Everything Bill Self
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The celebration of achieving another National Championship is over now. The confetti has been swept up and the shot glasses washed and stuffed back in their hiding place.
Are we ready for sober thoughts?
I’d like to hear your perspectives on Bill Self. Everything Bill Self.
Where does Bill rank as a KU coach, Big 12 coach, national coach? Where does he fit within the history of college basketball?
What has he achieved at Kansas?
Are there still critics out there? Where can he still improve? How has he changed over his years at Kansas?
What are his best moments here? A summary of Bill Self highlights? Can he dunk? Could he dunk in his playing days?
Are we happy with his supporting cast? Assistant coaches, strength coach, AD, Chancellors… historically through his tenure as coach.
How long will Bill continue to coach? Who will follow in his footsteps? Where will he leave the program? Will we continue to pull away with most wins? How many National Championships will he end up with? Here is a little taste of what is possible:
Is there a dark side to Bill and staff? How will this violations case end? Will it tarnish Kansas and Bill? Who are his critics? Who are critical of KU? What are they saying?
Everything Bill Self!
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This article from today’s WSJ uses KU as Exhibit A of the changing landscape of collegiate sports now that NIL is becoming mainstream:
No mention of Bill Self in this article… but it strikes me that he is poised to be the bridge between two eras of basketball. Roy, K and Wright are out. Boehiem will soon follow. The shine is off Pitino and K. Samson. That leaves Self, Izzo and Calipari. And Self leads them in NCs.
So I see the next few years as a unique opportunity for a legacy. In many ways, he (and KU) could blaze trails much as Phog did nearly 90 years ago.
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Well I don’t think he will catch K for most wins. At 29 wins a year (an absolutely INSANE number he is currently averaging at Kansas) it would take 15.1 more seasons to catch the big K number. Cal and UK is averaging 25.6 per year but has that one bad outlier of the 9 win season pulling his overall average down. The question is is he more likely to avoid another one of those or repeat it? Is Self due for a truly DOWN year? It does seem reasonable to assume as long as Calipari is at Kentucky and Self is at Kansas that we will continue to gain incrementally over time.
As far as where he stands now, I’d comfortably call him the best active coach in Men’s College BB. Wright was the main competitor there with Roy and K gone.
My big concern is with seeing how K went out in contrast to Jay wright, what does that do for Self’s thinking about retirement? I don’t think he’s done but also don’t think he plans on having to take games off due to health concerns/back trouble/whatever else they said about K. I think he will abruptly retire before we are ready for him to do so.
The second championship does a lot for his place in basketball history. Self is already top 5 in total tournament wins. 16 coaches have multiple titles (according to wiki). And no offense to some of the older folks around here but I don’t know a bunch of names on that list so pretty confident that Self is currently sitting top 10 coaches of all time in NCAA Men’s basketball. No one will catch Wooden. One more title would line him up with Roy, Calhoun, and Knight. And on overall record I’d give the edge to Self over Calhoun and Knight if he gets there and really a toss up with Roy. But he’s currently safe to be mentioned along with names like Dean Smith and Iba,
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Bold prediction - Self gets two more titles before he retires and is in the top tier with K and Wooden when he retires in his late sixties.
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Wow! I guess Bill is only 59!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Self
I feel like Bill will be back for another NC within 5 years. I think this year has been a real educational year for Bill and how he intends to coach moving forward.
Areas where I think he learned a lot this year:
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How to prepare for March - This year’s team peaked at the end… probably the #1 reason why we took home the trophy! We never choked in March. Never looked really out of sorts. We maintained a high level of composure. That simply cannot happen without the head coach having it all together. His poise this year was off the charts.
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He learned the value of team cohesion - This team was like glue! There was a very dominant chemistry within the team. None of these guys wanted to stand out separately from the rest of the team. I think Bill learned it is more important to find team players than just pure talent. At least… I hope he learned this lesson!
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I think he finally embraces a hybrid hi-lo. No more 2 big (post-up) lineups. 4 on the perimeter. His schemes are more slashing. Guards slash at an angle through the post and have a desire to pass back out on the perimeter for an open trey, finish in the paint, or feed our one big in the paint to finish. I really liked the offense this year and what it became. It forced some of our perimeter guys off the trey line. No more camping on the trey line, like we did in past years!
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I think Bill realized the need to up the pace. Didn’t mean we have to finish off the preliminary break, but also the secondary break, usually open for a trey shot.
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I think Bill learned more of the importance of team rebounding. This team could have only succeeded with team rebounding because we didn’t have a singular potent rebounder.
I’m curious of the status of our our chop scheme. I hope it is rarely used and not part of the dominant offense. It’s largely outdated because most teams know how to defend or disrupt it to the point of destroying all flow to that possession.
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@drgnslayr said in Everything Bill Self:
Wow! I guess Bill is only 59!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Self
I feel like Bill will be back for another NC within 5 years. I think this year has been a real educational year for Bill and how he intends to coach moving forward.
Areas where I think he learned a lot this year:
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How to prepare for March - This year’s team peaked at the end… probably the #1 reason why we took home the trophy! We never choked in March. Never looked really out of sorts. We maintained a high level of composure. That simply cannot happen without the head coach having it all together. His poise this year was off the charts.
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He learned the value of team cohesion - This team was like glue! There was a very dominant chemistry within the team. None of these guys wanted to stand out separately from the rest of the team. I think Bill learned it is more important to find team players than just pure talent. At least… I hope he learned this lesson!
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I think he finally embraces a hybrid hi-lo. No more 2 big (post-up) lineups. 4 on the perimeter. His schemes are more slashing. Guards slash at an angle through the post and have a desire to pass back out on the perimeter for an open trey, finish in the paint, or feed our one big in the paint to finish. I really liked the offense this year and what it became. It forced some of our perimeter guys off the trey line. No more camping on the trey line, like we did in past years!
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I think Bill realized the need to up the pace. Didn’t mean we have to finish off the preliminary break, but also the secondary break, usually open for a trey shot.
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I think Bill learned more of the importance of team rebounding. This team could have only succeeded with team rebounding because we didn’t have a singular potent rebounder.
I’m curious of the status of our our chop scheme. I hope it is rarely used and not part of the dominant offense. It’s largely outdated because most teams know how to defend or disrupt it to the point of destroying all flow to that possession.
I think he’s become a better coach. I want to see what next year’s tempo will be like. Was that faster pace just an anomaly, or are we going to continue to run and gun? I sure hope the pace stays fast.
The weirdest part of this year come in the fact that as good as our team was, I still don’t think they played their best game. I still think there was a level they could’ve achieved that we only saw glimpses of during the year. Not complaining - I sure loved the ending.
This will go down as the year that none of us predicted we would win a national championship. After we lost to TCU, I suggested that Bill had lost the team. What I meant was they tuned him out that game. And then something happened, the switch was turned on, the chip was placed on the shoulder, and they rose up and beat Texas to clinch the B12 title, smoked the conference in the conference tourney, and then did the Big 6 dance, winning 6 straight to take home the championship. Nobody saw that coming except for the team. They knew, and it took them a while to convince Bill, but once they went all in, they TORE it up.
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@drgnslayr I actually called into Hawk talk early in the 2015-2016 season and asked self about the same pace question. Specifically, when it came to the tournament. He told me that in the tournaments, the piece chance to slow down and it becomes a half court game. However, as we saw with the second half of the Carolina game and the second half of the Miami game, you absolutely can make it a much faster game just like you can in any game during the season. I hope he has learned that as well and I echo your sentiments.
But, as we know, even with a faster pace, you can still advance far into the tournaments playing a slower style. The 2012 team did this exact same thing, and I don’t think I would classify the 2018 team as playing with that fast tempo.The 08 team and this past year’s team will definitely similar in the fact that they both were at their best when playing fast. There were even some plays during the Villanova game, especially early on, when they would just come down the court and get it to Dave and he would score almost immediately. Reminded me a lot of the 08 game against Carolina when Arthur scored quickly to start the game. Aesthetically, I liked that a lot.
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What was our best game? I’d say beating the crap out of Baylor!
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@Crimsonorblue22 - I liked the Jan. 24th Tech game…
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Best game? Maybe the comeback against K-State in Manhattan. That was pretty incredible.
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I mean when we played the best, the whole game.
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@Crimsonorblue22 said in Everything Bill Self:
What was our best game? I’d say beating the crap out of Baylor!
The Misery game is up there too.
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Easily the Villanova game. Villanova shot and extremely good percentage from three, made 13 threes and made us play in the half court and still got dominated by us most of the game. I mean, our guys scored 1.58 points per possession. The execution and shot making was amazing. Not to mention the defense to start the game was literally straight out of 08 with the quickness and trapping. Honestly one of the best executed games I’ve seen a Self team play, factoring in the opponent and that it was a high stakes game.
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@HawkChamp said in Everything Bill Self:
Easily the Villanova game. Villanova shot and extremely good percentage from three, made 13 threes and made us play in the half court and still got dominated by us most of the game. I mean, our guys scored 1.58 points per possession. The execution and shot making was amazing. Not to mention the defense to start the game was literally straight out of 08 with the quickness and trapping. Honestly one of the best executed games I’ve seen a Self team play, factoring in the opponent and that it was a high stakes game.
It was close to our best game. The 3 best to me were Baylor, Misery, and Nova. The Baylor game signaled to me the ceiling was much higher than what we had seen, the Misery game was special because Bill let them run up the score, but Nova was the most important because we not only crushed them, we also beat them by the same margin they had beat us in 2018. So the Nova monkey has forever been lifted.
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@KUSTEVE It’s hard for me to judge the Miz game because they are awful. Nova played a great game and still lost by 16.
Baylor game was a fairly close second though. We WHACKED THEM, the team that finished just one slot below us on KP lol. We should have swept them, but I digress…
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@Crimsonorblue22 Then, yes, Baylor or Villanova.
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@Jethro the reason I say it was our best is because it was completely in the half court and played how Nova wanted it and we still crushed them. Baylor had a ton of transition points and easy buckets.
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There is a Crypto ad currently running during the NBA playoffs, featuring Joel Embiid- I could swear the narrator is Bill Self
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@Bosthawk I thought so too!
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@bskeet I’m thinking Bennett and Drew have chances to join Bill as multiple NC winners. Could Mark Few break through and win, and suddenly the pressure is off and he picks up more? Although I really don’t like Arizona their young coach seems to be decent and is only 47.
I saw a remarkable Instagram thing today. Since 2000 each Big 12 teams best and worst record. About 6 or 7 teams had over 30 wins in a season which is pretty remarkable in our strong league. In addition KU’s worst was a 21-9 last year. Every other teams worst year in that time was under .500.
I did enjoy watching the Villanova game, but only because I was there in person, the game you want to see the most besides a NC is a game to get to the FF and so the Miami game was my top. A breathtaking beatdown that must be still haunting Jim Larranaga, and of course Charlie Moore.
This definitely was a legacy defining win, although the cloud over the program will help determine how firm that legacy is. I wish they’d get it over with.
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@Bosthawk It is!
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@HawkChamp said in Everything Bill Self:
@Jethro the reason I say it was our best is because it was completely in the half court and played how Nova wanted it and we still crushed them. Baylor had a ton of transition points and easy buckets.
It was Dave’s best game as a Jayhawk. One of Och’s best games. Might be our best defensive game of the year. I rewatched it again. One of our best tournament games ever.
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Bill Self’s winning % at Kansas is higher than John Wooden, or Rat face.
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Add another winged foot. Shouldn’t he receive a winged brain? lol
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@drgnslayr I pasted the article above!🫣
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Bill Self is clearly the best coach ever at KU. He’s the only KU coach to win multiple titles (I don’t count the pre NCAA titles, which would give Allen 3 instead of 1). He has dominated the Big 12 for basically 20 years now. He’s clearly the best coach in school history, and that was actually the case before the championship this year.
With the retirements of Wright and Coach K, Self is also the best active coach in the country. He’s ahead of Calipari and Few, while Izzo and Pitino seem to both be on the decline, and those that are rising (Scott Drew, etc.) haven’t caught him.
For CBB history, he’s a historically great coach. Multiple titles seals that. I don’t think he has yet entered the top 5 - Wooden, Dean Smith, Coach K, are definitely ahead of him, and when you start to think of Rupp, Pitino, Calhoun, Iba, etc., he just hasn’t entered that space yet. He could with a third title, at which point he passes some of the old timers (Rupp, Iba, Smith). But that’s still yet to be done.
Does he still have weaknesses? Yes. His tendency to play for the highest floor, rather than the highest ceiling could burn him in future years. This year there was no great team in college basketball. KU was the best team, and they won it, but this team isn’t going to be a squad that, year’s from now, is nationally remembered as being “great” like the 2009 UNC team, or the 2012 Kentucky squad, or the 1992 Duke team, or the undefeated squads from UCLA and Indiana in the 1960s and 1970s. Self wants his team to be good every year (part of the reason I doubt he ever has a truly bad season). He coaches them to win 20-22 games even if he passes on the chance to win 30 games by playing a higher ceiling/lower floor player.
Self has become more adaptive, and seems to have loosened up a bit the last few years. I think missing the 2020 opportunity changed things for him. I think he may have felt pressure to win the title that year, but missing out on that, and seeing everything that has happened in the world since may have changed his views and allowed him to relax a bit and let the players play. Remy Martin is a player that would have shrunk under the old Self, with Self dampening his creativity. He thrived in the biggest moments under the new Self, and that’s part of why KU won the title.
KU will continue to win 25 or more games every year for at least the next few years under Self. He has said before that he doesn’t want to coach forever, and I think he has started grooming Jeremy Case as his eventual replacement. Case is at a perfect age for that (37 I think) and has already started getting more responsibilities on the staff.
Unless something crazy happens, Self will leave the program in good shape. KU has a plan for the NIL, so the program should not falter in that respect. There’s a ready replacement in the wings, and if Case isn’t the guy, KU can always draw nationally because of the history and backing of the program.
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@justanotherfan I’d argue Self IS above Pitino and Calhoun just based on his ridiculous consistency. Neither of those guys has that. Dude just doesn’t have a down year. I’d also argue against the “coaches them to win 20-22 games even if passing on the chance to win 30” but maybe just arguing semantically. I’d say he’s more coaching them to win 30 games over the course of the season rather than preparing them to win the last 6. He refuses to give up a loss in January for the possible betterment of a player/team in March. So I agree with your sentiment of coaching for a high floor rather than peak ceiling but would just say that is WHY he wins so many games rather than the other way around.
I’d also push back that 2008 is talked about in that rarified air as one of those GREAT teams. Especially when people discuss Kenpom and advanced stats and such.
Great post! Sorry this whole response is everything I disagree with in you post because I really DO agree with most of it! Lol.
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I think it is tough to compare the greatest coaches because they all took different paths and had to overcome unique struggles.
My favorite coach, besides Self, is Jay Wright. He clearly has the best argument for taking the least amount of talent to the promised land. His teams pass the eye test, too. They always play great fundamental basketball… something I’ve ranted about sometimes at KU, especially with our younger teams.
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@benshawks08 @justanotherfan You guys forgot about Roy? I would argue that as of now, HCBS is definitely historically behind K, Wooden, Roy, Dean Smith, and Adolph Rupp. Closer call with Calhoun and Knight - they each have one more title and more overall wins, as now, but not close to the winning % or consistency. That’s it. The only thing Boeheim has is greater longevity. With 5+ more years at current pace and IF he gets one more title, he gets to #3 on the all-time coaching pantheon, based on national titles, conference titles, winning % and overall consistency. Even without another title, he likely passes Smith (who currently has more wins and slightly higher winning %).
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@DCHawker I said something in an earlier post that he’d be pretty even with Roy IF Self won another title but may not have brought that back up because I thought it was clear overall he IS like you said, behind Roy all time for me right now. I bet Self himself would scoff at being compared to Rupp, Smith, and Iba as they are more legend than coach at this point. But you know he wants one more title to catch Roy. They’ve competed enough that even though they aren’t the SAME generation of coach, they are very comparable for sooooo many reasons. And to get 3 at KU where Roy couldn’t get one…
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How many times did Roy beat Self?
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@benshawks08 said in Everything Bill Self:
@DCHawker I said something in an earlier post that he’d be pretty even with Roy IF Self won another title but may not have brought that back up because I thought it was clear overall he IS like you said, behind Roy all time for me right now. I bet Self himself would scoff at being compared to Rupp, Smith, and Iba as they are more legend than coach at this point. But you know he wants one more title to catch Roy. They’ve competed enough that even though they aren’t the SAME generation of coach, they are very comparable for sooooo many reasons. And to get 3 at KU where Roy couldn’t get one…
LOL. That’s a good one.
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@Crimsonorblue22 said in Everything Bill Self:
How many times did Roy beat Self?
At least once. KU beat Illinois in the 2002 Sweet 16.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Which reversed the result of 2001 in the Sweet 16. I believe Hinrich was suffering the effects of high ankle sprain in that one.
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I’m thinking Illinois and Kansas played a regular season game in Chicago in the early 2000’s. Turns out it was before Bill Self. 1998.
I’ve thought a lot about Bill Self and Illinois since he left Champaign and what might have happened had he stayed put. I think Bill Self was recruiting superbly during his time there. That 05 team (which Weber coached) was an awesome team. After that the talent that Bill could have just gotten by staying in state would have been incredible. While you can’t assume they all would have gone to Illinois, you can imagine Rose, Parker, Okafor, Collins, Alexander, Patrick Beverly, Evan Turner, Unibrow, Brunson, Wright, Jamari, DDot, Scheyer, Charlie Moore!, oh Frank Kaminsky!! and so many others I’m forgetting staying in state. I’m thinking Bill has his two or three rings if he’d stayed there instead and the BIG doesn’t have this stigma of not being able to win the big one either. But I’m glad he’s gotten his at KU.
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@wissox The shoeco train couldn’t be stopped. I seriously doubt most of the guys you mentioned play for Self at Illinois. Im sure he saw he’d have much more consistent access to higher pedigree of talent going to Kansas.
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@approxinfinity said in Everything Bill Self:
@wissox The shoeco train couldn’t be stopped. I seriously doubt most of the guys you mentioned play for Self at Illinois. Im sure he saw he’d have much more consistent access to higher pedigree of talent going to Kansas.
Illinois is a Nike school and Self is a much better recruiter than Weber ever was so I wouldn’t be surprised if Self could’ve landed quite a few of those guys. I think he probably could’ve cleaned up pretty well on St. Louis too
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@Texas-Hawk-10 ah. Good point. But i dont think the Duke guys and Kentucky guys go there.
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@approxinfinity said in Everything Bill Self:
@Texas-Hawk-10 ah. Good point. But i dont think the Duke guys and Kentucky guys go there.
If Self wins the 2005 title at Illinois, does Derrick Rose end up at Illinois or does WWW still get him to Cal at Memphis? If Rose ended up with Self at Illinois, does Calipari ever do enough at Memphis to get the Kentucky job? The Derrick Rose question in that scenario is probably the biggest impact on Self and Cal in an alternate universe.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 good butterfly effect theory. Does seem like some recruitments could have anowballed from there. Though its hard to imagine Illinois as a nike flagship. Illinois brand wouldnt sell like Duke or Kentucky?
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@approxinfinity said in Everything Bill Self:
@Texas-Hawk-10 good butterfly effect theory. Does seem like some recruitments could have anowballed from there. Though its hard to imagine Illinois as a nike flagship. Illinois brand wouldnt sell like Duke or Kentucky?
Kentucky was way down prior to Cal showing up and was struggling in recruiting big time. In the 4 years prior to Calipari, Kentucky had lost 12+ games each season amd had lost 10+ games in 5 of their previous 9 seasons. Once Pitino’s players filtered out, UK struggled in recruiting and wasn’t until Calipari and Worldwide Wes showed up that they returned as a flagship program. The end of Tubby Smith’s time at Kentucky and 2 seasons of Billy Gillespie at UK had them trending the wrong way in regards ro relevance.
In a different timeline where Self stayed at Illinois, I could definitely see them becoming a flagship program for Nike and the Jordan Brand due to the proximity to Chicago.
