LAWRENCE – It’s an unseasonably warm fall morning in Lawrence, Kansas, and despite having just overseen a sloppy practice, Bill Self is evincing his usual sunny disposition. And why not? He has a slimmer waistline, a few days’ worth of scruff on his face, and an afternoon tee time. He also has a promising team, high hopes for the coming season, and a new lease on life after a summertime health scare. Self is 62 years old (he’s not exactly a “young 62,” but he’s not an old one, either), he’s enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and he has two NCAA championships on his resume.
He’s also not done. “I’m as thirsty to win as I ever was,” Self tells Hoops HQ. “I’m probably a little more energized and rejuvenated now because my body actually feels better. I feel like I can attack this season more aggressively than the last couple of years.”
That’s good news for Jayhakws fans, because the last couple of years have been pretty miserable. During Self’s previous 21 seasons at Kansas, his teams never finished lower than third in the Big 12, and beginning in 2004 they won at least a share of the regular season title a mind-blowing 14 consecutive times. The Jayhawks began the 2023-24 season ranked No. 1 in the preseason AP Top 25, but they faltered down the stretch after their senior All-American forward, Kevin McCullar, suffered a bone bruise in his knee. McCullar missed six of the Jayhawks’ final 12 games, including the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments. Kansas finished fifth in the league standings and lost in the second round to Gonzaga.
Self also missed the 2024 postseason after he had two stents placed in his heart on March 8. He was back on the job by early April, and six months later his team was again atop the AP’s preseason poll. The Jayhawks backed up those expectations with early wins over North Carolina, Michigan State and Duke. But despite bringing in two of the nation’s most coveted (and expensive) transfers in 6-foot-7 wing A.J. Storr (who came from Wisconsin) and 6-foot-6 guard Rylan Griffen (Alabama), Kansas lost back-to-back road games to Creighton and Missouri in early December and never rediscovered its mojo. The Jayhawks finished sixth in the Big 12 and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament for just the third time in Self’s tenure, and the first since 2006.
Self does not mince words when he is asked to assess last season. “The worst season we’ve had since I’ve been at Kansas,” he says. “We had our moments when we were good, but there was very little margin for error. So when we weren’t as good, we got average real fast. We became a team that was probably hoping to be successful as opposed to knowing they’re going to be successful.”
“I Made It Through”: Tony Bland’s Hard Road From FBI Arrest to Kansas
Bland was one of 10 men seized during a federal investigation into college basketball. Eight years later, he has found new life as an assistant at Kansas.
The prospects for the program took yet another turn for the worse over the summer when Self experienced shortness of breath while playing a round of golf. He was rushed to a local hospital, where he underwent surgery to insert two more stents. His doctors gave Self a clean bill of heath, but after undergoing his second heart procedure in as many years, he was understandably concerned as to whether the stress of his job was too much for his body.
He raised the question with his cardiologist. It was a short conversation. “I got with the doctor just me and him and I said, ‘Doc, should I rethink what I’m doing?’ ” Self recalls. “He said, ‘Do you like doing it?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Why would you, then? We got this early. You’re going to be fine.’ From that point on, I’ve never even thought about it.”
Self knew he needed to make lifestyle adjustments after his first heart surgery, but this time he actually followed through. He stopped eating red meat, fast food, yellow cheese and sweets. He drastically limited his alcohol intake and ramped up his exercise. As a result, he is 20 pounds lighter. “I found out it’s a lot easier when you have healthy habits,” he says. “I was an emotional eater. I’d eat because of the stress before game, and then I’d eat after a game. Those kids can eat four big meals a day, and I was trying to do the same thing. When I had my first episode, I probably faked my way through it. When you don’t feel well, it just becomes the norm.”
The weight loss only partly explains Self’s chipper mood these days. He also believes he has a better team. The biggest reason is the arrival of 6-foot-5 freshman point guard Darryn Peterson, a consensus top-three recruit and soon-to-be lottery pick. Some outlets (including Hoops HQ) peg Peterson not only as the best freshman in the country, but the best player. Many coaches might try to tamp down that kind of talk, but Self is on record saying Peterson could be the best freshman he has ever recruited. Peterson will have to play like that if the Jayhawks, who are ranked No. 19 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll and No. 21 on KenPom, are going to be in the chase for Big 12 and NCAA championships.
“We’ve got good enough players around him that he doesn’t have to be great every night for us to have a great year,” Self says. “But there’s going to be times where you say, ‘Hey, man, you’ve got to be different tonight.’ He’s ridiculously confident, he’s ridiculously competitive, but he’s still got to learn what it looks like night in and night out when you’re taking the other team’s best shot. But he will. He’s a unique talent.”
Self also had a unique talent the last two seasons in 7-foot-2 center Hunter Dickinson, but he believes he did a poor job giving him a proper supporting cast. Roster construction is a tricky proposition in the transfer portal era, as evidenced by the substandard play last season from Storr and Griffen. Dickinson also suffered because the team’s other two best players, point guard Dajuan Harris and forward K.J. Adams, were both non-shooters. “Last year’s team was not constructed in a way where I felt like we complemented each other,” Self says. “We had good players, but the pieces didn’t fit as well, so it became a crowded floor.”
Now, Self sees a better puzzle. “I think that we have done a better job getting more athletic and creating more depth than what we’ve had the last couple of years,” he says. The roster includes a three-man transfer class that doesn’t quite have the sizzle (or sticker price) of last year’s group, but will, Self hopes, yield a more cohesive unit. The rotation will also include a pair of returnees in 6-foot-3 sophomore guard Elmarko Jackson, who redshirted last season after suffering a summertime knee injury, and 6-foot-10 sophomore forward Flory Bidunga, who averaged 5.9 points and 5.4 rebounds off the bench. Freshman guard Kohl Rosario, a 6-foot-4 guard from Miami who reclassified into the Class of 2025 in late June, is a projected starter.
Self encountered another unplanned transformation this off-season with respect to his coaching staff. It started in early May with the retirement of Norm Roberts, who worked for Self as an assistant for 20 years at Tulsa, Illinois and Kansas. Self replaced Roberts with Jacque Vaughn, a star point guard at KU from 1993-97 who went on to play 12 years in the NBA and become head coach of the Brooklyn Nets from 2022-24. “Jacque brings instant credibility,” Self says. “And he loves this place.”
When another assistant, Chase Buford, unexpectedly left in mid-August to join the Denver Nuggets, Self decided he wanted to find someone with a great reputation as a recruiter. He quickly settled on Tony Bland, who was entering his second season as an assistant at Washington and had previously worked at San Diego State, USC and Washington. Bland’s career got upended in the fall of 2017 when he was arrested as part of the FBI’s sprawling investigation into college basketball. He ended up pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and did not serve any jail time, but the NCAA served him with a three-year show-cause penalty.
Self and Kansas were also ensnared in the FBI’s case (Self served a four-game suspension and the school was found to have committed several Level II and Level III violations), so he was acutely familiar with the facts surrounding Bland. He was impressed with how Bland spent his three years in NCAA purgatory by getting involved in community service, coaching at a high school in Los Angeles and eventually working his way back to the job at Washington. “He didn’t run and hide. He reinvented by grinding,” Self says. “I thought that was great.”
Between the back-to-back down seasons, the heart procedure and the staff turnover, Self has encountered more instability the last two years than in the previous 21 combined. That might not be a bad thing. “Change can bring uncertainty, but a lot of times it brings a freshness and new ideas, too,” Self says. “We were able to address that in ways that have pumped energy into a situation that hasn’t needed it for a long time, but definitely needed a reboot.”
The only place where Self’s health became an issue was in the cutthroat world of recruiting. “I’ve had many competitiors make it known in recruiting that this is the end of the line for me,” he says. “The recruits have told me that. I’ve definitely heard that.” Apparently it didn’t work, because Self is in the midst of putting together one of his best classes in years. He has already secured commitments from five-star point guard Taylen Kinney from Overtime Elite, who is ranked No. 13 in the 247Sports Composite, plus three other four-star recruits in 6-foot-9 center Davion Adkins, 6-foot-5 guard Trent Perry and 6-foot-4 guard Luke Barnett. 247Sports ranks Kansas as the No. 1 recruiting class in the country at the moment, and the Jayhawks are still involved with several top prospects in the Class of 2026, including No. 1 overall prospect Tyran Stokes, who recently trimmed his final list to Kansas, Kentucky and Oregon.
Like everyone else in his profession, Self is having to adapt in real time to the seismic changes that have overtaken college sports. The financial realities of revenue sharing and NIL have made it much harder for blue chip programs like Kansas to stock up on talent like they did in the past. “It’s a different game now,” Self says. “The times of having all these great players in the same recruiting class, they’re gone because beforehand your D player got the same thing the A player got. But now that D player can make A player money at another school. There’s just not enough money to pay four guys A player money.”
Self takes inspiration from the fact that he won his two NCAA championships 14 years apart. A lot of changes took place during that span, too, and he is juiced by the idea that despite his age, his health challenges and all the shifts in the lanscape, he can still usher the Jayhawks back to the promised land. “I want to figure out how to get back on top so that we’ve won a title or competed for it in three different eras of college basketball,” he says. “If I don’t think that I can do it effectively as I’ve ever done it, then I believe it’s time for me to step aside. But as long as I feel good, I don’t see any reason why we can’t have this program humming at the same level it has for so many years.”
