In the fall of 2007, I was working as an intern at a sports management company in Portland, Ore., doing the kind of mundane monkey work that unpaid interns do. I was talking about college basketball with one of the guys making an actual living working there, and the conversation shifted to Kansas. That was all it took for another co-worker to pipe up from across the room: “Bill Self sucks.”
Right or wrong, representative of a majority view or not, it was a rare tablespoon of outside perception for a KU follower who hadn’t traveled much, and hadn’t had many conversations about Self’s performance with sports fans from other general regions of the country.
I didn’t agree with this guy in the least — “sucks” is a crude level of assessment that shouldn’t be slapped on any coach who can routinely win 25 games a year — but no doubt, at the time, he wasn’t alone. The previous March, Self’s ’06-07 KU team, seeded No. 1 in the West region, had failed to play to seed in the NCAA tournament for the third straight year, following the infamous first-round exits at the hands of Bucknell and Bradley with a frustrating 68-55 regional final loss to UCLA.
The perception of Self this guy apparently had was, to some degree, floating around out there: That Self can sign Top 50 prep players in his sleep, and use that talent to run up a bunch of regular-season wins — but in March, he’s guaranteed to underachieve.
If Self didn’t completely obliterate that perception with last year’s NCAA title, this past weekend should’ve done the trick. Because, while the 2007-08 KU team was arguably the best in school history, the Jayhawks’ berth in the Sweet 16 officially makes the 2008-09 season Self’s finest coaching job at KU.
After producing the school’s first title in 20 years, Self entered this season with a grace period, even if he wasn’t thinking that way. The Jayhawks, of course, had lost five starters and five NBA draft picks. Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich were the only significant returners. The seven-man recruiting class had quantity, but — if you trust recruiting rankings — didn’t look like a typical stellar KU class. The most anticipated newcomer, juco transfer Mario Little, got hurt before the year started.
From a fan base that finally got the national title it craved in ’08, and understood that he and his staff were essentially starting from scratch, Self had permission to turn in a relative down year. Depending on the source, KU was picked for either a third-place tie or fourth place in the Big 12, and no one raised an eyebrow. Jayhawk fans just loved being the national champs until April ’09, and they’d patiently wait through whatever this year brought while giving Self time to build another title contender.
What 2008-09 has brought, though, have been growing pains that hurt so good — and, so far, 27 wins.
Maybe you think 2007-08 has to be a more impressive coaching job for Self, simply by virtue of winning a national title. Or maybe you like 2005-06 — the year that a team with freshmen named Chalmers, Rush and Wright started the year looking like an NIT bubble team and ended it as co-Big 12 champions. Both were tremendous performances by Self and his staff.
But if March means anything, then 2005-06 can’t be part of the discussion of Self’s best work, because it ended with the loss to Bradley. That leaves us with measuring Self’s job last year against the one he’s done this year.
Entering last season, the Jayhawks, of course, were on the short list to be a national title contender, and that’s exactly what they were. The popular idea that they won a national title with “no stars” is true only from a purely statistical standpoint, since no one averaged more than 13.3 points per game.
In reality, Self had all the stars, all the tools, all the experience, that he needed in ’07-08. He had nine former Recruiting Consensus Services Index Top 100 players on his roster, with eight of them playing key roles. He molded an experienced and talented group of former prep superstars into a team-first unit, did a fantastic job, earned a ring for his efforts and began building his legend at KU.
But in the category of pure coaching achievement — maximizing the potential of what he has on his roster — this year has been just a little better. The ascension of Aldrich and Collins to a star inside-outside tandem was necessary, and fairly predictable — although Self deserves some credit for how good they’ve been, too. But what has really made this season Self’s best work at KU has been what’s happened around Collins and Aldrich.
Brady Morningstar and Tyrel Reed, a pair of in-state guards spiritually left for dead by some KU fans generally cynical about the Division I prospects of Kansas preps, have instead developed into vital role players. Tyshawn Taylor, who wasn’t ranked in the RSCI Top 100 until he reopened his recruitment late and picked KU, has had a commendable freshman year at both ends of the floor. With those parts and sporadic production from some other pieces — such as Little and the Morris twins — Self has fashioned a supporting cast that’s been good enough to augment his two stars and make KU, once again, a Big 12 champion and a Sweet 16 team.
Last season, in basketball numbers guru Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ratings, the national champion Jayhawks ranked No. 2 offensively and No. 1 defensively. This year, with all these new and inexperienced faces, they’re at No. 24 in offense and No. 8 in defense, and are No. 9 in Pomeroy’s overall rankings. They’re beating their opponents by more than 11 points per game. And Self has accomplished all this despite 1) Little’s injury, and 2) very little help from his top-ranked RSCI recruit in this class, Travis Releford, and highly ranked juco point guard Tyrone Appleton.
Kansas’ season might well end on Friday night against second-seeded Michigan State, a team that soundly trounced the Jayhawks in January. Certainly, Vegas and most prognosticators are going to pick against them. No matter what happens from here, though, KU fans should remember 2008-09 as a year when Self, in a post-championship year in which little was expected, did more with less to a spectacular degree.
chiefsfan (anonymous) says...
Rock Chalk Jayhawk! KU is much loved here in Denver! We're proud of you!
March 23, 2009 at 7:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )