Kansas men’s basketball receives a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament in the Midwest region

Jordan Guskey, Topeka Capital-Journal

March 13, 2022 at 8:51 PM·3 min read

LAWRENCE — Kansas men’s basketball has learned the path it’ll have to take in the NCAA tournament to win a national title, as they were awarded a No. 1 seed in the Midwest region.

Coach Bill Self’s squad will enter the tournament 28-6, and riding a five-game winning streak, after sweeping its three Big 12 Conference tournament games and winning that championship. The title is already Kansas’ second of the season, considering the Jayhawks earned a share of the Big 12’s regular-season crown earlier this month. While some teams in contention for a No. 1 seed lost in their respective conference tournaments, Kansas handled its business and was recognized for it.

“I believe so,” said senior guard Ochai Agbaji on Saturday, asked if he felt his team’s earned a No. 1 seed. “I think we should. But that doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things in the tournament. So, we’ve just got to be ready to play one game at a time.”

Junior guard Christian Braun added Saturday: “I’d say the same thing. We’ve just got to be ready to play no matter what seed we are. Those numbers don’t matter going into the tournament. You see it every year. So, we’re just going to focus, lock in and be ready to play whoever we play.”

Kansas' head men's basketball coach Bill Self yells on the sidelines at the Big 12 championship game against Texas Tech, Saturday, March 12, 2022, at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas won, 74-65.

Kansas was a No. 3 seed last season, when they advanced to the round of 32 and lost against USC. The last time the Jayhawks were a No. 1 seed was 2018, when they also reached their last Final Four. In Kansas' opening game, it'll face off Thursday in Fort Worth, Texas, against either 16-seed Texas Southern or 16-seed Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in a game that's scheduled to tip off at 8:57 p.m. (CT) and be televised on truTV.

A win would mean the Jayhawks will either face 8-seed San Diego State or 9-seed Creighton on Saturday. The other round of 64 matchups in their region are 5-seed Iowa vs. 12-seed Richmond, 4-seed Providence vs. 13-seed South Dakota State, 6-seed LSU vs. 11-seed Iowa State, 3-seed Wisconsin vs. 14-seed Colgate, 7-seed USC vs. 10-seed Miami (Fl.) and 2-seed Auburn vs. 15-seed Jacksonville State.

All the teams that were fighting for a No. 1 seed have attributes that make them dangerous matchups for other teams. With Kansas, everyone will likely first look to Agbaji. Agbaji is both the Big 12’s player of the year and Big 12 tournament’s most outstanding player.

“It means a lot,” Agbaji said about the honors he’s received, and performing so well in the area he grew up. “I’m honored to receive that. I’m just blessed to be in this position, but I’ve always got to give it back to my teammates because I literally couldn’t have done it without them.”

Agbaji said that even as soon as he and his teammates were celebrating the Big 12 tournament title on the podium Saturday inside the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, they were already talking about wanting to enjoy a moment like that again. There’s more out there for them to accomplish, and they know it.

Braun said there are six games left in between the Jayhawks and another goal they have. He plans on delivering in this upcoming stretch as well.

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas basketball gets No. 1 in NCAA Tournament after Big 12 title

Reuters
US CDC sends health alert on Uganda's Ebola outbreak
The agency said although no cases have been reported in the U.S., it was issuing an advisory through its health alert network to raise awareness. On January 29, a male nurse working in Uganda's capital, Kampala, died from Ebola caused by the Sudan virus. Uganda confirmed the outbreak on January 30.
Reuters
Trump administration disbands task force targeting Russian oligarchs
The U.S. Justice Department under President Donald Trump is disbanding an effort started after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine to enforce sanctions and target oligarchs close to the Kremlin. A memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi, issued on Wednesday during a wave of orders on her first day in office but not previously reported, said the effort, known as Task Force KleptoCapture, will end as part of a shift in focus and funding to combating drug cartels and international gangs. "This policy requires a fundamental change in mindset and approach," Bondi wrote in the directive, adding that resources now devoted to enforcing sanctions and seizing the assets of oligarchs will be redirected to countering cartels.
AFP
Judge pauses Musk plan for mass US govt cull
A judge paused a scheme masterminded by billionaire Elon Musk to slash the US government by encouraging federal workers to quit through a mass buyout by midnight Thursday.The federal judge in Massachusetts ordered a temporary injunction on the deadline given by Musk for the country's more than two million government employees to quit with eight months' pay or risk being fired.
USA TODAY
RFK Jr.'s nomination to lead HHS cleared key Senate panel | Fact check
A key committee advanced President Donald Trump's pick to be the nation's health secretary for consideration by the full Senate.
AFP
Swindling Brit stands trial for injuring French police in getaway
A convicted British conman who featured in a Netflix documentary appeared in a French court on Thursday charged with knocking over and injuring two police officers in 2022 as he tried to escape from them.More than a decade later, Hendy-Freegard, now 53, appeared in court on Thursday for running over and injuring two police officers in central France's sparsely populated Creuse region in August 2022.
Associated Press
Brazil introduces law restricting smartphone use in schools amid concern over the impact on learning
Brazilian students returned to class this week with a new task: staying away from their smartphones as a new law restricting their use in schools takes effect. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a bill in January limiting smartphone access at schools, in line with a trend seen in the U.S. and Europe. It applies to public and private schools, and applies to classrooms and the halls.
Yahoo Finance
A new DEI fault line is being drawn in Silicon Valley
Google is backing away from diversity hiring targets, setting up a stark divide in Silicon Valley as corporate DEI goals come under intensifying scrutiny from Washington, D.C.
USA TODAY
US Treasury temporarily agrees to limit DOGE access amid privacy lawsuit
The Treasury Department agreed not to give Elon Musk’s DOGE access to its payment systems during argument on a suit alleging it was an illegal search.
Yahoo Finance
Musk’s value on Wall Street is rising as banks find buyers for X loans
Banks this week sold $5.5 billion in debt tied to Elon Musk’s 2022 buyout of Twitter, signaling that Wall Street's confidence in Musk is rising alongside the billionaire’s elevated status in Washington.
USA TODAY
California crisis: A neighborhood is drifting into the ocean
Rancho Palos Verdes, about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, faces damage from landslides as the region moves toward the ocean.
CNN
First winter storm of many forces water rescues, knocks out power and creates dangerous travel conditions
A wide-reaching storm hitting the Ohio Valley, mid-Atlantic and Northeast Thursday is just the first in a nearly nonstop series of winter storms over the next week-plus.
Reuters
Harvard law library acts to preserve government data amid sweeping purges
A unit of Harvard University's Law Library says it is releasing an archive of more than 300,000 government data sets, aiming to protect vital public information at a time when President Donald Trump's administration is wiping it from the web. The initiative, announced Thursday by the Law Library's Innovation Lab, is one of several efforts to rescue official figures and government datasets as Trump and his billionaire allies take a wrecking ball to the federal government, yanking thousands of websites offline and in some cases deleting entire agencies off the internet. On Sunday The New York Times reported it found that more than 8,000 government web pages had been removed in the aftermath of the presidential transition.
Associated Press
OpenAI looks across US for sites to build its Trump-backed Stargate AI data centers
OpenAI is scouring the U.S. for sites to build a network of huge data centers to power its artificial intelligence technology, expanding beyond a flagship Texas location and looking across 16 states to accelerate the Stargate project championed by President Donald Trump. The maker of ChatGPT put out a request for proposals and began visiting locations in Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this week. Trump touted Stargate, a newly formed joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, shortly after returning to the White House last month.
Yahoo Finance
January jobs report expected to show hiring slowed, unemployment rate held steady to start 2025
The January jobs report is expected to show the labor market gradually cooled to start 2025.
Reuters
Brazil's Galipolo sees surge in crypto use, says 90% of flow tied to stablecoins
Stablecoins are pegged to real-world assets, such as the U.S. dollar, and therefore fluctuate much less than other crypto assets like bitcoin. Speaking at a Bank for International Settlements event in Mexico City, Galipolo said policymakers see this trend as primarily driven by the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, posing challenges for oversight and regulation. He also argued that Brazil's Drex is not fundamentally a central bank digital currency but rather an infrastructure aimed at improving credit with collateralized assets, in a context where local financing costs are high due to the limited use of guarantees.
AFP
Scientists claim to have cracked how to cook the perfect egg
Hard-boiled, soft-boiled or poached.The chemical analysis showed that the yolks of eggs cooked in cycles contained more polyphenols -- healthy micronutrients -- than hard-boiled eggs, soft-boiled eggs or sous videeggs.
Yahoo Finance
Apple supplier Skyworks stock plummets as iPhone maker turns to competitor
Analysts believe Apple is turning to Broadcom for business that had gone to Skyworks.
Reuters
Countries staying committed to climate plans after US Paris pact exit, UN climate chief says
Countries are staying committed to their national climate plans and looking to lead the clean energy transition, as the United States plans to exit the Paris climate agreement, the UN's top climate official said in his first speech of the year on Thursday. Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, laid out priorities ahead of annual climate talks in November, and encouraged countries to prepare stronger national climate plans this year, even after U.S. President Donald Trump said he will remove the world's second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter from the Paris agreement.
NBC News
Trump detests the U.S. trade deficit. Here's what it means.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the nation’s trade deficit, which the Commerce Department reported Wednesday reached a new record high.
Associated Press
Newsom wants to speed up a delayed rule to make California homes more fire resistant
As Los Angeles reels from deadly January wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday he will order the state to advance long-delayed regulations requiring homeowners in high-risk areas to clear combustible materials around their homes. Newsom is expected to sign it after his trip to Washington to advocate for disaster aid. The rule requires homeowners to clear materials like dead plants and wooden furniture within 5 feet (1.5 meters) of homes in fire-prone areas.

Latest Stories