Kansas basketball: What seed should the Jayhawks expect in NCAA Tournament?

Kansas basketball has been one of the many blue bloods to have a bad year but are they in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament?

The decline of the college basketball blue blood has been dramatic this season. Teams like Duke, Michigan State and Kentucky are in jeopardy of missing March Madness while the Kansas Jayhawks find themselves unranked for the first time since 2009.

Questions about whether Kansas is in jeopardy of missing the NCAA Tournament are premature, however, since they have had a far better year than any of the aforementioned blue bloods. The Jayhawks are 13-7 so far this season, including a 7-5 mark in the rugged Big 12, which may be the nation’s toughest conference.

While it is a foregone conclusion that Kansas won’t contend for a Big 12 title with Baylor still undefeated there are still quality results on the Jayhawks’ schedule. Wins over Texas Tech, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are better quality wins than a lot of teams that are fighting for a spot on the bubble.

The NCAA’s Net Rankings are also very kind to the Jayhawks, who will check into Thursday’s game with a very high mark of 22. Kansas has already played 11 Quadrant I games and is 4-7 in those contests, with games against Gonzaga and Tennessee in non-conference play helping showcase that the Jayhawks have squared off against plenty of top competition.

What kind of seed should Kansas expect?

The good news for Bill Self’s team is that they can stack three wins against the conference’s bottom feeders, Kansas State and Iowa State. Those matchups give Kansas some runway to get on track before a rough finishing stretch that has matchups with Texas Tech, Texas and Baylor.

A win in one of those games combined with sweeping the three bottom feeder games would have the Jayhawks at 17-9 overall and 11-7 in the Big 12. A winning record in that league and a decent opponent in the conference tournament means that Kansas is more likely to end up on the 4 or 5-line instead of near the bubble, so there is really nothing for Jayhawks fans to worry about.

Even if things go south down the stretch, Kansas basketball will make the NCAA Tournament but could be closer to an 8-seed.

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