photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas head coach Bill Self reacts after the Jayhawks were called for a foul during the second half, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017 at Sprint Center.

Losses tend to expose all kinds of weaknesses and quickly send the focus of both the team and the fan base to what is not going right as opposed to what is.

“We’re not a good execution team,” KU
coach Bill Self said after the loss.
“When we’re playing well, we’re a good
playing team, but we haven’t scored
all year on plays. We had some plays
that we tried to do, but our
execution’s so bad. We got the ball
where it needed to go, for the most
part. I just thought our defense was
horrendous and our hustle plays
weren’t very good either.”

While those reality-check moments can often be a good thing in the eyes of the coaching staff, one national college basketball writer believes that Wednesday’s loss to Washington was anything but good for Kansas.

Gary Parrish, of CBS Sports, on Friday released the latest version of his Top 25 (and one) rankings which he tracks throughout the season. And KU’s newest spot was more than a little shocking.

After entering Wednesday as a 22-point favorite and ending the day on the wrong end of a nine-point loss to unranked and unheralded Washington, Parrish dropped the Jayhawks from No. 2 in his rankings all the way down to No. 24.

While that free fall is eye-opening enough, here’s the best part: Five Big 12 teams — count ’em FIVE — are ranked ahead of KU, according to Parrish, with West Virginia (9), TCU (13), Baylor (17), Texas (19) and Texas Tech (21) all surfacing before the picture of the Jayhawk.

Here’s what Parrish had to say in the rankings about dropping the Jayhawks 22 spots.

“The Jayhawks were 21.5-point
favorites when they lost to Washington
late Wednesday. Devonte’ Graham missed
seven of the eight shots he took.”

There’s not a lot there that explains the massive drop, but it’s clear that Parrish is punishing Kansas for laying an egg and may believe the Jayhawks are only as good as Graham.

Somewhat expectedly, Parrish fielded more than a few questions in the comment section and on Twitter about his treatment of the Jayhawks.

Only then did we gain a little more insight into why he dropped Bill Self’s squad 22 spots.

“Lots of questions about Kansas at No.
24,” Parrish Tweeted. “Here’s the
simple answer: No team I have ranked
ahead of KU has a loss anywhere close
to as bad as KU’s loss to Washington.
And if I’m going punish other teams
for crazy-bad losses, I felt like I
had to do the same to the Jayhawks.”

Fair enough. And, really, none of it matters much now.

What will be interesting to see is what happens to Kansas in Parrish’s poll if the Jayhawks respond to the bad loss with a good win over No. 16 Arizona State (No. 12, according to Parrish) on Sunday. Or, on the other side of the coin, if he drops Kansas out of the Top 25 (and one) altogether if the Jayhawks lose to the Sun Devils.

Interesting stuff to kick around. But, again, Parrish’s point of view does not mean much for the Jayhawks in terms of the big picture of their quest to win a 14th straight Big 12 title and snag a high seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament three months from now.

Speaking of the NCAA Tournament, ESPN.com’s Joe Lundardi, Mr. Bracketology himself, penned a quick piece on Thursday called, “Behind the Bracket: Why Kansas is still a No. 1 seed.”

While calling KU’s loss to Washington “surprising” and saying that it maybe should have knocked the Jayhawks down to a No. 2 seed, Lunardi explained his reason for keeping them as a No. 1 seed by saying simply, “all (the loss to UW) did was drop the Jayhawks from No. 2 overall to No. 4. The reason is that a bevy of teams sitting just behind KU also went down, some in equally ignominious fashion.”

Lunardi continued:

“Notre Dame? No thanks, lost at home
to Ball State in a game the Irish were
given a 93 percent chance to win.
Florida? Double disaster, lost a pair
at home to Florida State
(semi-understandable) and Loyola
Chicago, averaging 62.5 points in the
process. Texas A&M, Virginia and
Cincinnati were among other highly
ranked unbeatens to suffer their first
defeats. So Kansas lives to see
another day on the top line. This is
significant in large part because the
Jayhawks have pretty much made it
their permanent home for a staggering
seven of the past 11 years. What
happens next? Kansas will likely be
favored in all but one of its
remaining regular-season games (Jan.
15, at West Virginia). Even with
Wednesday’s loss, the Jayhawks retain
No. 1 seed odds of nearly 80 percent.

What happens next for Kansas in the more immediate future is an even tougher test at 1 p.m. Sunday against a red hot and unbeaten Arizona State team that has proven to be an offensive juggernaut so far.

That will put a lot of pressure on the KU defense to play better than it did on Wednesday night. But the Jayhawks, this time out, will have the advantage of playing at Allen Fieldhouse, where the home team often gets the help of a sixth defender that is 16,300 fans strong.

Fan support or not, Self is looking for his team to find another gear to help overcome some of its obvious flaws that may be fixed in time or may linger throughout the rest of the season.

“We’re not extremely quick and we’re
not very big,” he began. “Those are
facts. That was evident (Wednesday
night). So if you don’t play with that
chip on your shoulder and play
scrappier than your opponent, we’re
going to have more nights like
(Wednesday).”