photo by: AP Photo/Kathleen Batten

Kansas coach Bill Self reacts during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against West Virginia Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Morgantown, W.Va.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — With Kansas’ 86-75 loss to West Virginia at Hope Coliseum on Saturday afternoon, it fell to 6-15 in Big 12 road games since the start of the 2023-24 season. Its record in all league games, home and away, during the same time frame is 22-19.

That’s a data set that encompasses three dramatically different versions of KU basketball — this year’s, in particular, features only three scholarship players who took part in either of the previous two seasons — but it also demarcates a period of time during which 23rd-year head coach Bill Self has frequently said the Jayhawks have a smaller “margin for error” than they once did.

The gap between them and their opponents is narrower than in years and decades gone by — perhaps significantly narrower than when KU won 14 consecutive regular-season Big 12 titles from 2005 through 2018.

“We’re not bringing pros in off the bench,” Self said on Saturday. “Let’s just call it like it is. That’s not an excuse, because the guys out there are good enough … But the margin for error, if Markieff and Marcus (Morris, who spent 2008-2011 at KU) want to take a couple possessions off and give up a couple 3s, you know what, you got to play a lot harder than that, but our Jimmies were better than your Joes.”

Asked if the change has to do with name, image and likeness, Self said it’s just the current world of college basketball: “Everybody’s going to go through it. Some teams that haven’t gone through it are having some good fortune in why they haven’t gone through it.”

Whatever the case, the disparity in talent right now, even with a star player like Darryn Peterson on its side, is not such that KU can allow a team to gain significant self-belief in its own home gym.

“And we give other teams that confidence and the next thing you know, hey, playing at home, when they get cooking, if we’re not mentally tough enough and physically tough enough and know how to grind, then all of a sudden you look up and now you’re playing from behind,” Self said. “And playing from behind, a lot of good things have to go right, and when you don’t shoot the ball exceptionally well, sometimes it puts a little bit too much pressure on you to make plays, when that’s not really who we are.”

That is, of course, precisely how the second half unfolded on Saturday in Morgantown. Whatever confidence the Mountaineers might have earned from a well-rounded first-half offensive showing — one in which they got key contributions from peripheral players and, even after conceding a run, trailed KU by just four at the break — it was at risk of petering out when KU went up 59-51 and even had a few chances to extend its lead to double digits.

Instead, the Jayhawks let the Mountaineers get their groove back at a pivotal stage of the game. A three-point play by Harlan Obioha, a couple of occasions on which guard Jasper Floyd backed down KU’s less physically formidable guards, another dunk by Obioha and suddenly the Jayhawks were way down and the crowd at Hope Coliseum was way up.

From that moment on, KU shot erratically for the remainder of the day, but its defense might have been even more of an issue as it never posed a significant obstacle. Senior forward Tre White said the defensive showing is the means by which the Jayhawks judge their performance.

“I feel like it’s the same principles for every game,” White said. “We got to stand on what we’re good at, playing fast, help defense, helping the helper, and tonight we kind of got away from that a couple times.”

Added redshirt sophomore guard Elmarko Jackson: “I feel like as of right now, we’re not doing our best on the defensive glass. We’re allowing teams to get second-chance points, so I’d say that’s something that we got to focus on. And just limiting teams playing to matchups — trying to find guys and go at them — just playing better help defense as well.”

Overall, it’s been grim on the defensive end over the last three games for a team that had come out of nonconference play as one of the top defenses in the nation — and has now allowed 81, 100 (albeit after overtime) and 86 points to a trio of teams not expected to rank among the top few in the Big 12.

“The common denominator with that is they’ve all played really well,” Self said. “So that tells me that we’re not doing something to make them play poorly.”

And KU hasn’t rested on its laurels, for what it’s worth, merely allowing its defensive struggles to continue apace. The recurring issues on Saturday occurred despite the Jayhawks switching up their ball-screen coverage to include more hedges after UCF and TCU had taken advantage of their switches in the prior two matchups of league play.

So the search for a defensive resurgence will continue as Self and his staff attempt to get their players to “understand that your value to our program and to our team is being a junkyard dog more so than it is being a skilled player,” as he put it.

“We haven’t gotten through to that,” he added. “And we’ve got to do that, and that’s the coaches’ responsibilities to get the players to do that. But our best teams here weren’t great all the time, but we never let anybody else play well.”

And now one of the bona fide contenders in the Big 12, No. 3 Iowa State, is headed to Lawrence on Tuesday night. Last season, KU got its season back on track at a time when it was struggling by polishing off the Cyclones at home, but this year’s ISU squad might be even better.

“We suck right now,” Self said. “But it’s right now. Everybody goes through ebbs and flows in the season. The last three games we haven’t played well. We’ve got to flip it.”