Surging Kansas has come a long way in a short time
It's a winter tradition in college basketball as predictable as the pre-Christmas shopping rush.
Each year, as the weather turns chilly and the start of conference season approaches, people invent reasons why Kansas' Big 12 title streak might be in jeopardy.
Sometimes it's that the Jayhawks have struggled more than usual in non-league play. Other times it's that a seemingly worthy challenger has emerged. The primary concern this season was that the rugged Big 12 was No. 1 in RPI and featured eight teams besides the Jayhawks who spent time in the AP Top 25.
Of course, none of those worries have come to fruition because Kansas continues to prove year after year that it's still the king of the Big 12. The Jayhawks took another big step toward winning at least a share of an 11th straight league title on Monday night, avenging their only Big 12 loss of the season with a convincing 89-76 home victory over 11th-ranked Iowa State.
Kansas' latest win improved the surging Jayhawks to 19-3 overall and 8-1 at the halfway point of the Big 12 season. The only conference opponent less than two games out of first place is West Virginia, which could be hard-pressed to stay in the league title race because of its formidable remaining schedule.
The 15th-ranked Mountaineers (18-3, 6-2) are done with all four games against league bottom feeders Texas Tech and TCU. Worse yet, they still must play Kansas twice and visit Iowa State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Baylor during their final 10 conference games.
Kansas has put itself in such enviable position by improving as much since mid-November as any team in the nation. The Jayhawks who have won eight of nine games in the nation's deepest conference bear little resemblance to the team Kentucky ran off the floor at the Champion's Classic or the squad that struggled sporadically even while winning games in November and December.
Frank Mason has solidified the point guard position and emerged as one of the nation's most improved players. Kelly Oubre has blossomed from the rare McDonald's All-American who can't crack the rotation to one making a consistent impact at both ends of the floor. Outside shooting has become such a strength that the team has hit over 40 percent of its tries from behind the arc during league play and six of the Jayhawks' top seven scorers are threats from 3-point range.
Don't discount Kansas' improvement defensively either as a factor in its success. The Jayhawks have surrendered the fewest points per possession of any Big 12 team and had limited their previous four opponents to a combined 35.8 percent shooting prior to Monday's matchup with Iowa State.
The high-scoring Cyclones did manage to shoot a respectable 41.8 percent at Allen Fieldhouse, but they weren't nearly as successful shredding Kansas in transition as they were in the first meeting between the two teams in Ames. The Jayhawks raced back on defense and forced Iowa State to either force shots in transition or score against a set defense, a strategy that proved effective.
What also helped was that Kansas torched Iowa State's defense, hitting 50.8 percent of its shots from the field and sinking nearly as high a clip from behind the arc. Wayne Selden hit five of his team's 10 3-pointers, all in the second half, as the Jayhawks doubled a seven-point halftime lead in the first four minutes and never allowed Iowa State to get closer than nine points.
The most exciting part of Kansas' success is that there's still room for improvement.
McDonald's All-American Cliff Alexander has shown flashes of immense promise yet is still coming off the bench and playing limited minutes. Selden throws in occasional performances like Monday's, but he is still searching for consistency. And freshman Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk certainly has enough talent to contribute at some point even though he has fallen out of the rotation.
Regardless of whether any of that happens, Kansas is in good shape to extend its streak of consecutive league titles to 11. The Jayhawks have lost only five home games in the past eight years and they only have two road games left against teams likely to make the NCAA tournament, at Oklahoma State on Feb. 7, at West Virginia on Feb. 16 and at Oklahoma on March 7.
If Kansas does claim its 11th straight Big 12 title, it would move closer to making history. Just two programs have dominated their conference like this before: UCLA, which 13 straight league titles from 1966-79, and Gonzaga, which saw its 11-year WCC reign end at the hands of Saint Mary's in 2011.
Someday someone will dethrone Kansas too but probably not this year. Perhaps it will finally happen the winter when nobody predicts it.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
