photo by: AP Photo/John Raoux

UCF fans storm the court after upsetting Kansas in an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024, in Orlando, Fla.

The Kansas men’s basketball team will have a chance to shake off the shock of one stunning loss and avenge another when it travels to face UCF on Sunday.

Just as they looked to have rebounded from a series of early-December road defeats, the Jayhawks began their Big 12 campaign on a sour note on Tuesday, suffering a 62-61 home loss to depleted West Virginia when a furious comeback attempt fell short.

Now, 0-1 to start league play for the first time since 1991, KU will return to the site of last year’s early-season defeat that proved to be a harbinger of things to come. Unheralded UCF, which was playing its first-ever Big 12 home game, rallied from a 16-point first-half deficit to take down then-No. 3 KU 65-60 at Addition Financial Arena on Jan. 10, 2024.

Since that day, across parts of two seasons, the Jayhawks have been nearly incapable of winning on the road, having lost eight of 10 games against teams playing in their home gyms, including those back-to-back nonconference matchups against Creighton and Missouri in December.

KU hasn’t been particularly close, either. Since losing in overtime at Kansas State in February, the Jayhawks have only held a lead for a combined 18 minutes and 38 seconds in six away games (with a 1-5 record).

This last loss came at home, though, and for KU coach Bill Self, a lot of the team’s issues against West Virginia could be attributed to insufficient energy.

“Low energy, no enthusiasm, little personality if any, no sense of urgency,” he said on his “Hawk Talk” radio show on Thursday. “When we’re playing the first game of a conference season, when everybody knows the intensity’s going to be ramped up, and you’re playing a team that was the start of creating a negative conference season last year for you when they kicked your butt in Morgantown, how could you not be geeked up? How could you not be juiced? And, with students not there, there’s still not an empty seat in the house. I don’t understand.”

As he added on Friday, “Mistakes are magnified by lack of energy, and mistakes are minimized by the presence of energy,” and the team has to mix that enthusiasm with a certain toughness and “us-against-the-world type (of) mentality” now that it is heading out on the road.

“Wherever we play, we have to have a mindset that we respect the situation,” Self said, “how other teams will be motivated to play against us, and the fact that we have proven to ourselves multiple times now that being Kansas and showing up doesn’t guarantee any success whatsoever.”

Added center Flory Bidunga: “Coming (out) stronger makes the other team feel us even though it’s a road game. We just have to stay ready because every team wants to play Kansas, they play their best game, so we have to be conscious of that and just ready to fight back.”

A victory in UCF’s home gym could provide a significant confidence boost, especially with trips to challenging road environments at Cincinnati and Iowa State looming within the following 10 days.

“We have to change some things, because let’s just call it like it is, we were really good in November, we haven’t been very good in December,” Self said. “Isn’t that the truth? So we’ve got to find a way to get back to where we were and amp it up even more.”

The Knights have spent plenty of time at home recently. They did not play a true road game in nonconference play and suffered their two losses this season, against Wisconsin 86-70 and LSU 109-102 in triple overtime, the only time they left the state of Florida, for a multi-team event in late November.

However, unlike KU, UCF made a strong statement to open its Big 12 schedule. Led by a combined 46 points from forward Keyshawn Hall and guard Darius Johnson, and shooting 51.8% as a team, the Knights took down Texas Tech on the road, 87-83.

Hall, Johnson, and Jordan Ivy-Curry have all averaged between 15.5 and 15.8 points per game this year, forming a three-headed monster UCF didn’t have last year. Help is on the way, too, as last year’s leading scorer Jaylin Sellers has begun to work his way back into action after suffering a long-term injury during an exhibition game, as has former Memphis guard Mikey Williams.

photo by: AP Photo/John Raoux

Central Florida guard Keyshawn Hall (4) looks for a way past Texas A&M forward Pharrel Payne (21) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Orlando, Fla.

photo by: AP Photo/John Raoux

Central Florida guard Darius Johnson (3) drives past Texas A&M guard Jace Carter, left, during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Orlando, Fla.

photo by: AP Photo/John Raoux

Central Florida head coach Johnny Dawkins, right, talks with players guard Jordan Ivy-Curry (0) and guard Darius Johnson (3) during a timeout in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Orlando, Fla.

That scoring arsenal belies some less favorable aspects of UCF’s performance thus far. The Knights are inefficient on offense — they shoot 44.1%, which is 14th in the Big 12, and commit 12.6 turnovers per game — and can be porous on defense, allowing a league-worst 74.8 points per game. Johnson is, however, the Big 12 leader in steals, with 35 on the year, and 7-foot-2 freshman center Moustapha Thiam, the highest-ranked recruit in program history, has recorded 28 blocks despite playing just 23.6 minutes per game.

While this game falls at the exact same point in the schedule as it did last year, there is one key difference: Unlike during last season, KU will host UCF in a return game at Allen Fieldhouse on Jan. 28.

UCF Knights (10-2, 1-0 Big 12) vs. No. 7 Kansas Jayhawks (9-3, 0-1 Big 12)

• Addition Financial Arena, Orlando, Florida, 3 p.m. Central Time

• Broadcast: ESPN+

• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KMXN FM 92.9)

Keep an eye out

Determined Dickinson: KU center Hunter Dickinson is averaging a double-double as usual. But his scoring numbers have dipped slightly and the sorts of classic performances he turned in rather frequently in 2023-24 — 30 points and 11 rebounds against TCU, 24 and 14 with five blocks against Oklahoma, and so on — have largely been absent. His best showing of 2024-25, with 28 and 12, came against his longtime rival (dating back to his Michigan days) in Michigan State, and he might have something extra for UCF this time. It’s the first opponent he mentioned when listing Big 12 games he was looking forward to on a recent KU Athletics podcast appearance. Part of the reason why the Knights beat KU last season was that Dickinson struggled with foul trouble and a bruised knee; his four rebounds in that loss remain the lowest total of his KU tenure.

Big problem: Self faces a bit of a challenging task when it comes to balancing this year’s rotation, particularly with neither of his wing players, Rylan Griffen or AJ Storr, living up to expectations, but both still capable of great things in theory (as evidenced by their work at previous schools). The latest issue is that Bidunga is playing too well to languish on the bench. In the loss to West Virginia he grabbed a career-high 11 rebounds, was perfect from the field for the sixth time, picked up WVU’s guards all the way down the court and generally reenergized the Jayhawks. With KJ Adams in a bit of a downturn, Self may have to employ more two-big lineups with Bidunga and Dickinson. Against WVU and, earlier in the year, Michigan State, those lineups were on the floor for 18 minutes and 35 seconds with a plus-13 point differential; the rest of the season it’s only been 8:07 with a minus-1 differential.

Defense wanted: UCF poses one of the more threatening backcourts KU will face in the early days of Big 12 play, particularly with Sellers coming back into the fold. It could be a good spot for guard Shakeel Moore to demonstrate his defensive aptitude. He still seems to have some work to do to earn Self’s trust, given that he played just two minutes against WVU, but that brief period did include 14 seconds on the floor for the biggest defensive possession of the game.

Off-kilter observation

KU recruited Ivy-Curry in the offseason when he was transferring away from UTSA. After Ivy-Curry decommitted from Virginia Tech, he had a Zoom call with the Jayhawks’ staff in early May, according to multiple reports.