“I think for the last month, I’ve been thinking about next season, to be honest,” the Kansas Jayhawks head coach Bill Self stated as his team stumbled in the second half of the 2023-24 NCAA season. Starting the year as the top ranked team in preseason polls, the Jayhawks were positioned at the fourth spot up until the February 2024. But later it became difficult to find their footing which ultimately culminated in their elimination from the second round of the NCAA tournament. While Self looked to have moved on from the loss, it is his 7 foot 1 inch star Hunter Dickinson who still fixates over last season.

On Friday’s released by ESPN, Dickinson reflected on his team’s previous year’s loss and what makes them different this year. And fans were happy to hear the same. “I feel like the athleticism is definitely different than last year. We got a lot more athletes on the team. Like last year, our best warmup dunker was a walk-on. The warmup lines will look way different this year,” Dickinson stated.

Last year, the Jayhawks had 7 walk ons including Charlie McCarthy, Justin Cross, Chris Carter, Wilder Evers, Patrick Cassidy, Michael Jankovich, and Dillon Wilhite. About 9 players left the team last season, and only three athletes from the 2022-23 season with more than 10 minutes per game average returned. However, the Self-coached team was still ranked at the top spot in the AP preseason polls. But later on they had a decline.

This would have been a big issue for Dickinson who was the center for the team. After spending three seasons with the Michigan Wolverines, the Virginia-born left the team to realize his title dreams with the Jayhawks and therefore, seeing an unexpected fall looked to have taken a toll over him.

As of this season, the Kansas based team has recruited 6 guards namely Zeke Mayo, AJ Storr, Rylan Griffen, Noah Shelby, Shakeel Moore, and David Coit. Meanwhile, their two main stars Dickinson and Dajuan Harris Jr. returned for a fifth year for the Jayhawks. And hence,this year, the fans expect a much different result to their last year downfall.

Kansas Jayhawks suffered a humiliating fall in 2023-24 season

While the Jayhawks won 13 out of their first 14 games last year, the decline started when they had a 10-10 tally before having an abysmal 5-7 in their final 12 games. They ended the regular season with the worst 23-11 and 10-8 record under Self’s reign.

Having lost their last regular season game against the number one ranked Houston, Dickinson & Co. failed to set the tone in the conference tournament, getting eliminated in the second round itself against Cincinnati by a 52–72 margin.

However, they earned a call to the NCAA tournament where they won the first game against Samford by a close 93–89 but failed to live up to the expectations in their next matchup against Gonzaga, losing it by a 68–89. Though Dickinson hit a team high 15 points, his efforts unfortunately went in vain. But as the new season has started this has once again made Kansas hopeful.

They are again the top ranked ranked team in the AP’s top 25 preseason poll. And with this being Dickinson’s final year, there are chances that leading from the front, he might get them their fifth NCAA title.