During his first two decades as head coach at Kansas, Bill Self was responsible for one of the most dominant runs that a team has ever had, especially in a power conference. The Jayhawks won national titles in 2008 and 2022, made two other trips to the Final Four, and most notably won nearly every Big 12 title, including 14 consecutive regular season crowns in the league.
Kansas has made the Big Dance in every one of Self’s seasons and has won at least one game in the Tourney each year since 2007. We’re less than three years removed from the Jayhawks raising another championship banner into the rafters, though things are a bit different in Lawrence these days, even if they continued that Tournament streak last season.
A lot has changed in college basketball and for Kansas in particular. Last season the Jayhawks tied for 5th place in the Big 12, the first time in Self’s tenure that they didn’t finish Top 3 in the league. The 11 losses were also the most during Self’s more than two decades on campus and punctuated a frustrating season of wasted potential.
Unfortunately, this year seems to be even more of a challenge. The Jayhawks were the preseason #1 team in the nation, but three months later are on the verge of dropping out of the national polls. Buoyed by the returns of Hunter Dickinson and Dajuan Harris Jr. and several offseason additions, Kansas rode high early with nice wins over Duke and Michigan State.
Things turned in December with several tough losses and Big 12 play hasn’t been forgiving either. A Jayhawks team expected to be among the very best in the nation now sits just 8-7 in league play, thanks to their fourth consecutive road loss on Tuesday night. That most recent performance was the most emphatic of the season as Kansas was blown 91-57 at Provo by a BYU team fighting on the bubble.
The college basketball world has been changing in recent years, with the advent of the Transfer Portal and NIL deals. Obviously, Kansas is a Blue Blood program, an attractive destination, and has a supportive fan base committed to bringing great talent to Lawrence. However, when transfers like A. J. Storr and Rylen Griffen aren’t playing near their potential, desperate seasons like this develop.
In recent years, college basketball has shed numerous notable head coaches to retirement, a list that most recently includes ACC legends Tony Bennett, Leonard Hamilton, and Jim Larranaga all in the last four months. Could Self be next to join that list?
By no means do we think that Self, one of the greatest coaches in recent memory in this sport, is holding back this Jayhawks program, but could he opt to step away from the responsibilities of this game? His job has only been made harder with the advent of the Transfer Portal and it’s clear that his moves these last two offseasons simply haven’t cut it. Great expectations have been set for Kansas and they’ve fallen disastrously short.
Then again, this season is not yet over and we could potentially see a bounce back from the Jayhawks, but it’s hard to anticipate that after what we’ve seen in recent weeks, especially after that game in Provo. There’s no question that Kansas isn’t in that top-tier of Big 12 schools, but what exactly does their future hold both this March and beyond?