The 2007–08 Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team represented the University of Kansas for the NCAA Division I men's intercollegiate basketball season of 2007–2008. The team was led by Bill Self in his fifth season as head coach. The team played its home games in Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas. The team won the 2007–2008 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, marking the third tournament title in the school's history and fifth national title overall.

Kansas (ⁱ/ˈkænzəs/) is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind," although this was probably not the term's original meaning. Residents of Kansas are called "Kansans."

For thousands of years what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the Eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the Western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison. Kansas was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue. When officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionist Free-Staters from New England and pro-slavery settlers from neighboring Missouri rushed to the territory to determine if Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. Thus, the area was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided, and was known as Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists eventually prevailed and on January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state. After the Civil War, the population of Kansas grew rapidly, when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into farmland. Today, Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of wheat, sorghum and sunflowers. Kansas is the 15th most extensive and the 33rd most populous of the 50 United States.

Basketball is a team sport, the objective being to shoot a ball through a basket horizontally positioned to score points while following a set of rules. Usually, two teams of five players play on a marked rectangular court with a basket at each width end. Basketball is one of the world's most popular and widely viewed sports.

A regulation basketball hoop consists of a rim 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high mounted to a backboard. A team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket during regular play. A field goal scores two points for the shooting team if a player is touching or closer to the basket than the three-point line, and three points (known commonly as a 3 pointer or three) if the player is behind the three-point line. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time (overtime) may be issued when the game ends with a draw. The ball can be advanced on the court by bouncing it while walking or running (dribbling) or throwing (passing) it to a teammate. It is a violation to move without dribbling the ball (traveling), to carry it, or to double dribble (to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling).

Darnell Edred Jackson (born (1985-11-07)November 7, 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) is an American professional basketball player for BC Donetsk in Ukraine. He is 6'9" and is 253 lbs. Jackson played for the University of Kansas in college for four seasons, including the 2008 national championship team. He did not become a regular starter at Kansas until the 2007–08 season (his senior year), when he replaced Sasha Kaun in the starting lineup.

Jackson, who did not begin playing basketball until the ninth grade, was called one of the most improved players in the nation after averaging 6.7 rebounds during his senior season at Kansas in 2007-08. He attracted some attention from NBA scouts after several breakout performances, including a 25-point, 9-rebound effort against Boston College. After this performance, he was named the co-winner of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Player of the Week.

In 2005, Jackson's sophomore year, Jackson was suspended for nine games for accepting payments from Kansas booster Don Davis, a family friend. This was part of a rough year for him, as his grandmother had been killed by a drunk driver earlier in 2005. After scoring, Jackson often thumped his chest three times. Symbolically, one of the thumps was for Jackson's grandmother, one was for his mother, and one was for Davis.

Darrell Antwonne Arthur (born March 25, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is listed at 6'9", 230 lb (100 kg) and plays the power forward and small forward positions. Arthur played college basketball for the Kansas Jayhawks for two seasons, including the 2007–2008 national championship team. Arthur was originally drafted by the New Orleans Hornets in the 2008 NBA Draft but after two trades he ended up with the Grizzlies, with whom he signed on July 8, 2008.

In high school he guided South Oak Cliff High School to back-to-back Texas 4A state titles in 2005 and 2006 and was the tournament's MVP both years. However, it was later determined that the school illegally changed player's grades to keep them eligible and the titles have since been forfeited.

Arthur was a McDonald's All-American in 2006.

Arthur's uniform number in college was 00, making him the first Jayhawk to wear that number since Greg Ostertag. Following his freshman season (2006–07), he was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman team.