What to expect as KU Jayhawks kick off Big 12 men’s hoop slate on Saturday at UCF
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- KU must restart Big 12 streak after a 62-61 upset on Dec. 31, 2025 at Allen.
- KU beat UCF 99-48 in 2025, owns narrow and overtime wins in other meetings.
- UCF presents shooting threat - 39.8% from three, 88.3 PPG and high assists.
After winning its conference opener a staggering 33 years in a row, the Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball team suffered a stunning 62-61 defeat against West Virginia in game one of the 2024-25 Big 12 season.
KU coach Bill Self hasn’t forgotten that Dec. 31, 2025 outcome at Allen Fieldhouse.
“Last year broke that streak. So we’ve got to start another one,” Self said Thursday at a news conference in advance of Saturday’s 1 p.m. league opener versus UCF at 10,000-seat Addition Financial Arena in Orlando.
“It’s very important,” Self said of beginning conference play with a victory in a game that will be televised on Peacock and NBC Sports Network.
KU bounced back from its league-opening home loss to West Virginia a year ago, slugging host UCF 99-48 in its second Big 12 game. That marked the Jayhawks’ largest margin of victory ever in a road game against a Division I opponent.
Kansas started 3-1 in league play a year ago before losing at Iowa State. KU wound up 11-9 in the conference, finishing sixth of 16 teams.
KU, which lost to 65-60 to UCF in Orlando on Jan. 10, 2024 — the Knights’ first year in the Big 12 — actually went 3-0 against UCF last season. But only the game in Orlando was one-sided.
KU trailed by as many as nine points early in the second half before rallying to claim a 91-87 victory over the Knights on Jan. 28, 2025 in Allen Fieldhouse. In a second-round Big 12 tournament game, it took KU overtime to oust UCF 98-94 on March 12, 2025 at Kansas City’s T-Mobile Center.
Coach Johnny Dawkins’ Knights went 7-13 in league play (20-17 overall) last season and finished in a tie for 12th in the conference standings. In 2023-24, UCF went 7-11 in the league, good for a tie for 11th. UCF finished 17-16 overall.
“Past history shows these guys can play with us. They’ll ll be excited to play and I certainly believe we will as well,” Self said.
UCF will enter the game with an 11-1 record in nonconference games. The Knights, led by 10th-year coach Dawkins, average 88.3 points per game with a plus-13.4 scoring margin. UCF makes 8.9 three-point shots per game.
The Knights’ 39.8 3-point field-goal percentage ranks third in the Big 12 and 12th nationally. UCF averages 17.3 assists per contest.
“We’re playing a team that can score, so we’ve got to be on point defensively,” Self said.
The Knights are led by junior forward Jordan Burks, who averages 13.8 points and 4.7 rebounds per game. KU recruited the Knights’ second-leading scorer, Riley Kugel — he averages 13.7 points per game and is tied for the team lead in 3-pointers, with 22 made in 55 tries (40%).
Kugel , a 6-5 senior from Orlando, committed to KU at one point before ultimately heading to Florida for two seasons and Mississippi State for one. Also, junior guard Chris Johnson (6-5, from Houston) at one time committed to KU before eventually switching to Texas.
Johnson played for the Longhorns in 2023-24, then suited up for Stephen F. Austin in 2024-25. He is averaging 5.3 points per game with 22 assists against 10 turnovers. He averages 10.8 minutes of playing time per contest.
“Riley is a good player. He’s having a nice year,” Self said of Kugel, who averages 27.7 minutes per game. “He was their leading scorer just until a few games ago. He’s an athlete, can shoot and I wish that could have worked out (at KU), but it obviously didn’t.
“And he went to Mississippi State and then has ended up at UCF, and is a great addition for them. And Chris Johnson, who committed to us early, and then got out of the commitment and went to Texas, has ended up there. I want them both to do well, just not at our expense.”
Self also praised Knights coach Dawkins.
“Johnny is one of the the best, classiest, professional, competent guys in our profession, period,” Self said. “I think he’s a really good coach, and he’s probably a better guy than he is coach, and he was probably a better player than he was anything, because, you know, he was a national player of the year (at Duke). I think he’s really good for our sport.”
After playing at UCF, the No. 17-ranked Jayhawks will return home to meet TCU at 8 p..m. Tuesday, then head to West Virginia for a game one week from Saturday. That game will tip off at 11 a.m. Central Time at WVU Coliseum in Morgantown, West Virginia.
“He (Self) definitely has talked to us (about the difficulty of Big 12 play),” KU senior guard Melvin Council Jr. said Thursday. “Every game will be the hardest game of our life.
“It’s Kansas. Everybody wants to beat Kansas. We can’t get back a game because there are some teams we play twice, some once, and we’re just trying to get a Big 12 championship at the end of the day.”
KU will play UCF just once this season.
Council said the Jayhawks have had a good week of practice since resuming Saturday after a five-day Christmas break.
“We came back like we never left,” he said. “We’re in great condition right now. Really, our goal is defense. So we’ve been practicing defense a lot.”
This story was originally published January 2, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What to expect as KU Jayhawks kick off Big 12 men’s hoop slate on Saturday at UCF."
