Last March, Bill Self sat at the dais after an embarrassing blowout defeat against the Gonzaga Bulldogs that ended the Kansas Jayhawks’ season and admitted an uncomfortable truth: He had been thinking about next season for about a month. 

The quote was controversial at the time, widely misconstrued on social media as Self giving up on his team that had limped to the finish line. In reality, Self simply knew what had been obvious for much of the season: His 2023–24 Jayhawks were fatally flawed. They lacked the depth, three-point shooting and overall shotmaking necessary to make the deep March runs KU fans have become accustomed to. And in ’24 college basketball, building the plan to fix a roster via the transfer portal in the spring requires far more forethought than opening the portal the day your season ends. 

“When you don’t have as much firepower that maybe you’d had in past years, it certainly showed this year,” Self said in that March news conference. 

The firepower accumulated by Self in the weeks after that season-ending defeat was on full display Tuesday night in Las Vegas in No. 1 Kansas’s 75–72 victory over the No. 11 Duke Blue Devils, the type of statement win that validated the Jayhawks’ offseason reloading efforts. Kansas got 32 of its 75 points from its newcomers, and most impressively was able to withstand the final 10:26 without its best player, Hunter Dickinson, who was ejected after appearing to kick Maliq Brown in the head while fighting for a loose ball. 

“When you can sub guys in and out and not worry about the talent going down, I think that’s a big up for us,” senior forward KJ Adams, one of the holdovers from last year’s team, said. “You’ve got a bunch of three-point shooters, a lot of athletic guys that we’ve got this year.”

Kansas entered Tuesday with a lot to prove. The Jayhawks stumbled through a grimy win over the middling Michigan State Spartans two weeks ago. Before that, they laid an egg in the second half against North Carolina and nearly gave away a huge first-half lead at home. Kansas was an underdog Tuesday night (at least in the eyes of the sports books), rarefied air for any preseason No. 1 and certainly for a blueblood. This was the clearest possible chance for the Jayhawks to prove their mettle as a serious national title threat, and they delivered in a major way.

The nucleus of this Kansas team is largely the same as it was a year ago: Dickinson carrying the scoring load down low, Dajuan Harris Jr. setting the table and Adams being the glue that keeps everything together. But the Jayhawks’ margin for error in 2023–24 was so slim because of the lack of other options, and when Kevin McCullar Jr. went down with a knee injury, the Jayhawks largely fell apart. That’s the problem Self solved in the portal, with AJ Storr, Rylan Griffen and Zeke Mayo all added to give Kansas more backcourt juice. All three had their moments Tuesday: Storr was essential to the Jayhawks’ first surge to take an early lead, Mayo played a steady floor game en route to 12 points and Griffen delivered two massive buckets after Duke took the lead late.

Dickinson’s ejection could have easily been a major turning point in the game. Last season, it likely would have served as a reminder of the Jayhawks’ limitations. In this one, though, the moment was, in Self’s words, “probably the best thing that [could’ve] happened to us” because it allowed freshman Flory Bidunga to step up and helped the Jayhawks make steps toward establishing their identity. 

“This is too early to be a pivotal moment … but this team had no identity yet,” Self said. “I think we could maybe take some pride and say we’ve got more of an identity now because we kind of won ugly down the stretch, which we had to play that way in order to have a chance to win without [Dickinson] out there.” 

Things had come slower than many might have liked for Storr and Griffen, the team’s two highest-touted additions from the portal. To be clear, this was no perfect performance from the duo. Self noted postgame he still feels Griffen and Storr are “about a month away” from truly settling into the expectations of playing Kansas basketball. Tuesday’s showing more clearly showed the benefits of KU’s busy offseason—more options late in games, more pieces who can step up in key moments and more players you have to pay attention to at all times when they’re on the floor. 

Having survived an early-season stretch that featured three blueblood battles (North Carolina, Michigan State and Duke in the season’s first 23 days), the Jayhawks now get a chance to settle in at No. 1 for a while. The December schedule looks more manageable, although road tests at the Creighton Bluejays and Missouri Tigers won’t be cakewalks. Self should have time to further build up Storr and Griffen, keep incorporating the five-star Bidunga and fine-tune which late-game lineups work best. There’s room for growth, scary given how KU has navigated these early big tests. 

Have the Jayhawks racked up the necessary style points of a No. 1 team in the sport? That’s up for debate, and other teams have certainly made their cases for the top spot in a November loaded with top-tier matchups. But Tuesday’s win, and the way it came together, emphatically proved that Self’s Jayhawks have the pieces necessary to make a serious push at his third national title … exactly what Self envisioned as that 2023–24 season came to an unceremonious close.

The Oregon Ducks will be hosting five-star tight end Lincoln Cure for their rivalry game against the Washington Huskies on Saturday night. Cure is a Kansas State Wildcats commit, but is still making visits to other schools before national signing day.

The elite recruit from the Class of 2025 is predicted to stick with Kansas State, but the Ducks trying to flip his commitment.

Linkon Cure Player Profile

Linkon Cure is a 6-6, 220-pound tight end out of Goodland, Kansas. He is a rated as a five-star recruit and ranked as the No. 1 tight end in the class of 2025 per 247sports. Cure committed to Kansas State in July of 2024. 

What makes him so special? 247Sports’ scouting analyst Gabe Brooks had this to say about Cure.

“Big, athletic, playmaking tight end prospect who can line up as a true receiver and provide mismatches in the passing game,” Brooks said. “Uses speed-changing nuance as a route runner and gravitates toward space when available. Combines strength with speed as a run-after catch threat. Athletic enough to hurt defenses in the vertical game, while also providing a big-play threat in the screen/quick game.”

In addition to having all of the athletic tools, Cure has knack for finding the ball. Cure is viewed as an elite prospect that will eventually be picked in the top half of the NFL draft.

“Enters senior season as an elite tight end prospect with high-round NFL Draft upside,” Brooks said. “Gifted flex tight end with physical tool and strength capacity to fit all tight end modes at the high-major level, and potentially beyond.”

Can Oregon Ducks Flip Another Tight End?

The Oregon Ducks flipped four-star class of 2025 tight end Vander Ploog from Washington to Oregon in early November. Now, Oregon is looking to flip another tight end to join the class of 2025 recruiting class.  

While Linkon Cure will be visiting Oregon this weekend, he is still expected to end up singing with the school he is committed to, Kansas State. 

247Sports experts Tom Loy, Ryan Wallace, and Miek Roach have all kept the predictions for Cure to inevitably sign with Kansas State. 

“Everything stands out about Oregon for me,” Cure told Sports Illustrated’s Andrew Nemec. “We’ll just have to see how the weekend goes.”

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Dave Aranda has Baylor playing good football as the Bears are on a five-game winning streak. They are trying to end the season with eight wins but have a challenge with Kansas visiting on Saturday.

The Jayhawks have been playing good football winning four of their last five including three straight over ranked opponents. Aranda believes KU could be their toughest test of the season.

“I have a lot of respect for our opponent,” Aranda said. “You pop on their tape and its apparent. Probably the best team we’ve played. You look at all three sides of it and you look at the level of what they’re playing right now, this is the best team we’ve played. Our guys feel that way when they watch it. And so, it demands attention and so excited to get into it.”

Aranda has been helping coach the defense and has a reputation as a good defensive mind. If they are going to slow down the Jayhawks offense it will take a better tackling performance than they have shown in recent games.

“It’s going to take better tackling than what we’ve done,” he said. “For some of the positive things from Saturday, the negative, and it’s been too long a negative, it’s just the lack of tackling guys leaving their feet and chasing ankles and all this other thing. It lessens us and I think it makes us look small and weak and vulnerable.”

Tackling has been an issue and if they are going to beat Kansas that is one area that must improve.

“You have to be able to step on people’s feet and put your face on their face and run through them,” he said. “And we have not done that to the degree that we should. And we’re going to have to in this game. If we tackle like how we’ve tackled, we’re not going to win the game.”

The defense will go against KU’s offense coordinated by Jeff Grimes, who was the offensive coordinator at Baylor from 2021-2023.

“It’ll be good to see him,” Aranda said. “I know that he’s going to look at all of it, but he’s going to look at Iowa State, and that was probably our worst game. And he’s going to want to replicate a lot of the things that are in that game. We’re going to have to play much better than we did back then.”

Aranda was asked about Jalon Daniels and how he has been playing better as the season goes. He believes a lot of that is dependent around a strong running game for Kansas.

“The run game is clicking for him, and they can run wide zone and get seven, eight yards anytime they want,” Aranda said. “I think he plays with the confidence that’s the case. I think a lot of people are playing them off and giving them field outs and things. I think the run game has opened up. There’s a lot of bluff back into the boundary and crack and loads where there’s alleys down the sideline and makes you have to defend with 11.

“I think the more receivers make plays when the ball’s in the air, which they’ve shown to do that, you’re running out of people to cover all their people. I think they’ve got things clicking on offense over there. It’s going to be tough matchup.”