College basketball rankings: No. 3 Kansas keeps rolling, takes sole possession of first place in Big 12 race

Kansas lost six of the top eight scorers, including two first-round NBA Draft picks, from last season’s team that won the 2022 NCAA Tournament. That’s a lot to replace and among the reasons the Jayhawks weren’t one of the four schools that received at least one first-place vote in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll.

Turns out, doubting Bill Self was a mistake.

Because here he is again, this Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach, with another legitimate national championship contender even though Jalen Wilson and Dajuan Harris are the only players on the roster who averaged more than 2.1 points per game for the Jayhawks last season. That duo combined for just 13 points Monday night, but Kansas still won 63-58 at TCU to improve to 7-1 since enduring a three-game losing streak last month. KU is now 11-4 in the Big 12 and alone atop the league standings with a half-game lead over Texas, meaning the Jayhawks are clearly positioned to win at least a share of what would be a 17th Big 12 regular-season title in Self’s 20 years as Kansas’ coach.

“We haven’t accomplished jack, but we’ve put ourselves in a favorable position to maybe do something,” Self said. “Everybody talked about [how] our sky’s falling when we lost three in a row; in this league, that can happen easily. But we’ve recovered pretty good since then.”

Monday’s five-point win at TCU represented the Jayhawks’ 14th Quadrant-1 victory, which gives them at least five more Q1 wins than every other team in the country (Note: Purdue, Texas and Baylor are second with nine Q1 wins each.) That’s why Kansas is likely headed for another No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. If KU secures it, Self should get serious consideration for all national coach of the year awards given what he’s doing despite everything he lost from last season.

Kansas remains No. 3 in Tuesday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, where Houston is No. 1 for the fifth consecutive day. Alabama is one spot ahead of Kansas at No. 2. Purdue is one spot below Kansas at No. 4. But we really have reached the point where any of those four schools could reasonably be ranked No. 1 based on the bodies of work they’ve created with 19 days remaining until Selection Sunday.