This isn’t where Kansas basketball is supposed to be.

The Jayhawks entered this season as one of the favorites to win not just a Big 12 Conference title, but a national championship. In fact, they were the preseason No. 1 team in the country. They entered the campaign with an enviable collection of returning veterans, and added quite a bit of talent to that group through the transfer portal and elsewhere.

But on Saturday, after a road game against Utah, No. 20 Kansas is having to grapple with a 74-67 defeat that could have been a win had it executed better late. It’s a loss that both forces the Jayhawks (17-8, 8-6 in Big 12) to deal with the reality that they are not just drifting away from relevance in the Big 12 regular season title race, but dropping down in where they could be seeded in both the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments. Utah (14-11, 6-8 in Big 12) became the latest team to force an analysis of where Kansas should stand in the national landscape.

Colorado coach Tad Boyle reflects on return to face Kansas basketball at Allen Fieldhouse

“We were awful,” Kansas coach Bill Self said on the Varsity Network postgame show. “They played really well early, and then of course we didn’t have any answers for them defensively. And obviously it was, I mean — people that are listening probably watched it. So, we didn’t do very well. And then we had the game tied and they beat us on every toughness play down the stretch.”

To call this loss for Kansas a stunning moment would be an understatement, because it came in a stretch in which the Jayhawks were supposed to put together multiple victories due to an advantageous schedule. For all of the issues of consistency KU dealt with in recent weeks, there seemed to be a realization of what needed to happen next ahead of the current road trip. Whatever was said during the discussions that were had about what should happen next, the message clearly did not get across and the team never led in this game.

It seems unlikely at this point that Kansas will be ranked in the top 25 by the time the team plays again on Tuesday, on the road against BYU. It seems unlikely the Jayhawks will be favored to beat BYU either, which would have been a surprising thought some weeks ago. If soul-searching is the accurate way to describe what’s going on in the locker room at this point, that search better find its answers quickly.

On Saturday against Utah, Kansas couldn’t overcome forward KJ Adams fouling out late in a close game. The Jayhawks couldn’t overcome an uncommon offensive performance from center Hunter Dickinson, who still nearly led his team in scoring — collecting 12 points on 4-for-12 shooting from the field and 3-for-4 shooting from the free-throw line. It wasn’t just that guard Rylan Griffen had another quiet performance, it was that when KU went to its bench it didn’t get much beyond him either.

Kansas is 0-3 in its last three Big 12 road games, with each one, stretching to defeats at Kansas State and Baylor, coming by their own disappointing reasons. The Jayhawks were lackluster when it came to turning the ball over and allowing offensive rebounds. Kansas turned the ball over 12 times and allowed 22 points off of that, while scoring just seven points off of seven Utah turnovers, and allowed 14 second chance points off of 16 Utah offensive rebounds while scoring only nine points off of its own six offensive rebounds.

“I’ve obviously done a (expletive) job getting these guys to understand the way we have to play in order to give us a chance to win,” said Self, who described the team as frustrated and not being ready to play when the game began. “We left a lot of points on the board, especially in the first half, and then catching the ball in tight and not delivering. But even with all that being said, we still had a chance to win on the road and didn’t close. So, that is — that’s disappointing. And certainly we’re going to stay out here three more days and we need to — I’m tired of regrouping. We don’t need to regroup. What we need to do is basically be men as an entire organization and go out and do what our job is to do and accept responsibility for everybody — players, coaches, everybody — when we don’t do it well.”

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.