Bill Self non-committal about future at Kansas after season-ending loss
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Bill Self has been at Kansas since way back in 2003, winning 2 national championships and a boatload of Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles, too.
The 63-year-old has become synonymous with Jayhawks basketball, the latest coaching legend at a program with a long list of them. But Sunday was a very tough day for Self, with his 4th-seeded Kansas team coming so close to getting to yet another Sweet 16 but being denied at the buzzer by St. John’s in a 67-65 heartbreaker in a second-round East Region thriller in San Diego.
All of a sudden, with that last-second layup that broke the 65-65 tie, it was all over for Kansas, which finished an up-and-down season at 24-11. It was also all over for Self, and during the postgame press conference a reporter asked Self, who’s had health issues recently, if he would be returning to Lawrence to continue his long, illustrious tenure.
Self didn’t say he wasn’t coming back, but he also didn’t say for certain that he would be returning, which makes Sunday noteworthy in itself.
“I’ll get back, get with family, visit and see what’s going on. I love what I do. I need to be able to do it where I’m feeling good and healthy to do it fairly well,” Self said. “… I’ll get back home, and it’ll all be discussed. … I love what I do. I wanna feel good while I’m doing it though.”
It was also noteworthy that Self brought up his recent health issues, so it was squarely on his mind as he gave the brutally honest answer Sunday in the aftermath of the agonizing season-ending loss. Time will tell on Self’s immediate future, of course. The 2017 inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame might be done, or he might be coming back to Kansas.
With Self and Kansas sent packing in agonizing fashion and St. John’s still having Final Four dreams, here is what the Kalshi market currently looks like regarding the top teams in the mix to make it all the way to Indianapolis next month:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
