KU featured on four ESPN Big Mondays for the 14th-consecutive season

LAWRENCE, Kan. – For the 14th year in a row, Kansas men’s basketball will be featured four times on ESPN Big Monday, according to the 2020 Big 12 Conference schedule released by the league on Wednesday.

For the 28th-consecutive season, dating back to 1992-93, every game on the Kansas men’s basketball schedule will be televised.

Kansas will have 29 of its 33 contests televised on the ESPN family of networks. Among those 29 games are 10 contests (two exhibitions, four early-season and four Big 12 battles) to be produced by Big 12 NOW and air on ESPN+.

CBS will broadcast two games – Saturday, Jan. 11, against Baylor in Allen Fieldhouse and Saturday, Feb. 29, at Kansas State. FOX will televise the Kansas at Villanova game in the Big 12/Big East Challenge on Dec. 21 at 11 a.m. (Central). ABC will air the Kansas at Stanford contest on Dec. 29 at 2 p.m. (Central).

The Big 12 opener for the Jayhawks will be against West Virginia on Saturday, Jan. 4, in Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas will play each conference foe twice in the round-robin format that began in 2011-12. The Jayhawks have won 14 of the last 15 Big 12 regular-season titles and 18 of the 23 since the inception of the league in 1996-97. KU’s 61 overall conference season titles are an NCAA record.

The Jayhawks will debut on this season’s ESPN Big Monday contests on Jan. 27 at Oklahoma State. KU will then host Texas the following Monday, Feb. 3. Kansas closes out its Big Monday appearances by hosting Iowa State on Feb. 17 and Oklahoma State on Feb. 24.

Since the inception of the Big 12 in 1996-97, Kansas is 69-18 all-time on ESPN Big Monday (40-1 at home and 29-17 on the road), including 49-12 under head coach Bill Self (29-0 at home and 20-12 on the road). Additionally, KU has won 33-consecutive Big Monday games in Allen Fieldhouse. Overall, KU has won its last 14 ESPN Big Monday contests.

Kansas released its non-conference schedule in June. It features contests against perennial power Duke to open the regular season on Nov. 5 at Madison Square Garden in New York City in the Champions Classic, and its seventh appearance in the Maui Jim Maui Invitational, Nov. 25-27. Additionally, the Jayhawks will host UNC Greensboro (Nov. 8), Monmouth (Nov. 15), East Tennessee State (Nov. 19), Colorado (Dec. 7) and UW Milwaukee (Dec. 10) in Allen Fieldhouse and Kansas City (Dec. 14) at Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo. KU will also host Tennessee in the Big 12/SEC Challenge on Jan. 25.

KU will officially tip off the 2019-20 season with the 35th annual Late Night in the Phog on Friday, Oct. 4, in Allen Fieldhouse with festivities slated to start at 6:30 p.m. The event will be also televised on ESPN+.

Ranked in the preseason top-5 by most outlets, Kansas returns three starters and eight letterwinners from last season’s 26-10 team which opened the season No. 1 in the national polls, won the NIT Season Tip Off, finished 12-6 in the Big 12, advanced to the Big 12 Tournament title game and advanced to its NCAA record 30th-consecutive NCAA Tournament.

Senior center Udoka Azubuike (13.4 ppg, 6.8 rpg) and sophomore guards Devon Dotson (12.3 ppg, 3.5 assists per game) and Ochai Agbaji (8.5 ppg) are the three returning starters. Other regular returners include junior guard Marcus Garrett (7.3 ppg), sophomore forward David McCormack (3.9 ppg, 3.1 rpg) and senior forward Mitch Lightfoot (2.4 ppg, 2.9 rpg). McCormack started the final 13 games of the 2018-19 season.

Also back is junior forward Silvio De Sousa who has been cleared to play by the NCAA after missing the 2018-19 season. De Sousa averaged 4.0 points and 3.7 rebounds in KU’s 2017-18 Final Four season.

Kansas welcomes seven newcomers, which includes six freshmen and one senior transfer. Guard Isaiah Moss averaged 9.2 points and 2.9 rebounds last season at Iowa where he graduated and transferred to KU for his final year of eligibility. Guards Christian Braun and Issac McBride were named 2019 Gatorade Player of the Year for Kansas and Arkansas, respectively. Other freshmen include forward Jalen Wilson, guard/forward Tristan Enaruna and guard Michael Jankovich. Guard Dajuan Harris is another addition who will be a redshirt for the 2019-20 season.

The award-winning in-house video unit of Kansas Athletics, Rock Chalk Video, will produce the six Big 12 Now on ESPN+ men’s basketball games. It will also produce Jayhawk Gameday Live, a 30-minute pregame show and a 60-minute postgame show, for every home and away Kansas men’s basketball game day. Those shows will air on ESPN+.

Rock Chalk Video will also produce a simulcast of Hawk Talk, Coach Bill Self’s weekly radio show which will be shown on KUAthletics.com.