Kansas forward Bryson Tiller battles for position with Iowa State forward Blake Buchanan (23) during the first half on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

It’s becoming increasingly rare that a team gets a chance at revenge in the modern Big 12.

As part of the league’s revamped 18-game schedule with 16 schools now in the conference, each team plays just three of its opponents twice and the other 12 once each.

As Kansas heads down the stretch in the final seven games of league play, three schools will have opportunities to avenge prior defeats against the Jayhawks, all of which they suffered during KU’s ongoing eight-game win streak: Iowa State, Arizona and Kansas State.

Iowa State was the team KU blew out to get its season back on track and set the streak in motion — ISU had been undefeated on the season to that point, while KU had dropped two of its first three in league play — and now the Cyclones have a chance to return to the favor and cut the Jayhawks’ momentum short.

Tipoff is set for 12 p.m. on Saturday at Hilton Coliseum in a game that will be pivotal for KU if it looks to remain within striking distance in the race for the Big 12 regular-season title.

“I see us being in it without question,” head coach Bill Self said, “but I still think we got to do some damage still in order to put ourselves right in the middle of it, because I still think that with one loss (for) Houston and Arizona, they’re still obviously the frontrunners.”

KU is 9-2 in the league, a game back of the lead, after the Jayhawks took down the previously unbeaten, top-ranked Wildcats in a memorable 82-78 victory on Monday night.

“I was obviously very proud of them,” Self said, “and I think that they felt good about themselves beating a terrific team, but we also understand that was Monday, and today’s Thursday, so there’s still bigger things out there, even though that was big at the moment.”

Ranked No. 5 for the moment, ISU is fading in the league race after a surprising 62-55 loss at TCU on Tuesday in which the Horned Frogs scored 12 straight points in the final two minutes and 14 seconds. The Cyclones are still 8-3, as their only other two losses on the year came in consecutive games at KU and Cincinnati, but they’ll need to attempt to protect home court as they have all year when KU and then Houston come to town.

“There was a period of time where they were playing as well as anybody in the country, and then they had a bad week,” Self said. “And after the bad week, they played as well as anybody in the country. Then they had a bad game.”

The Cyclones shot an uncharacteristic 5-for-23 from beyond the arc — knock-down shooter Milan Momcilovic was 3-for-11 — and 2-for-8 at the free-throw line against TCU. Joshua Jefferson, who already has two triple-doubles on the year, was in that territory again, but he also committed six of ISU’s 17 turnovers.

ISU will need to prevent one loss from becoming two, something it was not able to do when it lost 79-70 at Cincinnati right after getting blown out by the Jayhawks in mid-January. The Cyclones will instead hope to demonstrate that Tuesday’s loss was in fact an aberration.

Not a lot has changed with ISU, which continues to deploy the formidable starting lineup of longtime point guard Tamin Lipsey, freshman defensive standout Killyan Toure, Momcilovic and forwards Jefferson and Blake Buchanan.

Self said their bench, which features the likes of Nate Heise and Jamarion Batemon, has improved. Momcilovic has surpassed Jefferson as the Cyclones’ top scorer and is making half his 3s in league play. ISU has the league’s second-best scoring defense, anchored by the tenacious Lipsey and Toure, who steal the ball more than anyone else in the Big 12, and the Cyclones are also limiting opponents to 41.5% from the field and 31.5% beyond the arc in conference games.

ISU generally does well keeping opponents off the glass, and Jefferson and Buchanan are good offensive rebounders — KU has had some trouble limiting second-chance opportunities this year.

The Cyclones move the ball as well as anyone, in large part because of Jefferson’s skill as a passing big man with 5.5 assists per game in league play. That’s sixth in the conference, and no other forwards are even close.

“They’re good, and we’ll get their best shot,” Self said. “We played so well against them the first time, and they didn’t. I’d like to think that we had something to do with that, but they didn’t. So we know we’ll see a different team Saturday than what we saw the first time.”

NO. 5 IOWA STATE CYCLONES (21-3, 8-3 BIG 12) VS. NO. 9 KANSAS JAYHAWKS (19-5, 9-2 BIG 12)

• Hilton Coliseum, Ames, Iowa, 12 p.m.

• Broadcast: ABC

• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KKSW FM 105.9 / KMXN FM 92.9)

KEEP AN EYE OUT

Resuming production: Senior forward Tre White has been one of KU’s most consistent players this season, shining in particular as a scorer in games played without Darryn Peterson, and he has generally shown a knack to bounce back from a bad game with an excellent one in short order. The Jayhawks will need that on Saturday after his worst offensive showing of the season, in which he tallied just four points on 1-for-6 shooting with five rebounds and three turnovers. When KU beat ISU before, White was the leading scorer with 19 points on five 3s. They’ll need him even more if Peterson is limited or absent altogether due to the flu-like symptoms that kept him out against Arizona, which have prevented him from going at full speed in practice for much of the week.

Meeting the moment: Freshman forward Bryson Tiller has developed tremendously over the course of his first full season in Lawrence. Self said he was proud of Tiller for “understanding more and more where his bread is buttered”: “He’s an inside-out guy that is skilled, as opposed to a perimeter player that’s got a little bit of power,” he added. All his best qualities were on display when he scored 14 early points to help sustain KU against Arizona, and he also shone in games against BYU and K-State. The Jayhawks will need him to reach his full potential again as they face ISU’s dangerous frontcourt.

X-factor: Batemon isn’t the first name on the scouting report for the Cyclones, but he did quite a bit of damage late against the Jayhawks. He finished with 12 points and four steals in just 19 minutes and was a significant reason why the final margin wasn’t any worse than 84-63. The 6-foot-3 guard from Milwaukee has been inconsistent in his freshman campaign but also scored a dozen against UCF and 17 with four 3s against Colorado. KU will have to prevent him from putting together one of those big nights to supplement ISU’s potent lineup.

OFF-KILTER OBSERVATION

KU has beaten the No. 1 team in the nation on four other occasions under Self. The Jayhawks have each time won the game immediately following that victory; one such matchup was the 2008 national title game.