Bill Self, American basketball player and coach
Billy Eugene Self Jr. (born December 27, 1962) is an American basketball coach. He is the head men's basketball coach at the University of Kansas, a position he has held since 2003. During his 19 seasons as head coach, he has led the Jayhawks to 16 Big 12 regular season championships, including a share of an NCAA record 14 consecutive Big 12 regular season championships, some of those were shared (2005–2018). He has also led the Jayhawks to four NCAA Final Four appearances (2008, 2012, 2018, 2022), and the 2008 NCAA championship. Self was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. At the end of the 2020–21 season, Self had the 19th most wins among Division I coaches in NCAA history and 6th among active head coaches. He is the second-winningest coach in Kansas history, behind only Hall of Famer Phog Allen.
As coach at Kansas, Self has a record of 277–15 (.948 win percentage) at historic Allen Fieldhouse. In his tenure at Kansas, Self has had 3 home winning streaks of more than 30 wins including a school-record and 11th-best all-time 69 game streak. During his tenure at Kansas, he has recruited several McDonald's All-Americans to Kansas, including Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur, Xavier Henry, Andrew Wiggins, Cliff Alexander, Wayne Selden Jr., Cheick Diallo, and Josh Jackson. Under Self, Kansas rarely loses consecutive games, only thirteen times since taking over. Self is 96–13 following a loss at Kansas and has only had two three game losing streaks and has never lost more than three games in a row. Self’s teams at Kansas are also consistently ranked. As of March 7, 2020, Kansas has only played 38 of his 610 games as head coach unranked.Self has implemented a strong high-low motion offense using size as an advantage in the paint, and a pressing man to man defense on all his teams from his early coaching days at the University of Tulsa through the present. He has also shown great adaptability on the court and has implemented sometimes drastic adjustments as needed to his defensive schemes with various degrees of success. Despite Self's consistency, many reporters have questioned his abilities in the NCAA Tournament because of his 3–7 record in the elite eight. Self has taken Kansas to eight Elite 8 appearances in his 18 seasons at KU, which is the most visits to that round of the tournament in that time frame.Self was the 10th highest paid NCAA basketball coach as of 2020. He signed a lifetime contract extension with the Jayhawks in 2021.