photo by: AP Photo/Bethany Baker

Kansas guard Dajuan Harris Jr. (3) keeps the ball away from Utah guard Mike Sharavjamts (25) and forward Keanu Dawes during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, in Salt Lake City.

Kansas head coach Bill Self said on Monday that KU itself is his sleeper team heading into the Big 12 tournament.

“This year’s been — and last year too — probably been more inconsistent going into the tournament than maybe we have in past years, but yeah, I’m excited,” Self said. “I think we still have enough gas in the tank to play our best moving forward. And if we do that, then it could make for a very exciting time for us.”

For the Jayhawks to get close to doing anything exciting at the T-Mobile Center this week, after an up-and-down 11-9 ride through conference play, they must first accomplish something they did not during the 2023-24 season: make it past the first day of the tournament.

Last year, an injury-depleted squad entered as the No. 6 seed and got immediately blown out by No. 11 Cincinnati. This year, KU is much healthier, but again comes in at No. 6 and will await the winner of Tuesday night’s game between No. 11 Utah and No. 14 UCF. The Jayhawks will see their first action at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Entering as a lower seed is new for KU and for Self, but he said that whereas coming in at No. 1 provides a chance to “validate” having won the regular-season title, “this would probably be a chance to do the opposite of what we did over the first two and a half months, in that we’ve been average for the most part in conference play and now it’s time to give us an opportunity to actually perform at a level that nobody this year’s seen us play at, at least within our league.”

If KU wins, it will take on Arizona on Thursday night in a rematch of Saturday’s 83-76 senior-day victory for the Jayhawks.

Self said he feels the environment of the Big 12 tournament has changed somewhat due to a lessened “intimacy” with a large number of newer additions in the conference.

“We’re going to play the winner of a game that probably doesn’t carry the same interest from a fan base,” he said, “because the rivalries are so new as what it has (been) maybe in years past.”

KU is, at least, becoming quite familiar with UCF. The Jayhawks saw the Knights twice this year, making them one of just five teams with which KU had repeat matchups over the course of the 20-game conference schedule.

The Jayhawks dominated the Knights 99-48 at Addition Financial Arena on Jan. 5, then had to sweat out a 91-87 victory at Allen Fieldhouse 23 days later in which KU did not have Dajuan Harris Jr. and needed last-minute stops on Keyshawn Hall by a just-returned KJ Adams to take down UCF.

“The UCF team we played in early January isn’t the same team as now, obviously,” Self said. “The team that played us here, guys, they had the ball driving downhill with 10 seconds left down one, and KJ made a really good play, defensive play.”

That loss in Lawrence kicked off a dire period for the Knights, as they lost seven games in a row, including to teams like Colorado and Oklahoma State, before they got back on the right track by beating, as it happens, Utah on Feb. 23.

They won home games against Kansas State and OSU after that but lost twice on the road, including to West Virginia to conclude their season.

Second-team all-conference forward Hall was limited to six points on 1-for-10 shooting against the Mountaineers. He’s been streaky, but on the whole has led the Big 12 with 20.3 points per game in league play, including 34 in that visit to Allen Fieldhouse.

While KU escaped UCF on that occasion, the Jayhawks were not so lucky on the road at Utah.

In that game on Feb. 15, they failed to take sufficient advantage of a pair of prolonged scoring droughts for the Runnin’ Utes, and despite making a second-half comeback couldn’t do much of anything after they had tied the game at 60 with five minutes remaining.

Gabe Madsen scored 24 points that night to lead Utah and became the Utes’ all-time leader in 3-pointers.

Madsen has continued to fire away in the weeks since. His 291 attempts from beyond the arc this season are No. 4 in the nation and 46 more than the next closest Big 12 player, Arizona’s Caleb Love.

In other ways, Utah looks quite a bit different than it did when it took down KU (and beat K-State for good measure two days later). Most notably, the university unexpectedly fired head coach Craig Smith after the Utes’ 76-72 loss to UCF.

“I’m not a big fan of any decisions like that being carried out and made while the season’s going on,” Self said, “and I don’t know Craig well, but I know him well enough to know he’s a good coach, and he’s had great success, and he beat our butt.”

Assistant coach Josh Eilert, who led WVU as interim coach throughout the 2023-24 season, has stepped in again in an interim capacity. The Utes have lost three of four under Eilert, including by two points to the Mountaineers.

Self said the Jayhawks would, broadly, spend Monday preparing for one potential opponent and Tuesday preparing for the other, before KU learns its foe late Tuesday night.

“I think that neither team in those particular outings saw our best,” Self said. “Obviously whoever we play will have a game under their belt in the tournament and maybe that can be a little bit of an advantage to the team that played the day before. But they’re both capable, more than capable … of beating us, but two teams that we’re more than capable, I think, of having success against if we play.”

photo by: AP Photo/Kevin Kolczynski

Kansas forward KJ Adams Jr. (24) drives against Central Florida guard Keyshawn Hall (4) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Orlando, Fla.