Kansas head coach Bill Self looks to an official for a call against Cincinnati during the second half, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

Kansas’ first home loss of the season, 61-56 to UConn on Dec. 2, stuck with fifth-year senior guard Melvin Council Jr. to the point that he had it on his mind when he helped will the Jayhawks to victory over Arizona two months later.

To lose at home, Council said on Saturday — after KU’s second home defeat of the year, a stunning 84-68 result against unranked Cincinnati — is “bad, brutal and it sucks.”

“We’re supposed to defend the home court always,” Council said. “Losing to UConn, now Cincinnati, it’s just — you can’t do it no more.”

To lose at home twice in a row, even, is unthinkable at Kansas, to the point that the Jayhawks haven’t dropped consecutive games at Allen Fieldhouse since 1989. That streak will be on the line Monday, as well head coach Bill Self’s 40-0 record in Big Monday home games — recently bolstered by that Arizona win — when No. 2 Houston (23-4, 11-3 Big 12) visits the Phog. And both teams need to win to have a chance of vying for a share of the Big 12 regular-season title with four games to go, although the Jayhawks’ hopes have faded dramatically.

KU is coming off a loss to a Cincinnati team that forward Flory Bidunga said the Jayhawks didn’t respect enough, although Self rejected that explanation postgame.

“Respecting opponents more, maybe coming out with the same energy that you have against Arizona and other people would be equal respect,” Self said. “We didn’t do that today. But no, don’t make something out of nothing, because no team is on point and at a 10 every game of the season, regardless if you’re playing home or away.

“So I’m not buying that. We respected their opponent, but the bottom line is we didn’t bring it as a unit from an energy standpoint like you got to when they’re good.”

KU shouldn’t have had trouble getting up for Cincinnati, but it especially shouldn’t for Houston, which has won the conference’s regular-season title each of the last two seasons as well as the Big 12 tournament title in 2025 — not to mention won at Allen Fieldhouse, 92-86 in double overtime on Jan. 25, 2025, in one of the most shocking losses in recent KU history.

That’s to say nothing of this year’s Cougars. A defensive juggernaut like most of Kelvin Sampson’s teams, one of the national leaders in scoring defense and No. 8 in KenPom defensive efficiency entering Saturday — “Houston’s numbers are even better than Cincinnati’s, and Cincinnati’s defensive numbers are really, really good,” Self said — they are also No. 10 on the offensive end thanks to the hot-shooting guard trio of freshman Kingston Flemings and veterans Emanuel Sharp and Milos Uzan.

They are, however, coming off a rare home loss of their own. Their 73-66 loss to fourth-ranked Arizona on Saturday was just their second at the Fertitta Center since they joined the Big 12 prior to the 2023-24 season. And prior to that, they let one slip away at Hilton Coliseum against Iowa State the previous Monday. The KU game is Houston’s chance to salvage something from a brutal and otherwise unsuccessful stretch.

Flemings has played his way into the conversation for a high NBA Draft pick as one of the nation’s top freshmen. A gifted scorer at 16.6 points per game, he partners well with Sharp (16.4 points, 37.9% from deep on high volume), who along with Uzan helped lead the Cougars to the national title game last year. There have been some inevitable growing pains for a team that features two additional freshmen — versatile big man Chris Cenac Jr. (9.6 points, 7.8 rebounds) and backup guard Isiah Harwell — among its top six players in minutes per game.

Even with all that youth, Houston has taken care of the ball as well as anyone possibly can. In league play, the Cougars lead the way in turnover margin — they commit just 7.5 per game, the fewest in the Big 12, while forcing 12.4, the second most. Both Flemings and Uzan are among the league leaders in assist-to-turnover ratio.

Always reliable on the inside, meanwhile, is junior Joseph Tugler, a 6-foot-8 but long and hyperathletic forward who was the Big 12 defensive player of the year last season. He also grabs offensive rebounds at a significantly higher rate than defensive ones, presenting a potential issue for the Jayhawks. KU allowed 14 offensive rebounds to Cincinnati on Saturday and got outrebounded by 11 overall, meaning it is now below zero in rebounding margin in conference games this year despite playing a two-forward lineup with Bidunga and Bryson Tiller.

Those two have a lot of work to do after struggling with Cincinnati’s Baba Miller and Moustapha Thiam on Saturday. But as Self said, no one (regardless of position) played well against the Bearcats.

“We’ll meet tomorrow,” he said on Saturday afternoon. “We’ll meet tomorrow at 2 and go over it. Things happen and we got to stay together. I think that we will, without question — they’re great kids. But we weren’t competitive today, and the message is, if you can’t make other people play poorly, no matter where you’re playing, it could be a long afternoon or evening, and that’s exactly what happened.”