Five more Years?


  • Banned

    And we were worried about the NBA?

    It appears Coach may have some retirement plans?



  • @DoubleDD Wow! Its all speculation but still, what a major bummer! Coach better get him another big ring real soon. And by big, I mean national big.



  • @DoubleDD Ya, he mentioned this a few years back that he won’t be around as long as the coach Ks and personally I don’t blame him. Sometimes I kick myself for not taking more of a coaching approach earlier in my life, I’ve coached several years of rec league and MAYB ball from grade school up to high school. I had a lot fun but being away from family 3 or 4 nights a week when you work all day is tough. I can only imagine traveling cross country for games and recruiting like these guys do weekly. I would probably do the same if I was him. Tyler obviously just graduated from KU and believe Selfs daughter was married a few summers ago, I bet once a grandchild comes he’ll want out and don’t blame him. Hopefully he gets a few more NCs.



  • @DoubleDD

    Once he gets close to 59 and a number of records become attainable, he will probably sign up for another contract and set many records. Being so close and not going for it does not seem like something he would do.


  • Banned

    I couldn’t even begin to imagine the stress that comes with being the HC of KU basketball. If there is a person that deserves his Golden years it would be Coach.

    We’ll see what happens? Sometimes money moves a person. Sometimes the drive to be the best is what moves a person. However some are content just being home with their families.



  • Gkid is on the way.



  • 🙏 please do not let sz still be here when Coach Self retires!



  • @Crimsonorblue22 that maybe the toughest job ever…replacing a Bill Self, Roy Williams or a Coach K. We did it once successfully.



  • Not many coaches make such a projection of their retirement. I wonder what his motivation was for making this statement. I suspect he has his reasons. It comes on the heels of his induction into the Naismith HOF… coincidence?



  • @Crimsonorblue22 Oh man…that’s a good point. I don’t think he will be.



  • We shall see if Bill’s competitive fire will allow him to retire so soon. I think it sounds good to him today, but we shall see what actually happens. I’m afraid if he retires that soon he’ll pull a Dick Vermeil and come back after a year off (and dear God I’d hate for it to be to Missouri!).



  • When folks think about retirement, it sounds nice to say they’ll hang it up at 60 or whatever. Then they get to 60 and feel like they did when they were 50, and retiring doesn’t sound so great.

    I think the bigger risk is Self moving to another challenge. But look, if we get a 20 year head coach and he moves to an NBA job, or something else, we are all very lucky.

    Zero worries about anything KU basketball related.



  • I could see him hanging it up after his contract. It will be interesting to see if there is extension talks in the next few years. If he gets to the final 2 years of his contract without any movement of extending then we can start worrying about this being a legitimate thing Self is thinking of doing.

    If Self gets another title in the next 5 years that could also be the icing on what he’s planning to do.

    The way recruiting is going which he stressed is not getting any easier especially when rosters for the current season are still in flux not even months before the start of the season.



  • If the things talked about in this article - https://www.theringer.com/nba/2017/9/21/16341796/nba-aau-fc-dallas-player-development - come true, it won’t make as much difference because the way recruiting will work will be much, much different. Perhaps Coach Self, who has always done a good job of looking to the future, sees the changes coming and realizes that the way college sports will be structured in the near future is going to change, and wants to be ahead of that.

    If NBA teams open academies, that eliminates AAU stuff, but changes the way that everything works, and changes who goes to college, when, where and why.



  • I really hope that scenario doesn’t happen.



  • I read the article this morning in the LJW. - bummer, really don’t want to think of such a thing , but hey it’s always a possible reality. I mean IF and WHEN it does happen it is going to be a huge bummer , but something we will have to face sometime no matter when.

    It wouldn’t shock me totally if he didn’t re new his contract. he will be right at 60 right? Like others have said this recruiting business has to be so dam stressful, got to just enjoy him why we have him , hopefully he can bring us another title before that time comes.

    So with all that being said - -IF this does happen , then where do we turn? - I mean I realize we are not going have any trouble I’m sure for a lack of names of people wanting to come here - BUT where do we look? - - Do we look at guys with former connections? - Turg? - - Danny ? who would be some of your suggestions - if this has to be? - - -how about what was his name? - -Brad Stevans? bring him back to College? – ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY



  • @jayballer54

    The key is to find the best person for the job, regardless of whether they have a connection to Kansas or not.

    KU Basketball is in the unique position of being a “destination” job. It’s the Lakers, or the Yankees, or the Cowboys. Head basketball coach at Kansas isn’t a stepping stone job. That’s a job you work your entire career to get. It’s the corner office, the front row parking spot. It’s all the stuff you dream about (with twice the responsibility and expectation).

    Maybe Aaron Miles or Jeremy Case rises to the level where they are in a position to lead KU hoops.

    Perhaps one of the dozen D1 head coaches that were under 35 at the start of last season will be ready to take the job.

    Or maybe its a guy that we can’t even think of right now.

    Remember, five years before Roy Williams left KU, Bill Self was just a guy coming off his first season at Tulsa (went 19-12, didn’t even make the NIT) after being 55-54 in four years at Oral Roberts. If you had walked up to Bill Self in the Spring of 1998 and said to him that in five years he would be coaching Kansas, he probably would laugh at you. His dream job at that moment was probably coaching at his alma mater. That may have been his biggest aspiration at the time - make enough of a name for himself to get hired to coach in a power conference at a school like OSU.

    Maybe he had faint dreams of coaching somewhere like KU, but I would almost guarantee you that if we were having this same conversation in 1998, there isn’t a single KU fan that would have picked Bill Self to be the next coach of the University of Kansas. Maybe someone mentions a second year NBA coach named Gregg Popovich that was a grad assistant under Larry Brown. Maybe someone mentions Matt Doherty, who was at the time an assistant at KU.

    Its hard to look that far in the future and see anything. If Bill Self really does leave in five years, chances are we wouldn’t even consider the person that ultimately will be named head coach. We wouldn’t have named Roy Williams as a possibility in 1983. We wouldn’t have named Self in 1998. Chances are, whoever this person is, we wouldn’t guess their name if we had 100 chances today between us all.



  • I think he stays 5 years or as long as the Streak continues, whichever is longer.



  • “With recruiting the way that it is, it just wears you down,” said Self…

    Notice it doesn’t wear guys like Coach K (Nike) and Roy (Nike Jordan) down. Its so easy for Roy to recruit that he can walk around fainting his way through an Easygate scandal and still use up his scholies. Coach K probably can’t even remember the play book anymore and he can still sign as many guys as he needs. And Calipari (Nike)? Cal doesn’t even appear to break a sweat.

    I’ve been telling board rats for five years now that the recruiting constraint is queering it for Self. He’s no fool. He’ll keep clipping the coupons till he’s 59, but even Self’s resilience and rabbit hat have limits.

    Outrageous fortune. Slings and arrows.

    The greatest coach of his era and the apparent embargo won’t even let him use up his scholies.

    Where is General Patton when we need him.

    By god, a man that eloquent has to be saved!!!



  • @HighEliteMajor I don’t know - I’m reaching into my mid 50’s and retirement is sounding better all the time. Like every morning.

    But then again - I’m not gonna be setting any records.



  • @justanotherfan Save that post for the next time someone suggests a legacy hire-it is the perfect answer for them.



  • If Bill wins 36 a year for next 5, he will pass Phog Allen for all time KU wins by 9 (596). New statue and ride off into sunset. He would have to do a one year extension to top 600 all time wins. If he goes 8 more (age 62) he should hit 700 wins at KU. I will take last option + 3 more NC’s please.



  • For those of you in the area.

    Spectrum Sports KC‏ @SpecSportsKC · 37m37 minutes ago
    Bill Self’s picture is right below Naismith’s in the Hall of Fame!

    Thurs at 6:30p: visit the birthplace of basketball for Self’s induction.



  • I think we can pretty safely assume Self and KU will average 30 wins a year for the next 5 years. 36 is pretty aggressive unless KU is getting to the Elite Eight or better every season.

    That probably leaves Self somewhere in the 560s for wins at KU, and in the 770s for overall wins. At that point, the question for Self is if he tries to win 800 overall (top 10 all time), which would only require probably one more season of work. If that’s the case, does Self chase 800, knowing he would be very close at that point. He needs better than 35 wins a season over the next five to get to 800 in that time, so it’s likely he needs 6 years to get to 800 career wins.

    If he decides to coach more like 8 or 9 more years, 900 wins is out there for him (31 wins a year for the next 9 seasons gets him there). That would put him ahead of everyone except Coach K, Boeheim and probably Roy Williams (Williams is at 816 now, so if he coaches 3 more years, he probably crosses 900). If Williams doesn’t get to 900 for one reason or another (he is 67 already), then Self could potentially be top 3 all time in wins in less than a decade, and no matter what Williams does, if Self sticks around, he will probably be top 4 in 9 years. That’s got to be a tempting thought in the back of his mind if he’s sitting at 775 or so at the end of his current deal.

    Of course, he’s already a hall of famer so his place in history is safe (assuming no scandals a la Pitino), but if he stays at KU (he’s won 147 in the last 5 years, and has won as many as 165 in a five year period (2007-2011), there are some pretty impressive benchmarks he could hit.



  • Every year that passes, it not only takes away a year Bill could be grinding into a new challenge, it also removes a future year he could be building on that other challenge. I don’t see Bill jumping to the NBA if he isn’t prepared to do at least another 5 years of coaching in his new position. I just don’t see it.

    As far as Bill staying at Kansas beyond 59… we just have to wait and see. For contractual reasons, it is in Bill’s interest to not expose his hand now, and he has left himself wide open at 59 years of age. This is the “Riverboat Gambler” talking now, and is the proper way for him to handle this.

    What I look at is health. I look at a person’s body conditioning, skin and eye health to determine if they are having a healthy lifestyle. This is the main indicators I look at when thinking about Bill and how much future he has left at Kansas. Of course, this is just one factor, but it clues me in on someone’s lifestyle and that usually relates to happiness and stress levels.

    It’s been almost a year since I’ve had in-person contact with Bill. I thought he looked great last year. I can think back to many years where he didn’t look great at all! So I remain upbeat about Bill and his longevity at Kansas until something changes!



  • @justanotherfan

    I agree. I mentioned before that as records become reachable it is not only probable but likely that the urge to achieve them and the competitive DNA take over and he continues coaching until he gets some of them under his hat.


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