Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Bill Self is "100% Positive" He Will Be Coaching Next Season + More Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Info

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Bill Self spoke to the media for the first time since his health scare in March, shedding light on his future with the Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team and dispelling any retirement rumors. Plus, he gave insight on some key offseason notes for KU and what to look for in the transfer portal for the 2023-24 team.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we are going to be discussing Bill Self having his presser today and basically saying that, yeah, he will be the coach and he'll be the coach moving forward and there shouldn't really be any doubts about that. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, Monday through Friday on KLWN in Lawrence.

Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us on YouTube. To be clear, I was not planning on having an episode on Wednesday, but Bill Self ended up having a press conference earlier today, went over to the press conference, and thought there was more than enough there that was said that I wanted to just kind of run over and talk about. So this is more of just kind of a bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

But nonetheless, I wanted to get into it. So let's get right into it. The first things first, you know, there are some people kind of speculating, oh, is this presser going to be Bill Self retiring? And to be clear, the message that was sent out from, you know, KU from their end of things about the media availability was just that this was going to be the routine, like end of season that normally the, the week after KU loses, there is an end of season press conference from Bill self. And he talks about, you know, what they're going to do in the off season and recapping the rest of

the season and all that stuff because of some of the health stuff, he wasn't able to do that until right now. So that's all this was. That's all this was all the scuttlebutt about you know is he going to retire i i think that was probably uh jumping the gun a little bit now i do understand um you know you haven't heard from the guy in a while he has health stuff going on you just saw jay right kind of sneakily retire last year at the same age bill self is that there were reasons to maybe think that yeah would it be crazy if bill self retired this year no of course that wouldn't be crazy but you know this was never that was never going to be the case and ku came out and like clarified that that's what this was going to be because people were speculating too much and then you had uh ku come out and say like he, he's going to be hosting his Bill Self-like fantasy camps in June,

which would be further reason why he's going to stick around. But just to quell anything else, here is a direct quote from Bill Self. I am 100% positive I will be coaching this upcoming season at the University of Kansas, and hopefully many beyond that. Can't get more cut and dry than that he will be coaching Kansas this upcoming season and he wants to keep coaching after that and I think that's part of it too it would be very easy for Bill Self to take this and even if he said hey I want to coach this season for him to say maybe the end of my career should be sooner than I want it to be.

But the fact that he said, you know, many beyond that. And he had another quote later on where he kind of talked about, I think the quote was, when I think of the end now, I think it's further away. He said, I missed my job. I love my job. I want to do my job for as long as possible. And he also, I think it was Sam or Sam McDowell of the Kansas City Star who asked Bill Selfie a question about, you know, that sort of thing. And Bill Self asked him, he said, what's something that you like to do? And the reporter answered and said, play with my kids. Bill Self said, so if I told you you can't play with your kids for a month,

after that month ends, do you think you'd be more likely to play with your kids more? Would you miss playing with your kids? He said, yeah, of course. And that's how Bill Self said he viewed this, that when he got this taken away from him, it wasn't a, man maybe i should retire he viewed it as a this is a pretty normal procedure he talked a lot about needing to get his health life better and you know as a coach it's tough you're in there long hours you're in there eight or nine in the morning until 10 11 midnight at night you're you're you're having to eat when you can. You're not getting enough exercise or whatever it is, enough sleep. And that's going to be the key for him working on that stuff is what kind of he talked about in the presser.

But as far as what happened when he wasn't able to coach for those few weeks, for him it was like dangling a carrot in front of him. Like, man, I just want to coach. And missing those few weeks in the biggest portion of the year, while unfortunate for KU and sucks that it happened for him, it was almost a rejuvenation of like, sometimes you have to see what's gone to know how much you missed it, right? And he obviously knows he loves coaching, but that was probably a refresher for that. And that's kind of what was echoed in the press conference today. So I think that's very interesting that you don't really have worries about that moving forward. And obviously the

biggest thing is just, can he deal with the health? Like is any of the health stuff going to have long-term effects and dealing with stress and stuff? How is he going to deal with all that? But clearly the want to is there for bill self to keep coaching and that obviously is a very important thing all right we're going to take a time out some off season stuff that he talked about a little bit at the end it was mostly about the first stuff i just talked about but uh let's get to that in a second here first though this episode of lock on jayhawks is brought to you by fanduel sportsbook the nba playoffs are almost here now is the perfect time to download fanduel Sportsbook. The NBA playoffs are almost here.

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at some of the futures for college basketball season this next year i hate to do it but arkansas at 25 to 1 they're bringing in some good transfers they're rumored to be interested in hunter dickinson they've got some good players coming back. They're of interest. Kansas is going at 20 to 1. That's kind of juicy and interesting. I think Indiana's at 75 to 1. They lose a lot, but I think they've been rumored for a lot of pretty interesting and good players. Maybe throw a couple bucks on that. I don't know.

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the offseason. It was mostly about, you know, self, his health, the stories of, you know, dealing with it in the moments where he's at right now. What's his want to with coaching now and coaching in the future at the end we did hear some offseason stuff from Bill Self this was a

pretty notable quote he said I need to be living in the portal right now and that's what I'm doing so yeah just talking about the the transfer portal stuff he talked about how you had all these players transfer out of the program from KU and how it's a great opportunity for those players, and it's great for them because they can get bigger opportunities, but also at the same point in time, it could be great for KU because they can bring on players that address a lot of their needs. Cleared about this transfer portal class.

They also talked about some of the decisions upcoming. Bilsop, self i think said that yeah it still hasn't been decided one way or another with kyle cuff so that's certainly of interest um he also mentioned like grady dick it was a no-brainer for him to go he this was mentioned he was talking about grady dick no-brainer go and then he kind of transitioned into being like yeah jaylen wilson no-brainer for him to go too he did everything he could he was a first team all-amer averaged 20 points per game. And then he caught it off there.

Did not get into the Kevin McCullers stuff. He also had an earlier comment about, you know, all the players they're losing. And it almost sensed, I almost got the sense that he was about to say, we could lose this, this, and this player. But he caught his tongue and just said, we could lose a lot of players

and kept it general and vague as if not to go into Kevin McCullers. Doesn't mean Kevin McCuller is coming back. The point is that I'm going with this is that I think right now the decision is kind of up in the air. And Bill Self actually was later asked in the press conference about Kevin McCuller. And he said he expects him to go through kind of through the draft process. One thing that I think was interesting is Self said that last year, Kevin had two or three guaranteed two way opportunities, but decided not to take those. So that would tell me that he doesn't want just a two-way contract because he can get that again this year. He wants to be guaranteed like a draft pick where he's

getting a guaranteed contract. And that can be a big difference in the amount of money and the amount of security that you can have. So my guess is Kevin McCuller is going to go through the NBA draft process. If he gets that guarantee of a a team giving him a real contract and not just a two-way deal then he probably goes pro if not then maybe he comes back and self-talked about some of the hurdles that he viewed himself as a five-year player and that you know this was never really in the plans and that maybe he's leaning toward uh going pro right now but also that they would love to have him back and he could have that type of season that we've seen from guys to come back that extra year and he could be really impactful.

He would obviously, this isn't something self-said, but he would obviously make a lot of money from NIL, maybe even more than he would make on a two-way contract. So I thought that was certainly very interesting there. And he also talked about some of the holes they're looking to fill as far as the transfer portal goes. Get to that in just a second with Locked on Jayhawks. So some of those holes that he talked about filling, he talked about getting length, a scoring wing with height and length

who can shoot it from the outside. So that's pretty clear. Needing basically a wing player who can play the three, four positions for you but still be able to shoot it at least some um i don't think he clarified is like you know it doesn't have to be a 40 three point shooter but it has to be able to shoot it uh certainly the length comment i thought was interesting and then he also talked about the center position that's when one i know ku fans have battled back and forth like oh but you have uday and edgifer and kj can play some five minutes

do you really need another five in there? I kind of said yes all along. It's good to have more competition. It's good to push some of the young guys to give them someone to look up to and maybe have something else that can come in there who can be like a back-to-the-basket score and can be a different type for you. And one of the comments self-made was, you know, it'd be great to have somebody at center who can average 20 and 10.

Now, I don't know if that was a specific reference to guys like Hunter Dickinson and Graham E.K. who basically averaged 20 and 10 at their last stops and certainly are guys that KU is targeting and would love to bring into the program. But I also think that it's more about the type of player that can come in and be a dominant center. And I think that's interesting about the type of player that can come in and be a dominant center. And I think that's interesting from the standpoint of Kansas basically saying, yeah, if we're going to bring in a center, we don't want just someone who's going to come in and give us another body. We want an impact player at the center position.

Now, you could say the same thing. Like, obviously, you'd rather have the better player at every position, right? But I think that was very interesting talking about the center position, specifically with some of the big names that are out there. All right, that'll do it for this edition of kind of a bonus Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back on tomorrow's show to kind of catch you up on what maybe you've missed over these past couple weeks with all the Bill Self stuff, March Madness, KU offseason content talk for spring football for KU ahead of

the spring showcase on Friday night. You can find us wherever you find any of your podcasts. You can subscribe to us on YouTube, Twitter at D Johnson radio. You can also tune into rock truck sports talk Monday through Friday, three to six on KLW on Lawrence. Have a good rest of your day later.