NCAA Basketball: 5 coaches who deserve a lifetime deal like Bill Self’s at Kansas

As the 2023-24 college basketball season was starting, Kansas Jayhawks coach Bill Self was getting a new deal. The leader of the top team in the country entering the season signed a contract effectively setting himself up to stay in Lawrence for the rest of his career.

The five-year pact makes Self the highest-paid coach in college basketball. It should also mean there’s nowhere left for him to go to when this particular stop comes to an end.

While there’s been controversy during Self’s KU tenure – and plenty of it – the performance of his teams on the court made it an obvious choice for the Jayhawks to keep Self in place until the wheels fall off. Self has two national titles and 20 league titles on his resume, making him one of his generation’s all-time coaching greats.

Bill Self earned a lifetime contract with the Kansas Jayhawks at the start of the season. Who else deserves a similar honor at their school?

Many of the lifers fans have grown accustomed to at particular schools have recently exited the stage. Roy Williams retired from North Carolina. Coach K is gone from Duke. And this offseason, Jim Boeheim retired after a lifetime behind the bench at Syracuse.

As the next generation steps into the limelight, it’s time for some of the established coaches like Self receive similar assurances that they can stay in their job forever if they so choose, even if that’s already assumed to be the case by many.

Here are five coaches deserving of a lifetime pact at their schools.