Kansas basketball coach Bill Self was back in front of the media on Wednesday for the first time since March 8. And the theme of his 35-minute press conference was that he soon plans to be better than ever.
Sidelined for the final five games of the 2022-23 season and keeping a low profile during that time, Self said Wednesday that his recent health scare and the time he had to reflect on it afterwards provided him with a new perspective on a bunch of things.
While better health and habits for him and his family were at the top of that list, so, too, was his appreciation for his role as the Kansas basketball coach.
“The last several weeks, I’ve been able to reflect on a lot of things,” Self told reporters on Wednesday. “The one thing I can tell you without question (is) I missed my job, I love my job and I want to do my job for a long time.”
Chest pains in early March made it hard for him to do that. Following the advice of team doctors and wishes of his family, Self said sitting out the Big 12 tournament and KU’s two games in the NCAA Tournament was “the right decision” following what was called a standard heart catheterization and two stents being placed to help treat blocked arteries that kept him in the hospital for five days.
Now that he’s back to work, the 60-year-old Self plans to move forward with a renewed passion for coaching at Kansas and a plan for his health that will allow him to do so to the best of his ability.
“For me to be as effective doing that, I think I have to wake up a little bit and maybe do some things from a lifestyle stand-point, a personal habit standpoint, that I’ve been very, very, very inconsistent with my entire adult life,” Self said Wednesday. “Can you imagine a doctor telling you you need to lose weight, eat right and exercise? I’ve been told that a long time, but I’m taking that serious for the first time I probably have in my life.”
“All this did from a job standpoint was reconfirm how much I love doing what I do,” he added.
Asked point-blank if he planned to remain at KU for his 21st season in charge of the Kansas men’s basketball program, Self said, “Unless my athletic director or my chancellor makes a decision to contradict that, I am 100% positive I will be coaching at the University of Kansas this upcoming season, and hopefully many more after that.”
Self said on Wednesday that he had noticed being out of breath or feeling a little off for several months leading up to March 8.
He chalked most of that up to aging — “For the record, I’m not old. I’m older,” he joked — and the demands of the job.
“I have always thought that stress affects everybody else, but it doesn’t affect me,” he said.
After meeting with the media outside of the locker room at T-Mobile Center on March 8 one day before KU’s first Big 12 tournament game, Self went to the hospital on the advice of close friends and team officials.
He likened his condition during the media scrum outside of the locker room and the hours that followed it to an out-of-body experience.
“I was never scared that I wasn’t going to be OK,” he said. “But it was a different feeling. It was something that I’d never experienced before, but it was never to the point where I felt like I was in danger. I was in such good care and all that stuff. I just knew I wasn’t right.”
After getting settled at the hospital in early March, Self quickly discovered that coaching in the Big 12 tournament was out of the question.
“I thought I would coach against West Virginia (in Round 1 in Kansas City) and they laughed at me,” Self said. “And then I said, ‘Well, I’ll coach the next game.’ And they laughed at me. And then they said, ‘Well, maybe you can coach in two or three weeks.’ And I said, ‘No. No, I’ve got to be able to go in five days or whatever.’ And there was actually talk of me coaching in the first-round game (of the NCAA Tournament), but the doctor said, ‘If you coach in the first round game, there’s a good chance you won’t coach the second game.’ So, they told me that there was a better chance you coach in the second game as you sit out the first game.”
He did not coach either game, of course, and the Jayhawks were eliminated in Round 2 by Arkansas.
Self said the main thing that necessitated him being at the team hotel on game days instead of on the bench was the risk of elevated blood pressure, which he monitored constantly throughout the month of March, both in and out of the hospital.
“Even though you guys know I never get animated and I’m probably the most Zen type coach there is in America, the risk of my blood pressure elevating was something that they saw as a potential major concern.”
Self said Wednesday that it was hard to watch his team play without him, but he once again praised the job done by assistant coach Norm Roberts and the rest of the coaching staff and thanked the players for fighting for him.
“I don’t want to say I feel like I let them down because I don’t think that’s really fair,” he said. “But certainly those thoughts have gone through my mind a lot.”
While they fell short of their ultimate goal of bringing home an-other Final Four banner and national championship, Self said he was incredibly proud of what the 2022-23 team accomplished, winning the Big 12 regular season title, earning a No. 1 seed and setting the record for most Quad 1 wins in a single season tops among them.
“I never liked overachieve because overachieve makes it sound like they did something they weren’t capable (of doing),” Self said. “They were obviously capable of doing it or they wouldn’t have done it. But to win this league and have those young guys compete at the level they did over a period of time, I’ll remember that and that’ll be my closure more so than what could have happened on the last possession of the last game.”
Self opened Wednesday’s press conference by expressing his gratitude for the countless numbers of cards, calls, texts and well wishes he received from friends and fans throughout his time away from the program.
“They’re certainly appreciated,” Self said. “And I apologize for those that I have not been able to respond to. I’d like to be able to do that, but I haven’t been able to do that yet. But this was a health scare for me, and I certainly could not thank the KU health system (more) for the care that they gave me. The doctors, the nurses, everybody’s just fantastic. And want to thank all the supporters and everyone at KU. And primarily I want to thank my coaches and my players that I thought rallied around this.”
On Wednesday, nearly a month after his release from the hospital, Self said he still had 161 text messages that he had not even thought about trying to read yet.
In all, Self said he received “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of texts” — many of them coming from his coaching peers across the country — and that all of them meant a lot.
“I’ve been overwhelmed with that,” he said. “It’s been nice, but it’s time to move forward.”
Self briefly addressed the status of KU’s current roster, which saw five players enter the transfer portal and two declare for the NBA draft since the season ended.
Freshman guard Gradey Dick announced his plans last week and Jalen Wilson officially declared for the draft on Wednesday, shortly after Self’s press conference.
Self said the door was still open for Kevin McCullar Jr. to re-turn for his super-senior season but that nobody was counting on that happening. Self said he has talked to McCullar and that the first-year Jayhawk will go through the process of test-ing his draft stock before making any final decisions either way.
“There’s no question that Kevin McCullar could help himself by staying,” Self said Wednesday. “I’ve talked with Kev, he knows. I’ve talked to his mother and father, they know. I’ve talked to people close in his camp, they know. And Kevin will make the decision when the time’s right.”
Self said they were still waiting to see what redshirt freshman Kyle Cuffe Jr.’s future plans are and that he and his staff were moving forward with the expectation that everyone in last year’s rotation was going to be gone but Dajuan Harris Jr., KJ Adams, Ernest Udeh Jr. and Zuby Ejiofor.
“I need to be living in the portal right now,” Self said. “And that’s what we’re doing.”
Self said the “shake-up” from last year’s roster were “great” for both the players leaving and the Kansas program.
“It’s not only it’s a great opportunity for those kids, they’re making those (decisions) because it’s a better opportunity for them, but what that also does it gives us an opportunity to ad-dress our needs, too,” he said. “(It) creates opportunity now for us to go out and try to recruit three of the best players in America to come in here and fill those spots. We’ve got work to do before we’re a top-10 team, but I’m really hopeful within weeks everybody would say they should be ranked higher than a top-10 team.”
Self said he’d like to add a couple of perimeter players with good height who can shoot the ball and a big man down low to fill out the 2023-24 roster.
Self was asked on Wednesday whether he thought his recent health scare and the rumors about him not coaching much longer would have a negative impact on KU’s recruiting plans.
He smiled and said that sharing his plans and showing a strong commitment to his future at KU should put all of that to rest.
He did note, however, that while he personally has not had to address his future with recruits or signees in recent weeks, members of his coaching staff have.
“They’ve been asked that,” he said. “But in large part just be-cause of, you know, rumors out there on social media. We’ve dealt with negative recruiting for a while now. And I don’t even consider this to be anything that will be hard to address whatsoever.”
If anything, Self’s first public appearance since the end of the regular season demonstrated an even deeper level of drive, determination and commitment to keeping Kansas on top of the college basketball world.
Several times before the heart procedure, Self said that he has had more fun in the past couple of years than he has in a while and that the joy from his recent teams and their success has strengthened his desire to stay in coaching for years to come.
He admitted Wednesday that his recent health scare caused him to re-evaulate what’s important and forced him to look hard at what he can and must do to continue in the profession.
He then delivered that message and his plan with the excite-ment of a first-year head coach eager for what’s coming his way.
“My goal is to take this place to a whole different level that we’ve ever been to,” Self said. “And I know I need to have my energy and I need to be healthy and feeling good in order for us to do that. And I’m believing this spring is the first step to us getting to that level.”
“I feel good about where I’m at,” he added. “My energy level is probably back to where it was prior to the episode but not where it’s getting ready to go. I think sometimes we don’t real-ize we don’t feel well until we actually feel well and know the difference. And I’m in the process of feeling well again, so I’m excited about that.”
