Is Kansas Jayhawks coach Bill Self the most underrated coach in college basketball?
If you ask someone to name the best coaches in college basketball, chances are they are going to rattle off at least five or six names before they get to Bill Self. You’ll hear names like Donovan, Calipari, Pitino, Izzo and Krzyzewski first. You might even hear people mention Jim Boeheim, Roy Williams or Jay Wright depending on who and where you are asking.
If you take a look at Kansas head coach Bill Self’s coaching record, you’ll see that his name belongs with and even above many of those names. For some reason, most casual basketball fans just don’t seem to put him in the same category.
Personally, I feel like it has something to do with where he coaches. Kansas is the second winningest program of all time and one of the true blue-bloods of the sport. Be that as it may, it wasn’t Self who propelled the program to that point, nor was he a splashy hire that was talked about by the media on either coast.
Kansas is in flyover country in the Midwest. Let’s face it, I live one state north and even I know that unless you are Texas or Chicago, you are an afterthought on either coast. It’s just how we think. And that’s how college basketball fans think about Self — as an afterthought.
It’s strange how Kansas basketball can carry so much prestige and yet somehow so few people are able to draw a line between Self and that prestige. Perhaps it’s because they assume the school’s namesake and conference lend to easy recruiting and a conference schedule full of easy wins.
Historically, Kansas basketball has a .721 winning percentage. During his 11 seasons in Lawrence, Bill Self has a record of 324-68. That’s an .827 winning percentage — over ten percent better than the program historically. He has also led the Jayhawks to ten straight regular season conference titles. It took Larry Brown and Roy Williams a combined 20 years to pile up ten regular season conference titles in Lawrence.
You could make the argument that Bill Self is the greatest basketball coach in Kansas history. Again, given the status and prestige of the program, many might scoff at that. But the evidence is there.
No Kansas coach in history has more than one NCAA title. Self has one. Only Roy Williams and “Phog” Allen have coached the Jayhawks to three or more Final Four appearances. Self has done it twice. Only Allen has more regular season conference titles and nobody matches Self’s conference tournament title count of six.
I mentioned Self’s winning percentage of .827 at Kansas. No other Kansas coach came within two percentage points of matching that. The closest was Roy Williams at .805.
Turning our attention back to the national scene, Self’s career winning percentage (including before Kansas) is higher than that of both Jim Boeheim and Rick Pitino. When talking about winning percentage at their current gigs, Self sits above the great Mike Krzyzewski.
When you do an internet search of the best coaches in college basketball right now, list after list you’ll come across will have Florida’s Billy Donovan at the top — no doubt due in part to the back-to-back national titles he led the Gators to in 2006 and 2007. Be that as it may, Donovan’s overall winning percentage at Florida is ten points less than Self’s at Kansas. Donavan also has four fewer regular season conference titles than Self, despite having coached at Florida seven more years than Self has at Kansas.
At the end of the day, it’s pretty obvious that Bill Self is among the best coaches in college basketball right now. Full disclosure here — before writing this piece, I probably wouldn’t have had him in my top five. As a stats guy (I love me some Moneyball), all it took was a peek at Self’s record and to set it next to some of the greats in the game — both historically and today — for me to realize that Bill Self might currently be the best coach in college basketball and one of the greatest of all time.
More from FanSided
- MLB Trade Grades: Dodgers land Amed Rosario from Guardians
- Colorado gives Pac-12 a possible death knell with move to Big 12
- NFL rumors: Dalvin Cook suitor maintaining very ‘real’ interest
- Braves get dose of bad news on Max Fried as ace nears return
- LA Galaxy vs. Club Leon Leagues Cup match rescheduled for July 26
Add us as a preferred source on Google