Kansas basketball: Jayhawks can take season from ‘great to special’

In true spoiled fashion, the Kansas basketball team has provided another memorable season for the Jayhawk faithful.

The Jayhawks captured their 20th Big 12 regular season title and just last weekend secured their 12th Big 12 Tournament title in school history – both are easily the most of any team in the conference.

They’ve witnessed Ochai Agbaji – a former 3-star recruit who was set to redshirt his freshman year – become a First Team All-American and Big 12 Player of the Year.

It’s been a great season for KU basketball. But now, as head coach Bill Self put it, they have a chance to “take great – to special.”

For better or worse, fair or not, teams like Kansas will always be judged by what they accomplish in the NCAA Tournament.

The tournament is often a crapshoot, it’s the hardest postseason competition to win arguably of any sport collegiately or professionally, and it’s not necessarily the best way to truly crown a champion in college basketball – but that’s what it is.

And at KU, where winning the Big 12 has become so routine, where making the NCAA Tournament and earning a top-3 seed has become so routine, those things no longer define a special season because they happen so often.

Making Final Fours and winning national championships are what makes a season “special” at Kansas.

As I wrote back in November, I think this team has a good chance to reach that destination.

The Jayhawks have experience across the board with all five starting players having been with the team three years or more. They also have three super-seniors coming off the bench.

They have a guy who can carry the team in Agbaji and they have guys who can score from all over the court in Christian Braun and Jalen Wilson.

David McCormack has been great the last month, and Remy Martin is finally healthy and in the Big 12 Tournament looked like the player they thought he would before the season started.

The Jayhawks also received a pretty favorable draw for the NCAA Tournament which only heightens the expectations.

It’s been 10 years since the Jayhawks were last in the NCAA Championship game and it’s been 14 years since “Mario’s Miracle” helped the Jayhawks win it all in 2008.

The Jayhawks have had several chances to win the trophy since then and looked poised to win it all in 2020 before COVID shut the world down, but it wasn’t meant to be.

A championship this year would immediately wipe out those years of frustration. It would unequivocally cement Self as KU’s greatest coach of all time and put him in elite company among his peers. And there’s no putting into words what a championship would mean to the tens of thousands of KU fans across the country who live and breathe with every bounce of the ball.

This team has accomplished a lot this year and no one can take that away from them. But they have a chance to be remembered forever by what they accomplish these new few weeks, and what could cap off a truly special season.