Kansas head coach Bill Self joined Seth and Andy on The Hoops HQ Show Tuesday morning to talk about rehabilitation, roster-building, Darryn Peterson and more. Stream full episodes of the podcast on Hoops HQ’s YouTube channel, @hhqsports, or live on the Fubo Sports Network.
Seth Davis: It is Sunday, early afternoon in Lawrence, Kansas. The day after the night before, which is Kansas losing at Iowa State. Bill is going to be in a grouchy mood, so he’s going to be a little more truthful than usual, which I really appreciate. Bill, certainly no shame in losing at Iowa State. We know how good they are. We know how hard it is to win in that building and we know what you guys did to them when they came to your place.
How concerned are you about your team? Do you feel like Saturday’s match was just a blip in the long journey of being in the Big 12?
Bill Self: Well, first of all, I’m not in a fricking bad mood, but why the hell did you bring that up? I just got finished watching the tape again with the staff and we weren’t very good, but give them credit. I mean, they were on point. They were aggressive and physical and we weren’t ready for it to the level that they brought it. If you go back and look at the game, even though we stunk, the last five minutes of the first half and the first three of the second half — there’s 32 minutes where it’s an even game.
Of course, that’s not how you do it. It’s actually a 40-minute game. But they dominated us, the last five of the first and the first three of the second. I think they made their first six threes of the second half and Momcilovic got hot. And then we didn’t close out the first half very well. We’ve been playing pretty good up until yesterday, but I’m not pushing the panic button on one game in our league, on the road especially because it happens to most everybody and our league is good and we played a really good team yesterday.
Andy Katz: Bill, I want to pick up on that point. Arizona’s lost a couple. BYU, Texas Tech, Iowa State, Houston even. At what point did you realize that you can’t get yourself down over a loss in the uber-competitive Big 12?
Self: Well, it can be demoralizing if you let one become two. The formula for us to win the league those years that we did was to hold strong at home and then go 6-3 or 5-4 on the road. Knowing that is probably gonna happen, you just kind of roll with it. We hurt ourselves this year because we started out playing poorly on the road to start the season.
In the grand scheme of things, winning the league is important. Nobody’s gonna say it’s not. It’s important. But when you got four or five teams in your league — maybe six — that are Final Four capable teams, you understand that there’s bigger things than winning the league, even though the league is big.
We made a very big deal of winning it in the years that we did, because we always thought, hey, if you’re the best team in our league, we’re good enough to play with anybody.
Seth: Let’s have the Darryn Peterson conversation. You’ve been addressing this a little bit more overtly in the last week or so. Let me just kind of give you my take from afar and you can tell me where I’m right and where I’m wrong.
First of all, this conversation has never been about the NBA Draft. I think that’s totally dumb. I keep saying, outside of this kid having his leg amputated, he’s going to be a top three pick, if not the No. 1 pick. So to me, that’s not worth addressing. I’ve been defending Darryn because when you’re talking about a hamstring and cramping and soft tissue injuries, you want him to be at 100 percent because you don’t want him to re-injure it. If it’s a Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight game, maybe there’s a different decision about pushing through. So I get that.
But I have to say, seeing him out in warmups before a game, at home, against No. 1, undefeated Arizona and being sick, it did make me wonder, why wouldn’t you at least try to play? You can try to push through an illness. You’re not going to injure yourself by doing that. And then when you line that up with all these other questions, it made me think, maybe there is something to it. Is he a little bit soft? Is he not pushed hard enough? Does he not want it bad enough? Give me your take.
Self: I think that you’re 50-percent accurate. The hamstring, legit. The cramping, legit. To your point, you want him to be as right as possible because it’s a long season. The NBA — you’re right on point — hasn’t been discussed. People say, well he’s trying to protect — no, he’s not trying to protect anything and short of a major, major injury, he’s going to try to be out there.
Where I think you got it wrong was: He was sick. He practiced the day before as much as he could. He went through shootaround the day of and still felt like crap.
He went out to see how he felt in the pre-warmups when we do our stretching and whatnot. People saw him do that. I wish we had done that in the practice gym as opposed to publicly. But we didn’t. At that time, he went out there saying, “I’m gonna do it.” Came back in when he didn’t feel well, head was pounding, all that stuff. And the doctor told me, “Bill, no, he’s not gonna be able to go.”
That was after he came back in, prior to the team going out to warm up. So the story you got, Seth, is true to a point, but it wasn’t like he was warming up and then pulled himself out. No, it’s like he tried to put himself in a position to see if he could go warm up. And then the doctor said, “No, Bill.” But that day, he tried. He didn’t feel well, but he tried.
He was out there and didn’t respond very well. And he’s been sick since. That’s not an excuse for the loss yesterday by any stretch.
Seth: I know you’re not making an excuse and I know it’s hard to win at Iowa State. They’re a great defensive team. Peterson scores 10 points, 3 for 10, and sat the last seven minutes. Is it fair to say that was the lingering effect of being sick?
Self: I think when you don’t practice for a long amount of time and you lose weight and you got flu symptoms and all that stuff — he didn’t feel well. When I say didn’t feel well, was he 60 percent? Was he 70 percent? Maybe, I don’t know. But he wasn’t to the point where we were down to say, “Hey, let’s roll with you.” Cause I’m thinking to myself, to your point earlier, it’s a hard game. A lot of things have to go right. They weren’t going right.
And even though we got it down to close to 10 or 12, they weren’t going right. The energy it takes to come back from that standpoint, (Darryn) didn’t have it. So goddamn, we gotta make sure he’s ready to practice on Monday and Tuesday to be ready on Wednesday. That’s how I was looking at it. So that was more of a coach’s decision than anything else.
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Andy: Bill, for the record, Seth and I disagreed on this because I just don’t question it. This flu is all across the country. Every team has been affected in some form or fashion where players have sat out because of it. And I actually think it’s worse to try to play through that than an injury because if you don’t feel right, that can lead to dehydration. You can be unstable. You can be delirious. I think that if you don’t feel well with the flu, shut it down. So I agree with your point that maybe it should have been more private, whatever. We live in this world where everything is documented.
Self: I’m gonna agree with both you guys. The combination of the things that have happened — and then you have this happen — makes you think, God, what next? This dude rolled his ankle, came back and was pretty damn good against BYU and this and that, but he wasn’t himself yet. And then after he comes back and plays 32, 35 minutes or whatever, he gets sick. And I think that the sickness in itself, to your point, shouldn’t play.
To Seth’s point, as an outsider, where you see that it didn’t happen at this moment and it didn’t happen in that moment for a different reason — the kid’s a warrior. But the bottom line is, it’s been frustrating for him and it’s been frustrating for people that support us, because they know how good he could be and they know the value that he brings to us, which in turn, is all people care about that support a school.
Everybody wants Darryn to do well, but they really want Kansas to do well. And everybody wants Cam Boozer to do well, but they really like to see Duke do well, or whoever it would be. So it’s been a combination of some unfortunate things.
I wish he, for his own sake, could go back and be healthy. And there wouldn’t be one word ever mentioned of this. But the bottom line is this, and you guys know this — and to your point earlier, Seth, about how winning’s hard on the road — what we need to do is become a team between now and early March.
In order to do that, we need him to be a part of us in every way, shape, form. Now, is he there yet? No. But will he be there? As long as there’s no other setbacks, I can’t believe that we won’t be the best version of ourselves moving forward — even though we haven’t been that quite yet. But to be honest, we’ve shown flashes even without him.
Andy: When he is himself, when he is at his best — and you’ve coached great players — what does Kansas look like with him playing with (Flory) Bidunga and (Melvin) Council and the whole crew? What does the Kansas team look like that we could see in March?
Self: When the ball goes in the hole, everything looks good. But it could look like the first half against Iowa State. It could look like the first half against BYU. I mean, there’s some things about that, that, okay, you run bad offense, you can still come away with two or three points. The flip side of this, that our defense has gotten better, but Darryn is potentially as good as any defender we have by far.
So there’s a lot of things that our team can look like. Andy, it’s a great question because Melvin, when he first came back, scored like, and I’m not exaggerating, 40 points in two halves of games, two first halves of the first two games he came back. The second halves, Melvin combined for 36 and Darryn didn’t play much.
How do we get those guys working together, where they’re playing off each other better? I personally think, you just can’t roll it out there in a game and accomplish that. There needs to be some continuity, weeks of practice and games. We have time, but we don’t have that much time. It’s time for us to put it together, if it’s gonna happen, which we all believe that it can.
Now, it doesn’t guarantee you’re gonna play great by any stretch, but how can Flory and Bryson (Tiller) and Tre (White) and Melvin be as aggressive as they are when he’s not in the game as when he is in the game? And then how do we continually try to free him to the point that he can make others better? That’s what we have to do. We didn’t do that yesterday. But I also don’t know that we were prepared to do that yesterday.
Seth: Yeah, and I think fans in general underestimate how long it takes to get everybody on the same page. We had Mark Pope on last week, saying even though they’ve lost some guys, they’d rather at least know who they have. Bill, I want to make this a little bit more of a big picture as we wind things down.
The last season was maybe the worst that you’ve had since you’ve been at Kansas. It can be very risky and kind of a guessing game in the transfer portal. As far as now, it becomes about money. What did you learn from that experience last year that you’ve applied to the way that you’ve constructed and coached this roster? And what are you continuing to learn about that process, which is so different than it was even two or three years ago?
Self: I think we’re always learning. I don’t think anybody’s perfected it quite yet. I think some people may recruit better than others and everything, but sometimes that’s a crapshoot too. Sometimes we get a little lucky and sometimes we get a little unlucky. Last year was the worst team that we’ve had. For 21 years prior to last year, the worst team we had was a four seed in the NCAA Tournament. Last year, we were a seven seed. Granted, we’re spoiled here, but I’m spoiled too. I agree, it was unacceptable.
But it wasn’t unacceptable from the people. It was probably more unacceptable from roster management and us not doing everything we could, and knowing how to value the money we have and how to spend it.
People looked at us and Hunter (Dickinson) saying, he did this and he did that. We got Hunter for 30 cents on the dollar compared to what he could have got. You know, the perception was totally inaccurate. Just the pieces didn’t quite fit. There’s one thing, you know when you go out and you recruit: how athletic, can they shoot and how tough?
Usually, if they’re tough, they’ll fit into a system. We couldn’t space the floor. We had two people on top of Hunt all the time, every time he caught it. There were some things that we couldn’t take advantage of that I think we’re doing a little bit better job of this year. But I think that happens sometimes in recruiting. You recruit, and sometimes it works out great and sometimes it’s just not as good a fit as what you thought or what the kid thought.
This year, our portal guys, for the most part, fit — Melvin and Tre have been great. Flory’s really improved without question. Bryson Tiller is just a freshman and people want to think that he’s older than that, but he’s just a freshman. And then we got a superstar freshman when he feels right and when he’s healthy. So we’re better than we were.
But to be real honest with you, it’s still an inexact science going on, and anybody that says it’s not and thinks they have all the answers — it’s a lot easier to find lightning in a bottle in today’s time than it is to sustain it. If you recruit the best freshmen and those freshmen are pros, is that better off than going out in the portal? Or if they’re not pros, are you better off taking portal guys? So it’s inexact, and I don’t think anybody 100-percent has it figured out. But there’s certainly the appearance of several that do better than others, and I’ll give them credit. But all it takes is one recruiting class in today’s time to flip it.
Andy: Bill, you’ve had some cardiac scares the last couple of years. How has that changed the way you’ve coached and managed your day?
Self: I’d like to say that I’m stress-free now. I actually think this — I actually believe that I don’t stress the things that I can’t control as much as I used to.
We can all say whatever, that we’re relaxed or whatever, but I remember going back. I wanted to know, what was talked about at this meeting? Okay, how are we promoting this game? Okay, what’s our ticket sales look like? Okay, this, this, this and this. And in all honesty, if it doesn’t have anything to do with the meat and potatoes, hey — let it go. That’s somebody else’s job. And I think I’m getting better at that. Not great. But this year has been, it’s been a fun year because we got a fun team, but we just don’t know about our team yet. I mean, that team that played Arizona without DP, you guys saw that game. Can a team play harder than that or more competitive? That was fun to be a part of. And these fans here love this team. We just got to figure it out when we have all our pieces because at the end of the day, all our pieces give us the best chance without question.
Seth: Alright Bill, last question. Put you on the spot here a little bit. We’ve been doing this with all our coaching guests, but it’s going to be especially hard with you. You coach at a place where the guy who invented the frickin game has his name on the court. We want to get your all time Kansas starting five, go!
Self: Wilt (Chamberlain), (Danny) Manning, (Paul) Pierce, (Joel) Embiid and Josh Jackson.
Seth: Interesting, All right, very quick, very decisive.
Self: Well, four of them are givens.
Seth: Wilt. Manning. Pierce.
Self: And Embiid, man. MVP of the league.
Seth: Well, it’s actually interesting with Embiid though, because he was there with you for one year and he wasn’t an NBA — he was good, but he got hurt, right?
Self: He got hurt. But if you’re talking about the best guys since I’ve been here, I think it’d be hard to keep (Sherron) Collins off the team. And then the best collegiate career that we had of any of those guys that didn’t get near the notoriety he should was Frank Mason. I mean, Frank Mason was a unanimous National Player of the Year.
A lot of times, when guys are really good in college, they’re forgotten if they don’t have the same pro career. And a lot of times when guys are really good in the league, you think that actually existed in college too. But as far as impact on winning, it’d be hard to keep Sherron and Frank off.
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