RCW: Sport Spotlight 4.24 (Men's Basketball)
FOURTEEN #KUbball pic.twitter.com/sjF52smUif
— Kansas Basketball (@KUHoops) February 27, 2018
A post shared by Kansas Basketball (@kuhoops) on Feb 26, 2018 at 8:06pm PST
Kansas men’s basketball set some historic marks last week in winning its NCAA-record 14th consecutive, 19th Big 12 and NCAA-leading 61st conference regular-season title. The streak of 14 straight started in 2004-05 and broke the 13-year NCAA record it had tied with UCLA, which won its from 1967-79. Here are some “nuggets” from the current Kansas conference championship streak.
- Kansas has won the title outright 14 of the 18 times and shared it four times (2005, 2006, 2008 and 2013) since the inception of the Big 12 Conference in 1996-97.
- Including the four ties and the current two-game lead in 2018, Kansas has won the Big 12 regular-season title by an average of 1.4 games. Twice, in 2009-10 and 2016-17, Kansas won the Big 12 regular-season title by four games.
- Kansas won at least a share of the 2018 championship at Texas Tech on Feb. 24 and two days later claimed the title outright with a Senior Night victory against Texas. In the 14-year streak, the Jayhawks have clinched at least a share of the title six times on the road – 2006 (at Kansas State), 2008 (at Texas A&M), 2009 (at Texas Tech, though it was a loss), 2011 (at Missouri), 2013 (at Baylor, though it was a loss) and 2018 (at Texas Tech).
- To further explain those two losses, in 2009, Kansas lost at Texas Tech on March 4 but won at least a share of the title as Missouri defeated Oklahoma the same day. KU defeated Texas on Senior Night to claim the 2009 title outright. In 2013, Kansas lost at Baylor in the season finale, but hours before that contest Kansas State lost at Oklahoma State, making the KU outcome at Baylor a non-issue and the Jayhawks and Wildcats ended co-champions.
- In Kansas’ national championship season, 2007-08, the Jayhawks won the fourth of the current string of 14-straight Big 12 Conference titles.
- Matt Kleinmann, Landen Lucas, Brady Morningstar, Travis Releford, Tyler Self and Conner Teahan each won five Big 12 regular-season titles, as they were redshirts during their KU careers.
- When the streak began in 2004-05, current senior Devonte’ Graham was nine years old, while fellow senior Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk was six.
- In 2005, George W. Bush was beginning his second term as the 43rd President of the United States. Barrack Obama, the 44th President, would serve two terms and current Commander-In-Chief, Donald Trump, the 45th President, recently completed his first year in office, giving the streak three sitting U.S. commanders.
