he will be aiming to lead Kansas to the program’s fourth NCAA tournament championship.
Kansas finished the 2019-2020 campaign at 28-3, with a 17-1 record in conference play, good enough for first in the Big 12. Their only real competition last year in Big 12 play came against the only team that beat them in Baylor. The Bears rank just ahead of the Jayhawks in this year’s Pre-Season AP poll.
Kansas found most of its success stemming from Devon Dotson and Udoka Azubuike. Dotson averaged 18.1 ppg last season and just signed with the Chicago Bulls as an undrafted free agent. Azubuike on the other hand averaged 13.7 ppg while pulling down 10.5 rebounds a contest. He was selected with the 27th overall pick in this year’s draft by the Utah Jazz.
While the departures really do hurt Kansas, Self and the Jayhawks are excited to see what they’re going to get in five-star guard, Bryce Thompson. At 6’5″, the freshman out of Tulsa, Oklahoma is going to be a force to be reckoned with on offense as well as defense.
Thompson should be a name we hear a lot over the course of the next few years, but how will he and the other incoming freshman gel with Kansas’s three seniors, who are trying to fill the void left by Dotson and Azubuike? How will Kansas fair against a tough conference with four other teams cracking the Top-25?
Let’s delve further into the Jayhawk players, schedule, and season outlook.