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Breaking news:
The Kansas Jayhawks are pretty good.
The least shocking statement you'll hear all day. KU basketball will host Texas A&M on Wednesday and head to Mizzou on Saturday and if Bill Self's squad wins both games, they'll be Big 12 regular season champions.
For the seventh straight year. Seven. That's nearly two complete classes of kids. Incredible.
Kansas has been one of, if not the best team in the country for much of the season yet they've also been trailing Texas in the conference. (Indeed, KU was No. 1 in the country, No. 2 in the conference at one point this year.) The Longhorns started the league year winning 11 in a row -- KU lost two in that time -- making some think KU's streak was over.
After Kansas lost to Kansas State on Valentine's day, putting them two games behind the Longhorns in the conference standings, I predicted Kansas wouldn't be able to come back. At that point, there were five games remaining, KU was down two games in the conference, and they were trailing a team that had lost just one game (OT against a top 10 team) since Dec. 5. Self said Texas was the hottest team in the country at that point. I thought there was no way KU could come back.
That should give you an idea of how improbable it is that Kansas has a legitimate shot to win this thing now.
I think I'm getting caught up with myself here thinking Kansas already has this won. They are 12-2 in the Big 12 with two games to play while Texas is 12-3 with one to play (at Baylor). So KU still needs to host Texas A&M and travel to Mizzou -- and win them both (or hope for Texas' continued collapse).
Kansas has more conference championships than anyone. No, not just the Big 12 -- that's obvious -- the entire country. No one has as many as KU's 53 conference championships. Self talked about this with reporters on Monday and noted that, while Kentucky is close, their SEC championships are split between east and west so it's not even really that close to what KU has been doing.
He also wondered whether KU fans take for granted the conference championships. He said his back-to-back Big Ten championships with Illinois a decade ago were a huge deal ("three thousand people at the airport) while someplace like Kansas expects that year in and year out, and you almost get used to it.
So do your coach a favor, KU fans (like those at Rock Chalk Talk), and show some excitement about this one.