Kansas head coach Bill Self pulls his players into a huddle during a timeout in the second half, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

The NCAA men’s basketball committee projected Kansas as a No. 3 seed in its bracket preview show on Saturday morning.

The program, which aired on CBS on Saturday morning, includes a ranking of the top 16 teams in the country — in other words, the No. 1 through No. 4 seeds with three weeks to go until Selection Sunday — and it placed KU at No. 10 overall.

That positioning, which predated the Jayhawks’ loss to Cincinnati later on Saturday afternoon, was largely a product of KU’s recent eight-game winning streak that encompassed nearly half its league schedule, including marquee victories over high-level teams in BYU, Texas Tech and most notably Arizona.

Arizona was the No. 3 overall seed in the top-16 ranking, placed in the West region. Elsewhere in the Big 12, Iowa State (No. 4, South region) received the final No. 1 seed, Houston (No. 6 overall, Midwest region) was a No. 2 seed and Texas Tech (No. 13 overall, South region), recently dealt a significant blow by a season-ending injury to star forward JT Toppin, was a No. 4 seed.

The rest of KU’s projected region included No. 1 seed Duke, No. 2 seed Illinois and No. 4 seed Vanderbilt.

The bracket preview was generally consistent with the likes of ESPN’s bracketology (which on Friday had KU in the East region as a No. 3 seed facing Austin Peay in Greenville, South Carolina) and that of CBS (which on Friday placed KU as a No. 3 against No. 14 UC Irvine). The recent victories haven’t quite been enough to jump the Jayhawks onto the No. 2 line, though as head coach Bill Self said in a brief interview on the CBS broadcast, there is time for their positioning to change.

“Being on the (No.) 3 line today is the best that we could have ever hoped for six weeks ago,” he said. “We’ve gotten better since then, but it’s still so early. Three can become seven, eight, nine, whatever, or hopefully it can stay on the three or become a two or something. So we got a lot of work ahead of us, but totally comfortable just to be talked about.”

Whatever the case, KU still has a few games left to play before it reaches Selection Sunday, including significant opportunities for advancement against Houston at home on Monday and Arizona on the road the following Saturday.

The Jayhawks have learned firsthand how much can change between the bracket preview and actual bracket. Two years ago, largely derailed by the injury to Kevin McCullar Jr., KU fell from a No. 2 seed on preview day to No. 4 seed by tournament time. Last season, the preview had the Jayhawks as a No. 4 seed immediately before they slumped to consecutive losses in Utah and ended up a No. 7 seed, the lowest mark of Bill Self’s tenure.

The last time KU was a No. 3 seed was in 2021, when the Jayhawks lost to USC in the second round in Indianapolis.