Bill Self the GOAT
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For coaches with at least 100 games coached in the BIG Bill Self has the best winning percentage in the league. All time!
For coaches with at least 100 games coached in the Big 12 Bill Self has the best winning percentage in the league. All time!
This man is a genius, a bonafide legend, a true GOAT, a basketball savant who deserves mention as a face on the Mt. Rushmore of coaching if a thing existed. There’s other worthy candidates of course, but to read that he is #1 in two of the most difficult conferences is truly remarkable.
To see his record at Illinois, a place starving for basketball success is part of the reason so many here where i live in the Chicago area are still embittered about him leaving. No one in their right mind would stay coaching in Champaign if KU comes calling.
Just as Bill is a multiple NC here I truly believe he would have similar if not better results if he’d stayed in Champaign. Nearly every great player from this state would have gone to the U of I had he stayed there. Derrick Rose, Jon Scheyer, Jalen Brunson, Evan Turner, Jabari Parker, Jahlil Okafor, and so many more probably don’t go and play for others.I’m super glad we got our man in 2003. But part of me is just curious as to what kind of dynasty he’d built had he stayed.
Here’s other Bill Self statistics that will blow your mind.
He missed the dance his first season at Tulsa, but has made it every season since, including his last two at Tulsa.
The last season at Tulsa his team was ranked inside the top 20. Since that season (99-00) he has never had a team ranked worse than 18th.
Every team he has coached in that same time period has achieved a top 10 ranking at some point during the season with the exception of 2005-2006 when he was cooking up something very special.
He’s had a top ranked team in 8 different seasons. I’m thinking he’ll achieve the top status at some point this season.
Although he didn’t get to the NCAA tournament at Oral Roberts, he had losing records his first two seasons of coaching and then starting in 1995 he had a winning record which he has achieved ever since.
2nd on the all time BIG list which is fascinating to me is the name Bo Ryan. He was remarkable in what he did.
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Bill Self is a footnote in the BIG like Bobby Knight is a footnote in the Big 12. Both guys would’ve been huge winners in either conference though if they coached a career there.
I don’t know if you could build a basketball dynasty at Illinois with Chicago kids. Weird. It’s not that far from Chicago, but it’s a different planet. I don’t think many of those players you mentioned would have wanted to play for Bill Self regardless of where he was coaching.
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@DanR said in Bill Self the GOAT:
Bill Self is a footnote in the BIG like Bobby Knight is a footnote in the Big 12. Both guys would’ve been huge winners in either conference though if they coached a career there.
I don’t know if you could build a basketball dynasty at Illinois with Chicago kids. Weird. It’s not that far from Chicago, but it’s a different planet. I don’t think many of those players you mentioned would have wanted to play for Bill Self regardless of where he was coaching.
How many Chicago kids did Self get to KU? I have little doubt Self would’ve continued mining that Chicago to Illinois pipeline and turned Illinois into a power similar to what he’s elevated KU to. At the end of the day, he is that good.
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@DanR Illinois’ near national championship team was nearly all Illinois kids. Deron Williams the one exception.
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The Chicago to U of I pipeline was shutdown for all intents and purposes when Jimmy Collins, the coach at UIC wanted the Illini job and they hired Weber instead. Jimmy made it a race issue and Chicago kids started going elsewhere. The demise of DePaul was tied to something somewhat similar. Joey Meyer ticked off the King coach Sonny Cox and Sonny made it tough for Joey to recruit the city after that.
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@wissox said in Bill Self the GOAT:
@DanR Illinois’ near national championship team was nearly all Illinois kids. Deron Williams the one exception.
You don’t have to go too far south from Chicago to get into some serious racist ass-backward country. I grew up in west central Illinois.
Dee Brown was the only significant guy Self brought to that F4 team. I was just saying that Rose, Parker and Okafor weren’t interested in playing for Self anywhere. He probably had a better shot at those guys at KU than at UofI. Maybe if Self had a couple natties by the time Parker and Okafor were old enough they would have thought about it, but we got Cliff Alexander instead of Okafor.
As for KU: Sheron Collins, Jamari Traylor (my favorite) and Cliff Alexander… probably a few others… Mario Little…?
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@DanR said in Bill Self the GOAT:
@wissox said in Bill Self the GOAT:
@DanR Illinois’ near national championship team was nearly all Illinois kids. Deron Williams the one exception.
You don’t have to go too far south from Chicago to get into some serious racist ass-backward country. I grew up in west central Illinois.
Dee Brown was the only significant guy Self brought to that F4 team. I was just saying that Rose, Parker and Okafor weren’t interested in playing for Self anywhere. He probably had a better shot at those guys at KU than at UofI. Maybe if Self had a couple natties by the time Parker and Okafor were old enough they would have thought about it, but we got Cliff Alexander instead of Okafor.
As for KU: Sheron Collins, Jamari Traylor (my favorite) and Cliff Alexander… probably a few others… Mario Little…?
Julian Wright, Sherron Collins, Mario Little, Elijah Johnson, Jamari Traylor, Cliff Alexander, and Devon Dotson are the Self recruits to KU originally from the Chicago area. Elijah Johnson is Gary, IN right across the border and Dotson grew up there before moving to Charlotte.
Chicago is a big enough market that Self wouldn’t have landed every high profile Chicago kid at Illinois every year, but I think he’d have kept the relationships with AAU and HS coaches good enough to not have the issues that Weber largely brought on himself there with recruiting. I don’t think Self would’ve landed Rose because of the AAU politics and Rose being an Adidas guy, and I don’t think he’d have landed Jabari Parker or Okafor over Coach K at that point because I don’t know if Nike would’ve funneled those guys to Illinois at that point, probably a lot of that would’ve depending on how much Self had won in the NCAA Tournament by that point.
I do think Self would’ve cleaned up the non-OAD Chicago area guys though amd gotten pretty much whoever he wanted out of that group of guys which still included plenty of 4 and 5 star players.
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Bill Self is 300-16 in Allen Fieldhouse. He’s coached at KU more years than he’s lost home games.
This stat came from The Athletic column CJ Moore did after the Tech win (another fabolous read fyi)
"In games decided by five points or fewer, Kansas is 117-51 under Self." 69.6% win rate in close games.
"That means if you wiped out all of the others games in his career, Self would rank 77th all time among college basketball coaches in win percentage in just those games."
We could literally go on and on about this man.
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Patrick Beverly, Anthony Davis, Robert Covington, Terrance Shannon, are some other names from Chicago that pop up into my mind. @DanR It’s just fun to speculate on who might have gone where had things been different.
Of course if Self stays at U of I, who would KU have hired instead? I don’t remember the names being thrown about back then. Would Brad Stevens have been on their radar? Jay Wright? Matt Painter? He was definitely a coach with some upside in 2003 making a name at SIU. Would they have considered Tim Floyd? Bo Ryan? Thad Matta? I’m thinking we got the best man available and it’s not even close.
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@wissox mmmmm – I’m gonna hold off on the GOAT thing for a while. I mean he’s pretty good, but if he could win - say - 14 consecutive Big 12 Titles and a couple of National Championships then, yeah - I’m on board.
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@wissox said in Bill Self the GOAT:
Patrick Beverly, Anthony Davis, Robert Covington, Terrance Shannon, are some other names from Chicago that pop up into my mind. @DanR It’s just fun to speculate on who might have gone where had things been different.
Of course if Self stays at U of I, who would KU have hired instead? I don’t remember the names being thrown about back then. Would Brad Stevens have been on their radar? Jay Wright? Matt Painter? He was definitely a coach with some upside in 2003 making a name at SIU. Would they have considered Tim Floyd? Bo Ryan? Thad Matta? I’m thinking we got the best man available and it’s not even close.
I know Tom Izzo has mentioned the KU job in the past as one of the few he would’ve left MSU for so that’d be another name that could’ve replaced Roy.
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@wissox said in Bill Self the GOAT:
Patrick Beverly, Anthony Davis, Robert Covington, Terrance Shannon, are some other names from Chicago that pop up into my mind. @DanR It’s just fun to speculate on who might have gone where had things been different.
Of course if Self stays at U of I, who would KU have hired instead? I don’t remember the names being thrown about back then. Would Brad Stevens have been on their radar? Jay Wright? Matt Painter? He was definitely a coach with some upside in 2003 making a name at SIU. Would they have considered Tim Floyd? Bo Ryan? Thad Matta? I’m thinking we got the best man available and it’s not even close.
So looking back at KUSports coverage from the time, Self was always the top choice to replace Roy. But, they did have a poll of who could’ve replaced Roy and there’s some names that may have flopped here. The list was Self, Mark Few, Mark Turgeon who was at Wichita St. at the time (and had a career losing record at that point and no NCAA Tournament appearances yet), Matt Doherty (who Roy replaced at UNC), Steve Robinson (who was a KU assistant at the time), Larry Brown (76ers coach at the time), Joe Holladay (another KU assistant at the time), Tom Crean (had just lead Dwayne Wade and Marquette to the Final Four), John Calipari (completed 3rd season at Memphis and coming off of first NCAA Tournament at Memphis), Mike Brey (completed 3rd season at Notre Dame amd had made 5 NCAA Tournaments in 8 years as a head coach at that point), Tim Floyd (out of basketball at that point after being fored by the Bulls after the 2001 season), and Kevin Pritchard (spent two seasons with KC Knights of the ABA).
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Wow, that’s an interesting list. It goes without saying that we hit the jackpot. Of course it’s all speculation, but we dodged some bullets for sure. Wasn’t Doherty a failure at UNC? Turgeon, wow… Mark Few may have found similar success here, he’s pretty solid. But Calipari? Oh my, I didn’t like that guy even at that time, always thought he was kind of sleazy.
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@wissox said in Bill Self the GOAT:
@Texas-Hawk-10 Wow, that’s an interesting list. It goes without saying that we hit the jackpot. Of course it’s all speculation, but we dodged some bullets for sure. Wasn’t Doherty a failure at UNC? Turgeon, wow… Mark Few may have found similar success here, he’s pretty solid. But Calipari? Oh my, I didn’t like that guy even at that time, always thought he was kind of sleazy.
@wissox said in Bill Self the GOAT:
@Texas-Hawk-10 Wow, that’s an interesting list. It goes without saying that we hit the jackpot. Of course it’s all speculation, but we dodged some bullets for sure. Wasn’t Doherty a failure at UNC? Turgeon, wow… Mark Few may have found similar success here, he’s pretty solid. But Calipari? Oh my, I didn’t like that guy even at that time, always thought he was kind of sleazy.
That was just a poll KUSports created at the time to gauge interest. I don’t know how deep the search actually got because Self was the top candidate.
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I know everyone loves those national titles… so do I. But his winning conference titles streak in a power conference is freakazoid and should hold up the rest of all our lives.
Consistency is never mentioned much in accolades… everyone loves the highlights. I do, too, but I put consistency at the top.
Here we are… the season after our nattie and damn if he hasn’t put together a team that possibly could challenge to back it up!
Also… look hard at what he has schemed on the court. He will receive plenty of footnotes in the history of college basketball for his offensive sets/plays. Heck… how many easy points do we get every year from inbounds plays?
I’ve always challenged his ability to bring out teams “ready to play.” This has always been one of my peeves. Maybe he is coaching me up now because I now think he is focused on preserving player energy throughout the game so they can go full tilt at the end, when it is “money time!”
“My dad became a lot smarter when I grew up and became a man!” I feel like he’s given me plenty of lessons!
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@drgnslayr said in Bill Self the GOAT:
I know everyone loves those national titles… so do I. But his winning conference titles streak in a power conference is freakazoid and should hold up the rest of all our lives.
Consistency is never mentioned much in accolades… everyone loves the highlights. I do, too, but I put consistency at the top.
Here we are… the season after our nattie and damn if he hasn’t put together a team that possibly could challenge to back it up!
Also… look hard at what he has schemed on the court. He will receive plenty of footnotes in the history of college basketball for his offensive sets/plays. Heck… how many easy points do we get every year from inbounds plays?
I’ve always challenged his ability to bring out teams “ready to play.” This has always been one of my peeves. Maybe he is coaching me up now because I now think he is focused on preserving player energy throughout the game so they can go full tilt at the end, when it is “money time!”
“My dad became a lot smarter when I grew up and became a man!” I feel like he’s given me plenty of lessons!
the string of Conference Championships will NEVER be duplicated
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KU was Okafor’s top choice back when. He liked KU more than Duke but Tyus LOVED Duke and really drove that train.
Had no idea about that stat @wissox! That’s incredible stuff.
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Self is my hero, but some might think Wooden’s 10 Nattys (7 in a row) in 12 years and an 88 game winning streak might be in the running for GOAT also.
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@StLJhawk Oh I know, I was just using the term since everyone talks about the GOAT this, the GOAT that!
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Linardi has us as the top #1 seed right now and if we stay on the #1 line it will be 11 out of the last 17 seasons we’d get the #1 seed. Bill Self indeed is the ALMOST GOAT! @StLJhawk
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Crazy, 11 times. He’s a GOAT and I’ll fight anyone that says otherwise
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@BeddieKU23 Didn’t we pass Kentucky during the tournament last year and we’re this far ahead of them already?
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@wissox We picked up 5 in the tourney to go ahead by 4, I believe, and have 4 more this year.
