Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BILL SELF IS BACK | Report of Jayhawks Head Coach Returning to Office + KU Volleyball Preseason Hype

Starting point is 00:00:00 Good news for KU basketball, Bill Self, is already back to work in the office. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on 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, and thanks for making it your first listen every day. Thank you that every dayers catching each and every episode. of the show. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. And on today's bonus episode of the show, Bill Self is back, I guess, so to speak. I mean, I don't know if he's fully back to coaching. I guess they're in the off season right now, but he's

Starting point is 00:00:44 back in the office. And that's great news for him. That's great news for family. That's great news for KU basketball. Also, we're going to get a little into KU volleyball with their preseason picks, preseason top 15 team and one of the top teams predicted in at the conference in Matt Ulmer's first season. Let's go ahead and get things rolling though right there with the news. This was from Jeff Goodman at Goodman Hoops on Twitter. He said, just got off the phone with Kansas coach, Bill Self, after his health scare a couple weeks ago in which he underwent a heart catheterization and had two stents placed for blocked arteries. Self said he received a clean bill of health from the doctors, has been back in the office daily, is able to play golf and is looking forward to the

Starting point is 00:01:27 players returning in about 10 days. And here was the quote from Bill Self that he told, I guess, Jeff Goodman in the field of 68. He said, quote, I don't have any restrictions coaching. Okay. So all of that is wonderful news for Bill Self. And obviously the parts about, again, like, I don't have any restrictions coaching, right? That tells you that, okay, it's not something where they're like, hey, you can't coach

Starting point is 00:01:51 as much because the stress levels or whatever. That's not part of it, right? Clean Bill of Health. That's a great term, right? The part about being in the office daily, that's obviously a great time that he's able to go in and everything. And right now, again, I think during the off season before, you know, school starts up here and whatever it is a week or two weeks from now to where it's a good time he's even going into work. But the other part about him being able to play golf, that implies that he's able to do physical activity, which obviously would involve coaching and practice and stuff like that. So maybe, you know, at the beginning of the year, maybe he takes it a little easier on himself.

Starting point is 00:02:24 maybe he is just kind of there and not yelling out as much instructions, but I don't know. The fact that they said, I don't have any restrictions coaching kind of implies that it's just going to be the same old, same old with Bill Self coaching. So awesome news for KU. Let's get more into this news in just a moment. This is Locked on Jayhawks. And today's episode of the show is brought to you by Wayfair. A summer winds down, there's something nice about getting back into routine you love.

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Starting point is 00:03:40 That's Wayfair.com, W-A-I-F-A-I-R-com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Okay, so Bill Self back to practicing, I guess, back in the offices. like all that sort of stuff. Great news there for what it means. So what does this mean kind of long term for KU? I think it probably tells you that, okay, from a health perspective, like if he were to miss games this season,

Starting point is 00:04:03 like that would obviously be not great. For Kansas, it would not be great for, you know, long term, like what that would mean in terms of like, you know, if you're missing games, it probably accelerates the idea that this could be your final season. The fact that he's fully back and everything, and it sounds like it's a pretty normal life at this point for him kind of tells you that maybe this won't be an indication that it could be his last season.

Starting point is 00:04:29 Maybe this won't be, you know, something that hinders him from possibly wanting to coach three, four, five, six, seven more seasons. Now then again, maybe he already was thinking about this being the final season at KU. And, you know, certainly from a family perspective, like maybe this does, even if, you know, nothing bad long term is going to come from this. And even if, you know, things are back to normal and a relatively short time afterwards, there still is probably some conversations with his family of like, hey, but this just happened again, like, we, you know, how much you want, much longer

Starting point is 00:05:03 do you want to coach? So really impossible to know if this will have an impact on the long term, the fact that everything is already back to normal. I mean, how long ago did this even? That was like three weeks ago, two weeks ago. It really wasn't that long ago. Kind of informs to me that like, maybe we shouldn't view this as something that, like, if this does end up being Bill Self's last season. Maybe it's just because it was going to be Bill Solves last season, right? Regardless, or maybe he could coach five more seasons. I continue to kind of believe that, you know, the health stuff aside, maybe he could go into this season thinking, yeah,

Starting point is 00:05:35 maybe this will be my last season. There's so much going on in college sports. That isn't very fun. And then you coach Darren Peterson and you get this renewed energy. You get this renewed spirit of like, man, that was really fun. I could probably do this a little bit longer, you know? It's like you get that first bite of, like a delicious dessert at a restaurant and you're kind of like, you know what, I can have some more of that, right? I can have some more bites of that as opposed to like going into it. Maybe you're like, you know, I'm just going to have one bite. And then it's like one of the best desserts you ever had. And you're like, I'll have another one. You know, and maybe that's

Starting point is 00:06:05 what ends up happening here for Kansas and for Bill's self. Though there has been no indication to begin with, like how many more years is Bill Self going to coach, right? It could be five more seasons. And clearly the bill of health that he's been given and that he has right now, It doesn't guarantee, you know, how health is going to be in a couple of years. But like, it is at least a good sign if he's going to coach longer. It kind of gives you that option, that opening to be able to do that. So good news all the way around and obviously good news for this season as well for KU basketball from the standpoint of, you know, it's almost like the cam rising thing, a Utah where if if you didn't have this bill of health, like that was part of the thing with Utah last year. It's like it wasn't just, okay, is camsizing hurt or not?

Starting point is 00:06:47 and how is that going to affect him? How good is the backup? It also was the looming black cloud hanging over the team of, is he going to play? Is he not going to play? And then how does that affect the psyche of the rest of the team, right? They're constantly thinking about this. They're constantly being asked questions about this.

Starting point is 00:07:01 And it just becomes a distraction. You get this quote from Bill Self, and maybe that was part of the intention to like, okay, we can move past this. We don't need this to be a distraction. And that's kind of the beauty of this happening as well. This team can focus on, okay, Bill Self's the head coach.

Starting point is 00:07:14 I also think it probably is a good thing for you from recruiting aspect as you continue to, you know, nail guys down in the class of 2026 or beyond or as you have guys like KU has been getting guys to, I don't know, scheduled visits or something coming up within the next several months, those people are going to be asking questions like, oh, is Bill Self going to be the coach? Well, now you can point to this. It's like, oh, National College Basketball, you know, whatever, analyst reporter Jeff Goodman said that, you know, this is the case and dada yada. I'm fine. See? So good thing for KU all around. thing for Bill Self all around. Good thing for his family, all around. All right. Let's finish

Starting point is 00:07:49 up here, a little KU Volleyball talk. This is Locked on Jayhawks. And today's episode of the show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. August 26th, so coming up here in a couple weeks, is officially Fan Duel Futures Day, a brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and preseason hunches for just 24 hours. Fan Duel's giving you deals on the NFL season predictions. So whether you're calling your MVP, eyeing a long shot. division winner or ready to crown your Super Bowl champ before week one even kicks off this is your moment um there's some fun futures for the college football season two like uh you can get some fun kU ones as well you can get Kansas to win the big 12 um at 14 to one odds you can get

Starting point is 00:08:36 Kansas to make the college football playoff at let's see plus 1040 they'd rather just have the big 12 one because that's probably how Kansas would make the college football playoff, but that's kind of fun, 14 to 1 odds, but you can also do that with the NFL, right? Who's going to win the MVP? Who's going to, I don't know, win a bunch of divisions, make a parlay with that. So visit Fandualt today, the Fandualt app, and start playing, planning your future bets now because Fandual, Futures Day is one day and one day only, August 26th. Fan dual play your game, the official sports or partner of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Okay, so a little update from KU Volleyball, before I get into where they're at,

Starting point is 00:09:12 I think I had an episode, it was two days ago, whatever it was, in our third, segment kind of talking about a issue with the ticketing process that I went through with KU volleyball. And I kind of brought up, you know, some stuff over that. And I did want to put an update to that. I was reached out to by KU and things were handled very nicely. Now, the tickets just aren't there. But something that I said on whatever day that show was was just wanted some like indication of what was going on, some communication, right? And I got that communication, felt like I was heard, felt like a professional thing from KU to reach out and do some of that stuff. So I really do appreciate that. And that was cool to see that they did kind of take that next step forward. And so, you know, the reason I brought it up a

Starting point is 00:09:57 couple days ago was because I didn't want anybody else who had any issue with any ticketing thing you feel like they had been left behind and that it can happen to other people as well. And so I guess the lesson here is speak up. But, you know, I appreciate KU for being respectable in this whole thing. So that was really cool, even though won't have the tickets I was going for. It was a good response, answer, and, I don't know, and bottom line, whatever you want to call it. So I do appreciate that from KU Athletics. Anyway, so KU Volleyball is really high up there on a preseason poll. So let's start with the Big 12 one, where BYU is the preseason pick to win the Big 12.

Starting point is 00:10:34 But it's a pretty fractured, I don't know, level of teams that were picked to win the league. BYU got six first place votes. Kansas got four. That was second, and they're also picked second. Arizona State got three first place votes and only two points behind Kansas. So neck and neck, Arizona State was the champions of the conference last year. Utah got a first place vote. Their fourth overall.

Starting point is 00:10:58 TCU got a first place vote. Their fifth overall. Then you have Baylor at sixth, Arizona State, or Arizona, excuse me, at seven. Kansas State at eight, Iowa State at nine, Colorado at 10, the bottom five. Houston, Texas, Texas, Cincinnati, UCF, and West Virginia. Oklahoma State is the team that doesn't have a volleyball team. By the way, as far as volleyball pre-season players for KU, Kristen Klein, the transfer from Oregon,

Starting point is 00:11:22 who was awesome as a freshman setter for Oregon, comes to Kansas. She's on the Big 12 preseason volleyball team. Kansas also got Reese Tasek, the sophomore who had an unbelievable freshman season blocking everything. And then Giovanna Zelayevich, who's maybe the player I'm most excited to see this year. She's a freshman pen player from Slovenia,

Starting point is 00:11:43 where she's on the senior national team already, and she's six foot seven. She's going to be awesome to keep an eye on this year. So Kansas certainly star studded and loaded there. And so also the national poll came out for volleyball. And this one's actually kind of funny. So I mentioned BYU is the pick to win the league by the big 12 coaches, Kansas second, Arizona State third.

Starting point is 00:12:02 It's actually jumbled up in the AVCA national poll because Arizona State is the top big 12 team at 13th overall. Kansas is second among big 12 teams at 14th overall. And then you have BYU at third at 19. overall. Baylor would be next at 20th overall. Then you have Utah 23rd and TCU 25th. But Kansas is getting a plenty of opportunities to play ranked opponents. They also have a loaded non-conference schedule. We already got to see him play Nebraska in a spring matchup in Nebraska, the number one team in the country, Penn State's number two. I believe that game's going to be

Starting point is 00:12:34 in South Dakota for KU volleyball. So it's going to be a loaded schedule. It should be a really fun year. I love me some Ray Bichard. Dude is a class act and it was legend of a coach. Needs a tattoo in front of Horish. But I'm also very excited for what Matt Ulmer brings to the table and should be another fun season for KU volleyball this year. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere. You get your podcast,

Starting point is 00:12:57 including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We'll be back this weekend. Talk some more KU with a little bit of a Flory Budunga episode and talking about Florey's possible breakout season. And, hey, we're getting close to the football scene two weeks away from

Starting point is 00:13:13 Saturday for the KU Fresen of State game. we'll be buckling down on the football season as well. So make sure to subscribe to the show and see you next time with LOJ.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BILL SELF IS BACK | Report of Jayhawks Head Coach Returning to Office + KU Volleyball Preseason Hype

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