Kansas and head coach Bill Self made history on Saturday.
With their 67-58 victory over Texas Tech, the Jayhawks secured at least a share of their 12th straight Big 12 title.
The Jayhawks can win their eighth outright title during their streak with a win Monday night at No. 25 Texas or in their regular-season finale against No. 17 Iowa State.
Oh, and the Jayhawks will likely retake the No. 1 ranking in the AP Poll after Villanova lost at Xavier on Wednesday. Kansas also seems virtually locked into a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.
“We didn’t prepare for it being 12 [straight titles], we prepared for this ,” Self said.
Self, whose place in the Naismith Hall of Fame seems inevitable, became the first coach to win 12 consecutive regular-season titles with the same school. John Wooden coached UCLA for nine seasons during a run where the Bruins captured 13 straight titles in the 1960s and ’70s.
Kansas is 95-5 during that period.
Svi Mykhailiuk came off the bench to score 17 points, hitting five 3-pointers and didn’t miss a shot until the final minute, helping the Jayhawks (25-4, 13-3) extend one of the most remarkable streaks in major college basketball. “This is the best ball he’s played since he’s been here,” Self said. Kansas’ achievement is all the more impressive considering that the Big 12 has seven NCAA Tournament teams according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi and features six coaches who’ve been to a Final Four Moreover, this Kansas team isn’t exactly loaded with lottery picks. According to DraftExpress.com, freshman Cheick Diallo is projected as the No. 31 pick, junior Wayne Selden at No. 36 and senior Perry Ellis at No. 60. “You know, we won the league three years in a row with the best player in the country playing somewhere else —Blake [Griffin, Kevin [Durant], [Michael] Beasley,” Self said. “I think this year, to me, would mean — I think it would mean more. Maybe because it’s the [most recent] one. But this is the best our league’s been. Also, our personnel is good, really good — I’m not going to apologize for our personnel. But we’ve run some lottery picks out there in the past, and we’re not running them out there right now. It’s more of a really grind-it-out type of team effort.” If you’re looking for a team to cut down the nets in Houston, it’s not a bad call to pick Kansas, lack of lottery picks and all. Follow Adam Zagoria on Twitter And like ZAGS on Facebook