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LAWRENCE, Kan. — What, exactly, is wrong with this picture?
Kansas has won an average of 26 games in the last three seasons of college basketball, won or shared three Big 12 regular-season championships and claimed a couple of conference tournament titles. The coach in Bill Self keeps telling him he need not apologize.

But the realist in him keeps tugging.

Clouding that impressive body of work — which includes a 30-4 record and No. 1 seed in this year's NCAA men's tournament — is the flamboyance of the Jayhawks' recent failures in March. They were a No. 3 seed in the tournament in 2005, a No. 4 last season, and both times they failed to survive the first round. Bucknell got them first, then Bradley. The upsets shook the brackets.

The business at hand for KU is Friday's opener in Chicago against Niagara, which beat Florida A&M 77-69 in Tuesday's play-in game. The past is past. But Self acknowledges it's not forgotten.

"I think about it every day. Every hour," he says. "I don't want to say every minute, because that may be an exaggeration. But there will be something that happens every hour that reminds me. It could be watching a TV show. It could be somebody saying something. It could be a phone call. It could be whatever.

"In my mind, I know as a coach that you're not defined by one game. But outside of my mind, I know there's people out there who always reference that. And that gets old."

He, too, finds himself referencing the stinging losses.

"Anytime we have a bad practice, we'll get reminded of it in some way. Coach is like, 'This is how you lose in the first round,' " junior point guard Russell Robinson says. "We play a bad game, and the next day watching film it's, 'This is what cost us last year.' Things like that. He keeps it fresh in our minds."

Including conference tournaments, only four schools own more wins than Kansas' 78 in the last three regular seasons — Memphis (82), Illinois (80), Florida (79) and Nevada (79). And Winthrop is the only other program with as many as the Jayhawks. Nobody but Winthrop, however, has a more contrasting record in the NCAA tournament.

Bucknell had played 110 years of basketball but never won a tournament game before stunning the Jayhawks 64-63 in 2005. Bradley hit 11 three-pointers in beating them 77-73 last year.

Winthrop also went 0-2 in the tournament the last two years, but that came as no shock. The Eagles were seeded 14th and 15th.

Consider: Pacific, Montana and Northwestern State have found ways to win in the tournament in the last couple of years. Bradley reached the Sweet 16, and so did Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Wichita State. George Mason played into the Final Four.

"Oh, yeah, we'll talk about it," Self says of his current team. "You might as well, because everybody else is going to."

Needed: Battle testing

The Jayhawks, ranked second in the USA TODAY/ESPN Coaches' Poll, are connected to the 2005 Bucknell loss in front-of-the-jersey name only. Junior center Sasha Kaun played in that game, pulling down a rebound and not scoring in three minutes, but nobody else on the present roster played. Robinson never got off the bench.

Last year KU entered the NCAAs on a 15-1 tear that included a three-day sweep through the Big 12 tournament. The Jayhawks won all but two of those games by double figures — too easily, it turned out, to steel a team starting three freshmen and two sophomores for the pressures of the postseason.

Kansas still is young. Sophomores Mario Chalmers, Julian Wright and Brandon Rush, their fluid 6-6 star, fill out the starting lineup with Robinson and the 6-11 Kaun. The first two players off the bench are freshmen, bulldog guard Sherron Collins and forward Darrell Arthur. There isn't a senior on the roster.

But the Jayhawks have invested some sweat in their 30 wins.

"We feel like we've got composure. We don't get rattled by the crowd, teams making runs," says Wright, a coaches' all-Big 12 selection with Rush. "Last year we didn't have much pressure. … This year we're learning how to win close games."

Early losses to Oral Roberts and DePaul got their attention. By February, the deep and athletic Jayhawks — one of the nation's best rebounding and defensive teams — had won 13 of 14. They let a lead slip away in a three-point loss at home to Texas A&M on Feb. 3 but two weeks later faced a fevered environment at surging Kansas State and won 71-62 behind Collins' 20 points.

"That," Wright says, "showed just how far we've come."

So did two wins in nine days this month against Texas. Kansas erased a 16-point deficit to beat the 11th-ranked Longhorns and their sensational freshman, Kevin Durant, 90-86 in the final game of the regular season. The Jayhawks then spotted the 'Horns a 22-point lead in Sunday's Big 12 final, roared back to tie it on Chalmers' three-pointer with 15 seconds left in regulation and won 88-84 in overtime.

"I don't think they're afraid to compete. Obviously, they've done that," Texas coach Rick Barnes says.

"They don't have weaknesses. I think they're a really, really good defensive team. They really make you work. They play fast; they make you work on that end getting back. Then they go to their bench, and in some ways they get more athletic. I'm not sure I would have said that a year ago."

Long term, Robinson says, "We can be playing in the last game of the NCAA tournament. We have all the tools to do it."

First things first. Win one.

The Jayhawks are reasonably assured of doing that. Top seeds are 88-0 in the first round since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. No play-in winner has come within 13 points of a No. 1 seed.

Things quickly get stickier. Kentucky or Villanova would await the Jayhawks in the West Regional's second round. Reaching the Final Four for the first time since 2003 most likely would mean beating No. 2-seeded UCLA in San Jose, Calif.

And Kansas doesn't lack question marks. Kaun isn't an accomplished offensive player, and low-post scoring can be fitful. Self has been on Rush, who's averaging 11 shots and 13.8 points, to be more assertive.

KU ranks among the bottom third in the nation in three-point production, making a modest six a game. Although Robinson hit two free throws with 5.3 seconds left in overtime to nail down Sunday's win against Texas, the Jayhawks rank near the bottom fourth in foul shooting at 66.7%.

A win Friday against an outmanned 16th seed will get KU out of its two-year tournament rut but otherwise satisfy few.

"I've got a great athletic director (in Lew Perkins) … and he sees bigger than one or two games," Self says. "But the end of the day, we all know our job is to win not only November through March but to carry that over to late March, early April."

No panic

Self, in his 14th season as a head coach, took Tulsa and Illinois to the NCAA's Elite Eight and made a first-year splash at Kansas by getting the Jayhawks there in 2004. The Final Four has eluded him, however.

Despite the prominent busts of the last two years, Perkins gave Self a five-year contract extension in April, guaranteeing him $1.6 million this season.

"I'm not sitting here and saying I'm happy about not getting beyond the first round," Perkins says. "I'm absolutely not happy. … If that continues to happen over the next three or four years, then we have a problem. But I'm not a panicker about those kinds of things.

"Do I look at the fact that we went through the Big 12 (as champions) or do I look at the fact we lost one (NCAA) game? My mentality is to take a comprehensive view of the program."

The Jayhawks' success with a freshman- and sophomore-dominated team this season underscores the coaching staff's ability to recruit elite talent to Lawrence. They beat out Illinois and Iowa for Collins, a dynamic playmaker who has hit 42.2% of his three-point attempts and averaged 11.5 points and 3.6 assists since early January. LSU also wanted the 6-9 Arthur, who's adding 10.1 points and nearly five rebounds a game, as a reserve.

Rush, Wright and Chalmers led a class hailed as one of the nation's best a year earlier. It's in the next few days — or weeks — that they must fully prove themselves.

"I just feel like it's, 'Hey guys, here's the deal. Let's learn from what happened last year. How did we prepare? How was our focus? Did distractions bother us? Was there anything we could have done better to allow us to play better that day?' " Self says. " 'Now, Bradley had a good team and played well and we didn't play quite as well. But what are we going to do a little bit different this year?' "

Robinson, who is closest to being a team elder, is unflinching.

"You're going to be judged by what you do in the tournament. That's what you play games for during the season, to (prepare to) perform well in the tournament. And when you don't perform well, you should hear about it," he says.

"You don't want to hear about it, don't lose. Don't lose a game."

 

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