Beyond the Streak: Untold Stories from Kansas Basketball's Unrivaled Big 12 Reign

For the past 13 years—after every practice and every game—the Kansas Jayhawks have broken their huddle with the same battle cry: “BIG 12 CHAMPS!”
It’s among the subtle methods Bill Self uses to keep his players engaged during the conference season, to help them focus on winning a league title instead of thinking ahead to the NCAA Tournament.
Thirteen straight times now, the psychology has worked.
In what ESPN analyst Jay Bilas has pegged as “arguably the most remarkable achievement in the history of sport,” the Jayhawks have won the Big 12 championship every year since 2005.
Only the UCLA Bruins, who claimed 13 straight Pac-10 crowns from 1967-79, can match KU’s record of sustained conference supremacy. Considering the changes in today’s college basketball landscape, Kansas’ reign is far more impressive.
This book explains how it all happened. And why.
Spanning 512 pages, Jason King's latest project is a journey through each of the Jayhawks’ 13 championship seasons through the eyes of more than 100 Kansas players and coaches—and also their opponents. The book is a lens into the locker rooms, huddles, dormitories, practice gyms and coaching offices of the most consistent college basketball program in America.
Here are a handful of questions answered inside:

*Why was it so agonizing for Bill Self to leave Illinois for Kansas in 2003?

*How did Mario Chalmers know the Jayhawks would win the 2008 NCAA title two years before it happened?

*What did Sherron Collins dump over the balcony of a Holiday Inn in Columbia, Missouri?

*What was Texas’ Kevin Durant doing two hours before his historic 2007 game at Allen Fieldhouse?

*Why was Missouri’s Kim English secretly rooting for Thomas Robinson to make a key free throw in the final edition of the Border War?

*Why did Joel Embiid weep as he sat in Norm Roberts’ office after his freshman season?

*What enabled Frank Mason to go from a little-known recruit to the first AP National Player of the Year in Kansas history?

Plus: Oral histories on historic wins over Oklahoma State (2005), Texas (2007), Missouri (2012), at Iowa State (2013), Oklahoma (2016) and West Virginia (2017); perspective on the streak from Durant, Jacob Pullen, Pierre Jackson, Georges Niang, Acie Law, Rick Barnes, Scott Drew, Frank Martin, Fred Hoiberg and other opponents; more than 25 lists ranking the top 10 players, games and moments in the streak’s 13-year history; scores, stats and key box scores from every season; a “Where Are They Now” section with updates from your favorite KU legends.

Entertaining, enlightening—and, at times, moving—“Beyond the Streak” is more than a Kansas basketball book. It’s an encyclopedia for every Jayhawks fan.

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