{"id":100347,"date":"2025-07-28T21:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T21:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/100347\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T21:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T21:18:11","slug":"is-kansas-the-top-dog-of-the-big-12-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/100347\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Kansas the ‘top dog’ of the Big 12 anymore?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, we combed over CBS Sports’ 101 storylines<\/a>. There, we ran over an assigned point where freshman Darryn Peterson was tasked with ‘reviving’ this squad. <\/p>\n

In that excerpt read an intriguing line. <\/p>\n

“The Big 12 isn’t Kansas’ league anymore. This is Houston’s playground until proven otherwise.” <\/p>\n

Have the Cougars done enough to make the Big 12 their league?<\/p>\n

The 2023-24 season marked Houston’s in the Big 12. There, Kelvin Sampson’s team picked up their third-straight 30+ win season and marched all the way to the Sweet Sixteen before falling to a stacked Duke team in a narrow 54-51 loss. In that season, the Cougars steamrolled the Big 12 and took home their first regular-season title in their first season, finishing 15-3 and being the only conference team in the Big 12 with a win rate above 80%<\/p>\n

For the Jayhawks, cracks were showing as Kansas finished 23-11 after being nominated as the AP preseason No.1 team. That year, Self’s squad finished 10-8 in Big 12 play and was bounced in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in an 89-68 thumping at the hands of Gonzaga. In the season series between the two, each had one convincing victory and one ugly loss. The Jayhawks took down Houston in a 78-65 Kansas win, with Houston returning the favor in a 76-46 loss to the Cougars right before tournament play. <\/p>\n

Last season, Houston continued their hot streak with a second-straight Big 12 regular-season title. Houston fell just once in the conference in a loss to Texas Tech in a thrilling 82-81 overtime loss. Ultimately, Sampson’s squad fell just short of glory after losing the National Championship to the Florida Gators, but the 2024-25 season was seen as a massive success. <\/p>\n

Last season saw the Jayhawks fail to move out of the first round in the NCAA Tournament after a 79-72 loss at the hands of the Arkansas Razorbacks. Kansas finished conference play with an 11-9 mark losing to Houston twice in two extremely close games, one that went to double-overtime. <\/p>\n

Since joining the Big 12 Houston has thoroughly dominated college basketball. a combined 67-10 with a 34-4 conference mark will fend off any team. Kansas meanwhile has by no means played poorly by most marks. 44-24 is not awful, but barely over .500 in Big 12 play does not help as the Jayhawks are just 21-17 over the last two conference seasons. <\/p>\n

Is it entirely possible this is just a blip for the Jayhawks? Of course, the odd two-year “blip” isn’t uncommon for Self. At the same it is hard to say this Houston team, off the back of the back of their fourth-straight 30+ win season, is looking to come down anytime soon. <\/p>\n

More Kansas Basketball News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday, we combed over CBS Sports’ 101 storylines. There, we ran over an assigned point where freshman Darryn…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":100348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-100347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114932947680618776","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}