Bill Self Reveals Plans to Honor Kansas’ Seniors in Sunflower Showdown

For the final time this season, Kansas will host a game inside Allen Fieldhouse in front of its home crowd. The matchup will take place against the Kansas State Wildcats for the program's Senior Day.

With a total of six seniors — four scholarship players and two walk-ons — set to exhaust their eligibility after this season, more than a handful of players will be honored by the school on Saturday. These players include Melvin Council Jr., Tre White, Nginyu Ngala, Jayden Dawson, Wilder Evers, and Justin Cross.

On Wednesday, head coach Bill Self spoke with Voice of the Jayhawks Brian Hanni in the newest edition of Hawk Talk. Self discussed each of his seniors' journeys and revealed his plan to let five of them begin the game in the starting lineup together.

"I'm excited for them, and I'm planning on starting those guys," Self said. "This particular group is more about Wilder and Justin than it is Melvin and Tre in my opinion, because they have been here the longest. Wilder has been here four years, and Justin has been here for three. Both got their degrees from here and have sacrificed a lot, and been great teammates for the time in which they've been here."

Self would never admit this on camera, but he knows he has much more lineup flexibility to experiment with his seniors because of the opponent. Kansas State sits second to last in the Big 12 standings and has spiraled so much since the two teams first met that former coach Jerome Tang was fired for cause.

Since there are six seniors, one of them will have to come off the bench. However, Self plans to start both walk-ons simply because they have spent multiple years at the university, while the four scholarship players arrived as transfers from the portal this offseason.

"The bad thing is one senior can't start, so we will have to sub him in, but I look forward to seeing them," Self continued. "Of course, Tre and Melvin have been great this year in their one year here. They've just been fabulous. We couldn't ask for them to have better years than what they've had."

"And Jayden hasn't had a chance to play a lot, but he's been a nice addition and a great teammate. Then, Gee [Ngala] obviously hasn't played a lot, but he came in and he's done exactly what we asked him to do when we brought him in. To be an unbelievable practice player, and he's done that," he concluded.

The Jayhawks, losers of four of their last six, are in dire need of a feel-good win with the regular season nearing its end. KU is likely to finish fifth in the Big 12 standings regardless of Saturday's result.

The last time KU held Senior Night against Kansas State, it defeated the Wildcats 90-68 in 2024. The Jayhawks will look for a similar outcome against their reeling rivals, who sit at an abysmal 3-14 in conference play.