How this year’s KU Jayhawks basketball team ranks among peers in the Bill Self era

The question is simple: How good was this year’s Kansas men’s basketball team in a historic sense?

Obviously, the Jayhawks finished first in both of the major polls, but looking even more broadly, how should this team be perceived when compared to each of the other 16 teams that Bill Self has coached in Lawrence?

The numbers can help us here ... to an extent. Ken Pomeroy’s Adjusted Efficiency Margin — the number that makes up his rankings each year — gives us a good starting point, though we must accept it will not be perfect.

Pomeroy has often warned about comparing these numbers across seasons, and when I reached out to him earlier this week, he said other methods could be more sound scientifically, like finding each team’s standard deviation from average.

In the end, though, Pomeroy admitted that extra work likely wouldn’t change the results too much. And because I won’t be posting this research to any scientific journal, it’s probably quickest and easiest to begin the discussion here when it comes to comparing Self’s best teams.

Considering all that ... here is the ranking of Self’s top 12 teams at KU, based on Pomeroy’s overarching measure:

Considering Self’s consistency at KU ... the 2019-20 team’s rank here is pretty impressive.

This year’s squad is third during Self’s KU tenure in this exercise, behind a pair of teams I’d guess most KU fans would consider among the top two.

The 2007-08 team remains as one of the greatest college basketball squads of the last two decades, ranking second in KenPom’s Adjusted Efficiency Margin among all Division I teams that have played since 2001-02.

And though 2009-10 ended with a crushing loss to Northern Iowa, those Jayhawks — with Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich, Xavier Henry, the Morris twins and Tyshawn Taylor — were the No. 1 overall seed, entering the NCAA Tournament 32-2 after finishing Big 12 conference play with a 15-1 record.

KU’s 2019-20 team, then, remains ahead of some talented groups. That includes a 2015-16 team with Perry Ellis, Frank Mason and Devonté Graham that was tripped up in the Elite Eight by eventual national champ Villanova, a 2010-11 squad that entered its final game against VCU at 35-2 and a 2006-07 roster that rated as the nation’s top defense.

What might be even more disappointing for this year’s team was the potential opportunity it had with these particular circumstances.

While it’s true that coaches and teams can only focus on making themselves better, context also matters when it comes to winning a single-season championship.

And though perhaps the narrative was overblown much of this season, there really weren’t any dominant teams outside of KU this season, which would have helped the Jayhawks’ title odds some too.

Derek Johnson — co-host for Lawrence radio’s Rock Chalk Sports Talk — illustrated this point in a recent post on Twitter.

Take the 2009-10 team as an example. Even if had advanced further, it at some point would have taken on a formidable Duke team — one the advanced numbers liked by the end of the season even more than KU.

That’s why 2019-20 was potentially set up so well for KU before the coronavirus outbreak canceled the NCAA Tournament. Not only were the Jayhawks dominant, but they were that in a college basketball landscape without another superpower.

When KU had this before ... it won a national championship in 2008. There are no guarantees obviously — even the NCAA favorites are only typically about 20% to win a 68-team, one-and-done tournament — but it’s safe to say no one would have liked its chances heading into March Madness better than KU.

It obviously leaves Self with a difficult dilemma. How can he memorialize this year’s team, while at the same time making it clear that these Jayhawks did not have the chance to win a national championship?

This quick analysis at least tells us this: The 2019-20 Jayhawks were plenty good enough to win a title, while also ranking one of the best in the Self era.

That might not result in a national title banner ... but it certainly appears to warrant recognition, however that can be achieved.

This story was originally published March 19, 2020 at 12:57 PM.

Jesse Newell

The Kansas City Star

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Jesse Newell covered the Chiefs for The Star until August 2025. He won an EPPY for best sports blog and previously was named top beat writer in his circulation by AP’s Sports Editors. His interest in sports analytics comes from his math teacher father, who handed out rulers to Trick-or-Treaters each year.