No. 2 Kansas' unbeaten record could be in severe jeopardy on NCAA basketball Wednesday night when the Jayhawks (20-0, 5-0 Big 12) travel to Manhattan, Kan., to play the young but rising No. 22 Kansas State Wildcats (14-4, 4-0).
Superstar Wildcats freshman center Michael Beasley has led KSU to nine wins in the past 10 games, but KU has won an incredible 24 consecutive games in Manhattan and beaten KSU in 35 of the past 36 meetings; Kansas State last beat Kansas at home during the 1983-84 season.
That didn't stop Beasley from basically guaranteeing a season sweep of Kansas before the season even began.
"We're going to beat Kansas at home. We're going to beat them in their house. We're going to beat them in Africa," Beasley said then. "Wherever we play, we're going to beat them."
The Streak, insists coach Bill Self, is the furthest thing from the Jayhawks' minds.
"This is a game that's going to mean an awful lot to a lot of people," he said. "Our players could care less what happened (in past years). Their players could care less, too. But because there's so much interest, our players feed off the interest level, which makes the game so much bigger."
This is the first time the rivals have met as ranked teams in nearly 50 years, when the No. 10 Jayhawks upset No. 1 Kansas State in Manhattan in March 1958. "This will certainly be the toughest test we've had to date, without question," Self said. "It could be as hard a test as we have this year. Hopefully, we'll be prepared. We'll find out a lot more about ourselves from a poise standpoint."
Through four games of conference play, Kansas State's average margin of victory is 16 points, with its best win against then-No. 9 Texas A&M; through five games of conference play, Kansas has an average margin of victory of 23.2 points, but no victories against ranked teams.
Another impressive stat for both teams is defense. In conference play, Kansas State is allowing just 62.2 points per game, compared to Kansas' 58.2.
Kansas hasn't opened a season with 21 consecutive wins since its 22-0 start in 1996-97; the Wildcats will be just the second ranked team Kansas has faced this season. The Jayhawks won 59-55 at Southern California -- which had also been No. 22 -- on Dec. 2.
KSU, meanwhile, has started its Big 12 schedule with four consecutive wins for the first time since 1988 but it hasn't beaten a team ranked as high as No. 2 since the 1993-94 season, when it won at then-No. 1 Kansas 68-64.
"Either you are going to rise to the occasion or you're going to fall," Walker said. "We plan on rising."
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