One week after Bill Self became the winningest coach at Kansas, the Hall of Famer joined John Calipari and Rick Barnes as the only active Division I head coaches with 800 wins.
The top-ranked Jayhawks led UNC Wilmington by five at halftime Tuesday night before using a big second-half run to pull away, eventually finishing off an 84-66 victory that required their starters and main role players all the way to the finish.
“We can play better,” Self said afterward, “but I thought tonight was a step in the right direction.”
The milestone victory, which comes ahead of a showdown against No. 12 Duke on Tuesday night, moved Self into elite company. Among those with at least 800 wins are the likes of longtime Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski, the all-time winningest, and luminaries such as retired Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and former Jayhawks and North Carolina coach Roy Williams.
“I don't usually remember the wins,” Self said, “as much as I remember the losses.”
There haven't been a whole lot of those. The 61-year-old Self is 800-248 since becoming a head coach at Oral Roberts in 1993. He made stops at Tulsa and Illinois before taking over for Williams at Kansas before the 2003-04 season.
Last week in Atlanta, the Jayhawks beat Michigan State in the Champions Classic to give Self his 591st win in 22 seasons at Kansas. That pushed him past Phog Allen, the namesake of Allen Fieldhouse, as the winningest coach in school history.
“I'm glad my parents had me a little bit later so I could play for him at 800. Hopefully he gets to 900 and 1,000, because he's one of the best,” said the Jayhawks' All-America center, Hunter Dickinson. “Just trying to keep getting these milestone wins for him.
“We want to get that third national championship,” Dickinson added. "That's the most important one for him right now.”
The truth is, Self could have reached 800 wins last season. But in 2023, the school was required to vacate 15 wins from the 2017-18 season — along with its Big 12 regular-season and postseason titles and trip to the Final Four — when an independent resolution process found that recruiting violations had taken place under his watch.
The violations stemmed from a wide-ranging 2017 federal investigation into college basketball corruption. Self and top assistant Kurtis Townsend also served four-game suspensions ahead of the 2022-23 season as part of the NCAA infractions.
Yet the school never wavered in its commitment to the Hall of Fame coach.
Last year, Kansas announced it had signed Self to what amounts to a lifetime contract that would pay him $53 million over the first five years, making him the most highly compensated men's basketball coach at a public university.
Self underscored last week that retirement is not imminent, though he also acknowledged that he's much closer to the 18th hole than the first tee when it comes to his career. What may become a factor is his health: He was hospitalized for a heart procedure in 2023 that caused him to miss the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments, though Self has said he is in better shape these days.
Until he retires, he'll be coaching under the shadow of a couple of special banners.
Two years ago, students put together a sign high above the sideline that reads, “Just Load the Wagon,” a tribute to Self's father, who had died earlier in the year. It comes from Bill Self Sr.'s old saying, "Don’t worry about the mules, just load the wagon," and is a quotation that his son chose to have inscribed outside the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Then last week, unbeknownst to Self, another banner was raised alongside the school's retired uniform numbers — it hangs just below that of Danny Manning and Jacque Vaughn. It reads simply: “Bill Self — Kansas Basketball All-Time Winningest Coach.”
“Coach is just a winner. That's all,” guard Dajuan Harris Jr. said Tuesday night. “He's a winner.”
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