Bill Self on KU Jayhawks’ Big 12 basketball schedule: ‘The league is a monster’

Bill Self sees no easy path to a Big 12 regular-season men’s basketball championship during the upcoming 2024-25 season.

The 22nd-year KU coach discussed the matter Wednesday on the Field of 64 podcast — one day before the 16-team Big 12 released this season’s slate of conference games.

“The league is a monster, and it’s been a monster for a long time,” Self said. “Everybody is good.”

That includes last year’s newcomer group of Houston, UCF, Cincinnati and BYU — teams that defeated the perennial powerhouse Jayhawks, who have won 17 regular-season league championships under Self.

In 2023-24, KU went 1-1 versus Houston, 0-1 against UCF and BYU and 1-1 against Cincy for an overall record of 2-4 versus the newcomers.

This season KU will play UCF and Houston twice and Cincinnati and BYU once. Of this year’s group of teams new to the league, KU will play Colorado twice, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah once.

So KU will play Houston, UCF, Kansas State, Iowa State and Colorado twice and 10 teams (ASU, Arizona, Utah, Cincinnati, BYU, TCU, Baylor, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech) once to make up the 20-game slate.

“I think we’re going to have five teams in the preseason top 10, maybe eight or nine in the preseason top 30 or 40,” said Self, who is hoping his team will improve on last year’s 10-8 record, which was good for a tie for fifth in the conference.

Indeed, KU is ranked No. 1 in the country in ESPN.com’s preseason top 25 followed by Houston (No. 4), Baylor (No. 6), Iowa State (No. 7), Arizona (No. 9), Cincinnati (No. 19), Texas Tech (No. 26) and K-State (No. 29). That’s eight of the country’s top 29 teams.

“The thing is, everybody (in Big 12) is committed to the way the world operates today through NIL or whatever,” Self said. “I mean it’s not going to be a situation these teams are just catching the right wave. These teams and these programs and these administrations are committed enough that they aren’t going away,” he added.

The Jayhawks open Big 12 play with West Virginia on Dec. 31 at Allen Fieldhouse followed by a game at UCF on Jan. 5 and another home game vs. Arizona State on Jan. 8.

“We’ll look at it … we’ll divide it into weeks, you know this week, that week, whatever,” Self said.

“It is a little misleading,” he added of the conference chase, “because in our league we’re playing five teams twice and 10 teams once. So to me it’s just different. When you know the preparation on a one- or two-day deal (Saturday-Monday games) in February when it’s the first time you’ve seen that team is a different feel than we’ve had in the past (when Big 12 teams played each other twice) for sure.”

KU’s conference slate will follow a nonconference schedule that includes games against North Carolina (ranked No. 10 by ESPN), Duke (No. 8) and Creighton (No. 15), plus unranked Michigan State, North Carolina State and rival Missouri. N.C. State made the Final Four last season and Michigan State is a perennial top-25 team under coach Tom Izzo.

“Carolina is our second game (Nov. 8 at Allen), Michigan State our third game (Nov. 12 in Atlanta) and Duke right after (Nov. 26 in Vegas),” Self said. “We play Howard our first game (Nov. 4 at Allen) and we scrimmage Arkansas right before that (Oct. 25 in Fayetteville).

“We bit off a lot. Hopefully we can handle it. We haven’t even counted Creighton (Dec. 4 in Omaha), North Carolina State (Dec. 14 at Allen) and Missouri (Dec. 8 in Columbia) and some other games that also will be extremely hard. The reality is the older you get, you worry less about records and worry about more what prepares us (for league and NCAAs). Hopefully this does a good job with that, which I think it will.”

Kansas Jayhawks 2024-25 men’s basketball schedule

Here’s KU’s schedule for the 2024-25 season:

November

Nov. 4 (Mon.) — Howard

Nov. 8 (Fri.) — North Carolina

Nov. 12 (Tue.) — vs. Michigan State (Champions Classic, Atlanta)

Nov. 16 (Sat.) — Oakland

Nov. 19 (Tue.) — UNC-Wilmington

Nov. 26 (Tue.) — vs. Duke (Vegas Showdown, Las Vegas)

Nov. 30 (Sat.) — Furman (Vegas Showdown)

December

Dec. 4 (Wed.) — at Creighton (Big 12-Big East Challenge)

Dec. 8 (Sun.) — at Missouri

Dec. 14 (Sat.) — NC State

Dec. 22 (Sun.) — Brown

Dec. 31 (Tues.) – West Virginia

January

Jan. 5 (Sun.) – at UCF

Jan. 8 (Wed.) – Arizona State

Jan. 11 (Sat.) – at Cincinnati

Jan. 15 (Wed.) – at Iowa State

Jan. 18 (Sat.) – Kansas State

Jan. 22 (Wed.) – at TCU

Jan. 25 (Sat.) – Houston

Jan. 28 (Tues.) – UCF

February

Feb. 1 (Sat.) – at Baylor

Feb. 3 (Mon.) – Iowa State

Feb. 8 (Sat.) – at Kansas State

Feb. 11 (Tues.) – Colorado

Feb. 15 (Sat.) – at Utah

Feb. 18 (Tues.) – at BYU

Feb. 22 (Sat.) – Oklahoma State

Feb. 24 (Mon.) – at Colorado

March

March 1 (Sat.) – Texas Tech

March 3 (Mon.) – at Houston

March 8 (Sat.) – Arizona

March 11-15 – Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship (Kansas City)

March 16 – NCAA Tournament Selection Show