Last March, Bill Self sat at the podium after an embarrassing loss to the Gonzaga Bulldogs that ended the Kansas Jayhawks’ season and admitted an uncomfortable truth: He had been thinking about next season for about a month.

The quote was controversial at the time and was widely misunderstood on social media as Self giving up on his team, which had limped to the finish line. In reality, Self simply knew what was obvious most of the season: his 2023-24 Jayhawks were fatally flawed. They lacked the depth, three-point shooting and general shooting technique needed to make the deep March runs that KU fans are accustomed to. And in college basketball ’24, creating the plan to set a roster in the spring through the transfer portal requires far more forethought than opening the portal on the day the season ends.

“When you don’t have as much firepower as you might have in years past, that was clearly evident this year,” Self said at the March press conference.

The firepower that Self had accumulated in the weeks following that season-ending loss was on display Tuesday night in Las Vegas in No. 1 Kansas’ 75-72 win over the No. 11 Duke Blue Devils, a statement win that the Jayhawks confirmed ‘offseason reload efforts. Kansas got 32 of its 75 points from its freshmen and, most impressively, went 10:26 in the final without its best player, Hunter Dickinson, who was ejected after appearing to kick Maliq Brown in the head while fighting for a loose ball fought.

“If you can rotate people in and out and not have to worry about the talent going down, I think that’s a big plus for us,” said senior forward KJ Adams, one of the holdovers from last year’s team. “They have a lot of three-point shooters, a lot of athletic guys that we have this year.”

Kansas entered Tuesday with a lot to prove. The Jayhawks stumbled to a dirty win over the mediocre Michigan State Spartans two weeks ago. Previously, they laid an egg in the second half against North Carolina and almost blew a big first-half lead at home. Kansas was an underdog (at least in the eyes of sportsbooks) on Tuesday night, the best bet for any preseason No. 1 and definitely for a blue blooded person. This was the Jayhawks’ clearest chance to showcase their mettle as a serious national title threat, and they delivered outstanding results.

The core of this Kansas team is largely the same as it was a year ago: Dickinson carries the scoring load down low, Dajuan Harris Jr. sets the table and Adams is the glue that holds everything together. But the Jayhawks’ margin for error in the 2023-24 season was so slim due to the lack of other options, and when Kevin McCullar Jr. was sidelined with a knee injury, the Jayhawks largely fell apart. That’s the problem Self solved in the portal by adding AJ Storr, Rylan Griffen and Zeke Mayo to give Kansas more backcourt power. All three had their moments Tuesday: Storr was crucial in the Jayhawks’ initial push to take an early lead, Mayo played a steady game en route to 12 points and Griffen delivered two huge shots after Duke took a late lead.

Dickinson’s ejection could easily have been a pivotal turning point in the game. Last season, it likely would have served as a reminder of the Jayhawks’ limitations. In this case, however, that moment was, in Self’s words, “probably the best thing that could have happened to us,” because it allowed rookie Flory Bidunga to step up and help the Jayhawks take steps toward establishing their identity.

“It’s too early to be a defining moment … but this team didn’t have an identity yet,” Self said. “I think we could maybe be a little proud and say we have a bigger identity now because we kind of won ugly down the stretch, which is what we had to play to have a chance of winning without (Dickinson ) fails.” There.”

For Storr and Griffen, the team’s two most highly praised additions to the team, things went slower than many might have liked. To be clear, this was not a perfect performance from the duo. Even after the game, he still feels like Griffen and Storr are “about a month away” from truly adjusting to the expectations that come with playing basketball in Kansas. Tuesday’s results showed even more clearly the benefits of KU’s busy offseason – more options late in games, more pieces to step up in crucial moments and more players to watch for at all times when they’re on the field.

After surviving three blueblood battles to start the season (North Carolina, Michigan State and Duke in the first 23 days of the season), the Jayhawks now have a chance to establish themselves at No. 1 for a while. The December schedule appears to be more manageable, although tryouts with the Creighton Bluejays and Missouri Tigers won’t be a walk in the park. Self should have time to continue to build Storr and Griffen, continue to include five-star Bidunga, and refine which late-game lineups work best. There is room for growth, which is scary considering how KU handled those early big tests.

Have the Jayhawks gained the style points necessary to be a No. 1 team in the sport? That’s up for debate, and other teams have certainly made a case for the top spot in a November full of high-profile fixtures. But Tuesday’s win, and the manner in which it came about, proved emphatically that Self’s Jayhawks have what it takes to make a serious run at his third national title…exactly what Self had envisioned. as the 2023-24 season unceremoniously ended.