Bill Self gives his early read on the Big 12 following news of a 20-game schedule
The KU basketball non-conference schedule hasn’t been officially released but piecing together what has already been confirmed and the Jayhawks are set for another tough schedule in 2024-25.
KU’s autumn schedule already includes home games against North Carolina, the Champions Classic against Michigan State, away games against Missouri, and away games against Creighton. Although it hasn’t been verified, there have been rumors that KU would play Duke in Las Vegas, maybe as part of the NIL basketball tournament. In the event that the Las Vegas tournament is canceled, KU will participate in a Feast Week tournament.
Earlier this week, in an interview with Andy Katz, Self revealed some information on the Big 12 schedule and predicted that it will be another difficult non-conference game.
“I think it will be a schedule that prepares us for the grind of our league,” Self stated. We’re going to 20 games this year, I’ll say that much. We played eighteen [games] in our league last year, and I believe we destroyed everyone.
Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark first proposed the notion of 20 league games during the basketball media days in October of last year. The conference just concluded its yearly league meetings in Arizona, where the agenda was deliberated. Since then, the Big 12 has affirmed that the switch to 20-league games is legitimate.
A potential approach would be to alternate between five home games, five away games, and five home games, even if the scheduling model is still being created.
Self thinks some of the top teams in the sport will be in the league once more.
“You look at it, Houston could be a preseason top five team,” Self said. “Iowa State might rank among the top five teams in the preseason.Baylor might rank in the top five in the preseason. We might rank in the top five in the preseason. Indeed, and it doesn’t even include all of the other really talented and fiercely competitive people. Add Arizona to that.
The Big 12 will include Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah in its offseason schedule.
Based on Bart Torvik’s preliminary estimates for 2025, four Big 12 teams rank among the top 20. The predictions had KU, Houston, and Iowa State at the top, with Arizona ranked sixteenth. Baylor follows closely behind. A small group of people in their high 40s from Arizona State, Texas Tech, Cincinnati, and BYU are positioned before a gap.
When you add in another week of conference play with the league’s clubs, Self anticipates another challenging season.
“This league is going to be enormous. Regardless of who is in the league you play twice, the one thing that’s a little different today is that most of the teams you’ll play once were when it was the Big 12 and we had 10,” Self remarked. “So that obviously makes the league a little different but this this league will be as good — as it was last year — I see it even being better next year.”
