College basketball rankings: Banged up and lacking depth, Kansas limps into 2024 NCAA Tournament

I was asked, on radio in Kansas City earlier this week, something along the lines of what kind of team is Kansas without Kevin McCullar Jr. and Hunter Dickinson.

My answer?

The type of team that was a 2.5-point underdog on Wednesday to a Cincinnati team that's way on the wrong side of the bubble as Selection Sunday approaches. In other words, Kansas at full-strength is capable of making a Final Four. But I always assumed Kansas without its two best players would look about how most teams would look without their two best players, and that was precisely the case when the Jayhawks lost their Big 12 opener to the 11-seed Bearcats.

The Jayhawks, with only three players who average at least 4.8 points per game available, shot just 33.9% from the field and 15% from 3-point range. They were limited to less than 53 points for the second straight game.

"Obviously we were bad offensively and didn't make shots — didn't make any shots," said Kansas coach Bill Self. "And today was a night that things had to go a lot better for us shooting the basketball [because of our roster-limitations] to have a chance."

McCullar (knee) and Dickinson (shoulder) are expected back for next week's NCAA Tournament, according to Self. At worst, they'll now have 11 days between games to try to get as close to 100% as they can get before the Round of 64.

Kansas is No. 17 in Thursday morning's updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, where Purdue remains No. 1 for the 23rd consecutive day. UConn and Houston round out the top three. Those schools are now guaranteed to be the top three seeds in the NCAA Tournament (in some order) when the bracket is unveiled Sunday on CBS.