This year’s Jayhawk squad may be young and inexperienced, but they will have to learn fast. For the second year in a row, Kansas has landed one of the most difficult schedules in college basketball.

“It was a very difficult schedule last year,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “But we probably play more high-profile teams this year than we did last year. Once again this will play out to be one of the best schedules in the country.”

Kansas will play Arizona in the first round of the Maui Invitational in Hawaii over Thanksgiving break. They will then face Connecticut or Arkansas. Gonzaga, Maryland, Michigan State and Chaminade will also compete in the tournament.

On Dec. 1, the Kansas Jayhawks, who return just one starter from last year’s team, will face the Nevada Wolfpack, a team that advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament last year. Two days later, Kansas will suit up against Western Illinois before jetting off to Madison Square Garden to play St. Joseph’s on Dec. 6.

After playing California at Kemper Arena, Kansas will play four straight non-conference home games against Pepperdine, Northern Colorado, Northern Arizona and Kentucky before the start of conference play.

Co-champions of the Big 12 conference, Kansas will open the Big 12 season on the road against Colorado on Jan. 11. They will close the season March 4 at Kansas State. Games at Missouri (Jan. 16), at Iowa State (Jan. 28), versus Texas Tech (Jan. 30), versus Oklahoma (Feb. 5), at Oklahoma State (Feb. 13) and at Texas (Feb. 25), highlight Kansas’ conference schedule.

Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Iowa State all competed in last year’s NCAA tournament.

“It sounds like a good schedule,” said sophomore Jeremy Case, who didn’t seem worried about the young Jayhawks competing against at least eight NCAA tournament teams.

“There are goods and bads to being so young and playing such a tough schedule,” he said. “The good thing is that we are going to play hard all of the time because we won’t know any better. The bad thing is in a close game situation we won’t have the experience we had last season.”

The Jayhawks will play on ESPN’s Big Monday three times: at Missouri (Jan. 16), versus Texas Tech (Jan. 30) and at Oklahoma State (Feb. 13). The Big 12 Men’s Basketball Championship will be played March 9-12 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

The Jayhawks will play another non-conference game in December; however, details about that game have not been announced. Kansas was originally scheduled to play at Georgia Tech on Dec. 17, but the game has been postponed until next season.