Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - A+ Hire: JACQUE VAUGHN JOINS BILL SELF'S STAFF - Could He Be the Next Kansas Basketball Head Coach?

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Former Kansas Jayhawks All-American and All-Big Eight Point Guard, as well as Brooklyn Nets and Orlando Magic head coach Jacque Vaughn has been hired by Bill Self, joining the University of Kansas men's basketball coaching staff as an assistant coach.Breaking down why this is such a good hire for Self and KU, as they bolster their coaching acumen even after losing long-time AC Norm Roberts to retirement.At the same point in time, could Vaughn be positioning himself to be the NEXT head coach of the Jayhawks once Bill Self retires or his time is done in Lawrence? How does this affect that possibility for Roy Williams' former star player, and would it be a good idea to make him head coach in waiting or to be the future head man?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

Jock Vaughn, former KU legendary All-American point guard, is back with Bill Self on the assistant coaching staff and could he eventually be the next head coach once Bill Self retires? the Kansas Jayhawks part of the Locked On Podcast Network your team every day. What's going on Derek Johnson here this is Locked On Jayhawks thanks for making it your first listen every day thank you every day is catching each and every episode of the show we are free and available anywhere you get your podcast including our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show and on today's edition of Locked On Jayhawks Jacques Vaughn the

former well accomplished KU basketball player turned NBA assistant and head coach, is now an assistant coach for Bill Self at the University of Kansas. We're going to talk about why it's a home run assistant coach higher, why he could potentially be the next head coach for KU basketball post Bill Self. Do I like it? Do I not? If that were the case, and we'll get into all that on today's episode of the show, which is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Right now, new customers can get $200 in bonus bets. When your first $5 bet wins, you can do that over at FanDuel. Okay, so I guess for the younger audience, who is Jacques Vaughn? Obviously, for a lot of people,

Jacque Vaughn was their favorite basketball player growing up. And you think about him in the 90s with Roy Williams being kind of the, I mean, you have an unbelievable team. 1996 to 1997 is arguably the greatest basketball team in kids' basketball history, even compared to ones that won titles.

Now, you can have a long-winded debate about which one actually is best and, you know, because this one won the title, it should deserve to be that one or yada yada yada. If we're just talking everything, they were number one or number two in the AP poll literally every single week of the season. They lost two games all year, one of whom was in double overtime. The other one, they got upset in the sweet 16 to an Arizona team that won the national title. It was one of the best teams in the country of all time at Kansas. And Jacques Vaughn was kind of the leader of that team, a team that had,

you know, Scott Pollard, longtime NBA player that had Rayful Friends, a two time big 12 player of the year. Unbelievable player. Paul Pierce, obviously, you know, NBA Hall of Famer. In addition to what he did at Kansas that had role players beyond that, right? We could go Geron Haas and on and on down the roster But Jacques Vaughn was maybe the leader the face of this group of players and was a fan favorite among many many fans For te you fans and it could go back to you know, the home game against Indiana. When he hits the game winning shot, it can go to his, you know, inquisitive quotes that he gave. But he was the guy he was the guy that the Kansas fans growing up that if

you were in Kansas and you played, you know, in your backyard and you're, oh, I'm jock Vaughn, like that, that is kind of the guy that he was. He was this unbelievable player for KU. He was an All-American. I think he was a two time second team consensus All-American, I believe. All big 12 player racked up assists had team success, yada, yada, yada, right? Place for William. So it's a cool full circle moment for a guy who was not like only

just a great Jayhawk player, but was somebody who was known for being a cerebral basketball player. And I think if you asked anybody then, I wasn't, you know, at that time I was, I was a youngling. So like, I don't know this, but I'm sure if you asked a lot of people who are covering the program or fans of the program, like you probably would not be surprised that Jacques Vaughn was going to be a coach after his playing days, knowing the type of player he was, knowing the type of player he was knowing the type of person he was right. And so him coming on board to join the staff at Kansas and build self beyond the notion of, you know, how good of a hire it is, which we'll get to here in a second. Spoiler, I think it's a very good hire. It's a cool moment, obviously, for a guy coming full circle guy who was a great

under Roy Williams, who was a fan favorite now turned assistant coach at Kansas. But it does come with an incredible amount of coaching resume like this isn't just Oh, they hired one of their former players like and that's the other thing. This isn't a former Bill Self player this former Roy Williams player right? There isn't a level of Oh, it's just you know, a nostalgic, or it's just a nepotism hire, so to speak. Like, no, not at all. Not one bit, right? If you said that you could get an assistant coach who's been a former NBA head coach, that on its own carries a lot of weight, but this is an

incredible hire for Kansas and Bill's self to have on the bench. It comes with a fantastic coaching resume, one that is overqualified for the assistant coach at a college basketball team. Like, Jacques Vaughn could easily right now be an assistant coach for another NBA team. He could easily, if he wanted to be a head coach at like, you know, maybe a middle tier college basketball team. Like, if you were an Atlantic 10 team, or if you were like a you know, one of these, whatever, and you hired jock von is your head coach, nobody would bat an eye and be like, wow, that's crazy. I they're okay. Yeah, that makes

sense. He was former NBA head. You know what I mean? And he's now your assistant coach at a collegiate level. So what is the path for jock von? He obviously goes to KU, he has a double digit career year career whenever in the NBA. And then he goes on he finishes his career in the NBA with San Antonio Spurs when they're kind of in their heyday, he retires and then becomes an assistant coach with the Spurs until 2012. So he's coaching with Greg Popovich. He's again like coaching in some of their prime years. And then he

gets the head coaching job of the Orlando Magic in 2012. Obviously, things don't work out there. But he is head coach at the NBA level. And then in 2015, he joins the Nets staff, which I don't know at the time if they would have been New Jersey or Brooklyn or whatever, but either way, he's with the Nets. He's an assistant coach from 2016 to 2022. Then he becomes the interim head coach, and then eventually the full-time head coach between 2022 to 2024, eventually gets let go there.

That is a lot of the high level basketball experience. Like think about it this way. And I think about this too, in like NFL terms, A lot of times you can say like Urban Meyer, for instance, Urban Meyer was a disaster as an NFL head coach with the Jaguars. He was like one of the two or three best coaches in college football. And so to a certain extent, when there's a profession

like the NBA or the NFL or whatever, where there's only 30 jobs, there's only 30 head coaching jobs, you could be the worst head coach in the NBA and still be one of the best coaches in the world. That doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes guys aren't good head coaches at either level. Sometimes guys are good head coaches at college, not pros. Sometimes maybe it's vice versa. There are factors that go into why a guy might be

a good head coach at one level and not another, and the games are slightly different, and they're recruiting, yada, yada, yada, right? But point being, at any given moment, there are only 30 jobs of something, right? This is not something where like, you might go to your office job, and there's thousands of your office job across the country

that if you want another job, you can go to another state and have another job. You can't really do that. They are very difficult jobs to get, which speaks to the idea that even if you do get fired from an NBA head coaching job, you probably are thought of pretty highly and the opportunity to get one of those jobs does not come around very often. So, yes, it is a very big deal to even show the chops to get one of those jobs. I think this gives Billself his most star-studded assistant coach that he's had in his time with KU.

Now, I mean from a coaching profession, right? If you're talking about just star-studded from KU lore, that would have been Danny Manning because Danny Manning is the most accomplished player in KU basketball history. So Danny was an assistant for Billself. He was the most star-studded in terms of just KU lore. If you're talking about what assistant coach during the Billself tenure has the best coaching resume, it's Chuck Vaughn, right? Because you can point to like Norm Roberts and Curtis Townsend and their head guard, Joe Dooley and whatever, like their past head coaching stops at other schools

and mixed results for some of those guys, none of them were head coaches in the NBA. So from that perspective, I don't know how much it matters, but like it does matter a little bit, right? You would think the guys in the NBA are on the forefront of the most advanced ways of thinking and can freshen up playbooks and have a wide variety of playbooks and things that they can do both in practice and with game

planning and stuff like that, that he brings with him to Lawrence. And obviously this was all made possible by the fact that Norm Roberts retired, so it opened up a position on the coaching staff. It seems like Chase Buford is in a position to kind of get elevated here. So you're talking about a kind of new look to the bench to KU. And that can't be a bad thing after you've had two years where it's gotten a little bit more stale, like you get some new voices in there, you get some different opinions to kind of help this team evolve in a real way. And so Vaughn's ability to be around the NBA, be around the decision making, be around the political side of things in terms of like contract negotiations,

dealing with people in the locker room, that's only going to help him in especially in today's way of things in the college game. So plus the fact that Vaughn, he's a former like stud point guard having a long double digit career in the NBA, that probably helps you in recruiting, that probably helps you in practice in dealing through the the tribes and tribulations of full season with guys like Darren Peterson or other point guards that you have being able to kind of connect with them. And then lastly, like it might not hurt from a donor perspective either. There's going to be a lot of KU donors out there who grew up watching Jacques Vaughn, were in college when Jacques Vaughn was a thing, or maybe just graduated when Vaughn was in college and now they've made it big and they loved watching him,

they might be a little bit more willing to donate a little extra coin. Maybe it helps you with roster building as well. And certainly I think Jaques Vaughn probably has some good, we've been talking about KU having international recruiting. I would imagine Jaques Vaughn being in the NBA for as long as he did, has probably made some good connections, whether it's with scouts or people overseas, because you have to be more tied in with the overseas stuff in the NBA. That might not hurt either in recruiting for KU. So, home run hire, this is an A plus hire for KU as an assistant coach and a pretty big deal. Could he be the next head coach at Kansas? Do I like that idea? We'll discuss that though on the other side. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

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Thanks for joining us on this episode of Locked On, Jayhawks. Jacques Vaughn becomes the newest assistant coaching hire for KU Basketball. Let's start here. Could Jacques Vaughn, because like I said, A plus higher as an assistant coach, assistant coach, head coach are two different conversations here, right? Could he be the head coach in waiting? Could he be the head coach of the future for Kansas? Let's start with the could he before we get to the should he part of this, okay?

So the could he be the next head coach for the University of Kansas? Well, yeah, the short answer, yes. Okay, next podcast. No. The short answer is yes, because, I mean, to begin with, even if he didn't take this job, whenever Bill Self retires, it could be in a year from now, it could be five years from now, it could be seven, I don't know, right? Whenever Bill Self does retire, whenever Bill Self does move on, I don't think it would have been shocking, given the

fact that Jacques Vaughn has been now head coach at the NBA level. And like we've seen BYU had some success this year with a former NBA assistant coach. We've seen, you know, former NBA head coaches come back to college, varying degrees of success. Some guys have been guys who were at college then NBA then came back. Others have been, you know, NBA straight to college. Like Mike Woodson, for instance, and not to say that Jacques Vaughn would be like Mike Woodson, I think very different there for a couple reasons. But nonetheless, just point being like, we've seen that be a thing. And obviously Jacques Vaughn is somebody that is probably endeared by the athletic department at KU. I mean, shoot, man, Travis Goff probably,

I think he graduated in the early 2000s. So I don't know if he would have been at school when Jacques Vaughn was at KU, or if he would have been a KU fan before he went to KU and to where, you know, that was somebody he kind of idolized, like, and obviously he's a very well-spoken person. He's a very intelligent person.

And being at the NBA level, like he would have been a candidate on the short list, regardless here is kind of where I'm getting at. I do think the matter of like, how long is it before Belsoff retires does matter a little bit to this conversation, right? Because let's say Belsoff has two more years in him. Okay, at that point, Jockvon will be 52.

So yeah, you could get, you know, 10, 15, 20 years out of Jockvall, just depends how long you would want to coach, right? Versus the flip side of it is, what if Bill Self does still have another five years in him? What if he has another seven years in him? At that point, Jockvall is 55, he's 57. Does that lessen the chances of him being hired in any way? I don't know, it might, it might not.

He might want to go for somebody younger at that point in time. So that does have an impact on it, but clearly he would have been a candidate. It doesn't hurt that you now get familiar with things. Now, the level of success to which Kansas has or doesn't have over the years that Jacque Vons and assistant will matter because it's really hard to judge what level of impact an assistant coach is having. I think it's a little bit easier for schools where it's a little bit easier for schools where it's like they have an offensive coordinator,

they have a defensive coordinator. Like Mark Adams, for instance, under Chris Beard, he was their defensive coordinator. And like it was easy to see, okay, look at the impact that he's having on the defensive side of the ball. Even when Chris Beard leaves to Texas, that first year without him,

they got a three seed under Mark Adams and still had an elite defense in the country, right? With KU they don't work it that way. They work bigs and guards and stuff like that. And sometimes that can just be dependent. You know, are the bigs doing well, are the guards doing well, based on, okay, did the player you recruit, is that a good player? Right. So it's a little hard to tell how good of a job an assistant coach is doing other than like talking to that coach and what do you think? And I guess talking to players and I don't know, like even that can be an inexact science, right? Because you might think that somebody is doing a good job, but it's like, I guess you don't actually know there's not like tangible, you know, decisions that the assistant coach is

making that you can point to with a head coach where you're like, oh, this was his record at that stop. You know what I mean? You can't do that as much with assistant coaches. So we very much just does become is the team doing well? Is the team not doing well? And then you either get praise that you get packed along with or you get blame that you get kind of packed along with whether you're deserving of the good or the bad, you know, either way. So it's hard to tell, but being around it, being able to, I don't know, soak things up and where things are at with the current college landscape can't be the worst thing in the world. I don't know that Kansas would give the head coach and waiting thing that feels like something where it would be very like, like, could they give that down the road? Sure. I don't know that

they would do that right on hiring a guy, especially with Bill South. And again, like, I've kind of heard things that, yeah, okay, maybe he wants Chris Beard to be that extra coach. Maybe things go so well with Jock Vaughn that he changes the tune and that Jock ends up being the guy for him. And he's willing to stand on a pedestal and him and Travis Goff and, and you know, obviously, he'd have some donor support with Jacques von based on kind of being a fan favorite and stuff like that, like, that maybe that is something that hasn't happened. But yes, I think you would be a real

candidate for KU. I think there's only strength in the fact that he could be a real candidate for KU because now you just add to the resume that you've kind of been around it a little bit more. Now, like I said earlier, the question of could versus should is a different discussion. So let's finish up with that on this A plus assistant coaching hire of Jaak Von. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks and making us your first listen every day. Thank you, every day.

We're catching each and every episode. Don't forget, you check out Locked on College Basketball or Locked on College Football for your second listen as well. Okay, so Jock Vaughn hired as an assistant coach. And again, like I've said, A++++ assistant coaching hire, right? If I was judging this as an assistant coaching hire, which I am, I mean, that's it's a home run knocked out of the ballpark. Now let's say this. If I was judging this as a head coaching hire, like let's say right now, let's say Bill Self would

have retired and they would have hired Jacque Vaughn this offseason, or even if you do want to fast forward a couple years, how would I grade that? Or how would I grade it being the head coach and waiting? That for that specific role, again, as an assistant coach, this is an A plus. For that specific role, I would probably grade it a C plus to a B minus somewhere in that range. That may sound harsh. I don't mean it to be because how I would view things would be a C for me would be passing. A C, it is. A C is a passing grade. That would be keeping the line moving. That would be fine, right? A D would be, yeah, C, it is a C is a passing grade. That would be keeping the line moving. That would be fine, right? A D would be, yeah, I don't want that. An F would be, no, that was a

failure, right? An A would be an absolute home run. And a B would be, okay, this is solid. It's somewhere between a C and a B for me, right? If he is the future head coach. I do like, I will say that if that is the ultimate goal, if that is something that Travis Goff is eyeing for him to be the future head coach, I do like the idea that he'll be on staff beforehand at the very least. I think that helps a little bit more

than just coming from not being here, I guess, right? At least he gets to acclimate himself with the college game, which certainly the college game has become more like the pro game in a lot of ways, but it's still different in a lot of other ways. And honestly, he's more crazy and more wild than the pro game, because there aren't contracts in college versus there are at the NBA level. So it's a good way a good thing to get, you know, upfront and personal with it and get more familiar with it. So to be fully

fair, we've seen strong college coaches suck in the NBA then come back to college and do wonders. Rick Pitino is one of the best college basketball coaches of all time. He didn't do well in the NBA. John Calipari struggled in the NBA for him. He's been great in college. Billy Donovan never has come back to college since he's gone off to the NBA with the Thunder and the Bulls and stuff.

But like he was an unbelievable college basketball coach. He's been a fine NBA coach, right? To where like the pro game, very much more so honestly, is about your roster than it's going to be about the head coach. Now there's exceptions to the rule until a little bit, like what Brad Stevens did with the Celtics for a while, what Eric Spolstra has done with the Heat. Like they have mattered a ton, but even then, like the Heat,

they're getting the eighth seed this year, because they didn't have enough bang on the roster, right? So it matters a lot about your roster, it matters about the GM, it matters about the luck in the draft, whether it's the lottery or who you end up with, you know, at a later pick that ended up being better than you might've thought.

And the fact that BYU had success this year, as I mentioned earlier, with a coach who was an assistant coach at the NBA level before he got the head coaching job. Those are all good examples to point to if Jacques Vaughan were eventually the head coach for KU. There's also examples I can point to that are bad, though. Joann Howard, he was an assistant coach forever in the NBA level.

And he goes back to his alma mater at Michigan and, you know, they weren't a disaster, but he ends up getting fired. Things didn't work out there, right? Mike Woodson, who I mentioned earlier, that didn't work out as a former NBA head coach. And those are big places, Michigan and Indiana. I think if you're viewing it from just a head coach and waiting perspective, forget the NBA thing, like that can be a mixed bag too, right? I mean, we've seen it worked out so far at Duke, I think.

How much of that is about the roster? How much of it is about John Shire? I don't know, we may never know because Duke's just gonna reel in in five star recruits. The UNC thing with the head coach in Wainey with Hubert Davis, that's been a mixed bag. Like they made a title game, they got one seed a separate year, those are great.

But in the years in between, it hasn't been so good, especially to a school like Carolina where you're expecting consistency year in and year out, right? We can point to Texas where the interim head coach turned, you know, head coach and Rodney Terry, that didn't work out. You can cherry pick arguments for both sides. You can find coaches that they relate to both sides that would say this would work or this wouldn't work, right? And I don't know what to do with this either. I guess, I saw somebody bring this up, so I wouldn't work, right? And I don't know what to do with this either. I guess I saw somebody bring this up, so I wouldn't look at it myself.

I guess none of the Jacques Vaughn NBA teams that he was a head coach of, so with the Magic and with the Nets, and do keep in mind one of the years with the Nets, he was interim and one of them, he got fired later in the year. So you're not getting exact congruency here with all the years, but none of the years that he was a head coach in the NBA, the team went over

on the over under win total. So they never, I guess another way of putting that would be they never exceeded expectations. Again, though, in the NBA, it's largely based on roster. It's largely based on what superstars you have on your team. It's based on the front office moves. Are you tanking? Are you not? Are they going to trade away your good players at the trade deadline? So like that does matter. But also some of that stuff might matter more to winning percentage.

I can hear a little bit the idea that like, okay, the over under win total at the end of the day is based on what the expectations are of the team based on all of those things. The roster that you put together, the over under win total is gonna be the expectation what that roster can put together. And the fact that you never went over on the over under win total probably tells you that, okay, there was never an exceeding

of the expectations based on the roster. At the same point in time, could that be crap luck? Could it be some injury stuff too, right? Like, absolutely. So again, that's something where you can point to it. You can also poke holes in it. So I don't know. I guess though, for me, like I I've never been somebody who's totally subscribed to

the idea that like you have to get somebody with Kansas ties. Like don't limit yourself to the idea that the next Kansas head coach has to be somebody who was an alma mater from Kansas or has Kansas ties. Just get the best candidate. Just get the guy who's going to win most games. You know what I mean? To a certain level, like I don't want Chris Beard. But anyway, that neither here nor there.

So for me, like that's Nate Oates. That's I don't know, Tommy Lloyd or whatever. Right. Or my second tier of guys. Right. And I'm not naming all the coaches. If you're an everyday or an already caught our coaching episode, you can go back and watch that. Whatever. Like a Dusty May or Graham McCaslin, whatever. So there would be certain guys for me above that list. And I would have Joch Von in that regard,

like in the tier three, where it's like, if you ended up in a situation like Kentucky did when they hired Mark Pope, where it's like, they went for Scott Drew, and he said no, and they went for this guy, and he said no, they went for that guy, and he said no. And maybe you end up on your, you know, guys a little bit down the list, and you end up with Mark Pope to where, especially if your eyes down the list, now worked out okay, right? That's how I would have this with Jacques Vaughan for me, where it's like, to me, the A-hires would be the Oats of the world, the Lloyds of the world, the Goldens of the world. The B-hires might be the B-plus hires, I don't know, might be like a Dusty May, the B-hires might be a McCasland.

And so that's where I would just have this Jacques Vaughan one. I think it would be fine if he was the future head coach. I'd have it a C plus or a B minus. It wouldn't be my favorite in the world. It wouldn't be the most inspiring hire in the world, but I could see a world where it would work and I think it would be fine. But again, I don't want to take away from, I feel like I don't want to like poop on the parade, right? Because from an assistant coaching hire, this is an A plus plus plus plus move. This is parade.