Kansas basketball

KU men's basketball defeated Texas Southern Tigers 83-56 in NCAA Tournament March Madness first round. Jayhawks' bracket path helped by Iowa & Creighton ...

It’s starting to feel a bit like 2011 already, when a crumbled bracket resulted in a gift-wrapped course for KU to the national title. The bottom line: Things don’t always fall this way. The changes to KU’s Sweet 16 odds, meanwhile, are even more drastic. The real benefit of KU’s draw was going to be if weird things happened. Two-thirds of that path KU doesn’t have to worry about anymore. Those Elite Eight and Final Four likelihoods, in particular, made dramatic shifts.

Kansas guard Remy Martin (11) gets past Texas Southern guard Bryson Etienne (4. Fort Worth, Texas — For the past couple of weeks, Kansas basketball coach Bill ...

There was one possession in KU’s win Thursday night where Martin got sucked into the lane and watched as a teammate launched a shot from the outside that clanged off the back of the rim. That's just my goal, my goal is to go in there and help as much as I can. I'm just happy that we got the win and it was a collective effort.” I'm just happy to go out there and, you know, try to give it my all and help them out. And not special in the sense of watching a generational talent do his thing. But the 10-0 run that KU ripped off to blow the game open was almost all Martin. They also turned it over just one time between them and swiped four steals. And it was just another example of how good Martin was in this one and how easily KU rolled as a result. And when he plays like that, we’re tough to beat.” More special in the sense of this was the guy they have been waiting for all season long. And the combination of the two fired up the entire Kansas bench and the pro-Kansas crowd. The shots were routine.

No. 1 seed KU men's basketball team won first-round March Madness tournament game and will face 9 seed Creighton in Fort Worth for spot in Sweet 16 in ...

He did not play the second half, ostensibly because he was not needed. And after we got off to kind of calm our nerves down a little bit, we were very efficient the first half. “I thought we did a lot of really good things the first half. And I do think that that kind of impacted us early,” Self said. McCormack finished with nine points and seven rebounds. We were ready to play. I thought we shared it, we defended, and we rebounded the ball pretty well. The crazy day/evening did not involve losses to No. 1 seeds. I think these guys (Jayhawks) would tell you, playing at 10 at night after you’ve been amped up all day, I think it’s a disadvantage for the two teams that play that late because you can only carry that adrenaline and excitement and be sharp for so long. But I do think we were pretty careless early on,” Self said. And they (Bison) deservedly won the game. “This was a good team win.

KU men's basketball team is one victory behind the Wildcats on college basketball's all-time wins list after winning first round game and UK's upset loss.

Second-seeded Kentucky, which lost to No. 15 seed St. Peter’s 85-79 in overtime Thursday, has an all-time mark of 2,353-720. Top-seeded KU’s 83-56 win over No. 16 seed Texas Southern on Thursday night improved the Jayhawks’ all-time record to 2,352-877. If the Jayhawks defeat Creighton in the round of 32 on Saturday at Dickies Arena, they would tie Kentucky for the most victories in college basketball history.