Kansas Jayhawks’ Bill Self gears for game against Tarleton State and his ‘dear friend’
Kansas’ Bill Self will be coaching against a buddy on Friday night when Tarleton State visits Allen Fieldhouse for an early-season nonconference basketball game.
Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. with a livestream on ESPN+.
“He is obviously a dear friend of mine — mine and Norm’s,” Self said of second-year Texans’ coach Billy Gillispie, who, along with current KU assistant Norm Roberts, worked on Self’s coaching staffs at Tulsa and Illinois.
“We talk on a fairly regular basis. I’ve not talked to Clyde in probably four or five days. I’ll talk to him before the game. Even if I see him we’ll probably shake hands,” Self added, smiling.
Self shared a story at a news conference Thursday about the 62-year-old Gillispie, who has also been head coach at Kentucky, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, UTEP and Ranger College.
“I remember we were at Illinois. We were playing Kansas in the Sweet 16. He had the scout,” Self said of an NCAA Tournament game in either 2001 or 2002 when KU and Illinois were matched in the postseason.
“He was talking about how cocky Kansas was walking around strutting around like they think they invented the game. (He) said, ‘Oh wait a second, maybe they did.’ That’s Clyde in a nutshell,” Self added with a laugh.
“He is an ultra-competitive dude. He gets them to play so hard,” Self praised.
The Texans, who went 10-10 a year ago, led by two at halftime but ultimately fell to Stanford, 62-50, on Tuesday in Palo Alto, California in the season opener for both teams.
“They all buy in. He’ll be real successful there (in helping the squad make the transition to Division I basketball). He was head coach at El Paso, wins six one year and they win 26 the next year. He knows how to flip something. They’ll get that thing going down there fast,” Self said.
The two teams were actually slated to play this game a year ago, but it was pushed back a season when the Texans were unable to travel to Lawrence because of COVID-19 cases in the program.
Self — whose Jayhawks are coming off Tuesday’s 87-74 Champions Classic win over Michigan State in New York — says he’s not expecting an easy game from the guard-oriented Texans who are known for stout pressure defense.
“We’re probably a little tired. They played in Palo Alto Tuesday as well. And they flew commercial,” Self said. His Jayhawks made the trip to the Champions Classic in New York via charter plane.
“They are very small, very quick and very aggressive. They can dribble drive. It creates mismatch problems offensively. It’ll be hard to play bigs. On the flip side, they pressure so much sometimes you can forget about bigs. It’ll be a hard game, probably a late-possession game,” Self predicted.
KU starting big man David McCormack will be playing against a Tarleton team that starts nobody taller than 6 feet, 6 inches.
McCormack, a 6-10, 250-pound senior from Norfolk, Virginia, is coming off a game in which he scored 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting with just two rebounds and two blocks in 22 minutes. Of course one of the blocks was a highlight-reel rejection of Michigan State’s Malik Hall in the second half.
“Dave is going to get numbers. He’s going to get baskets because we throw the ball into him enough,” Self said. “He got no rebounds. C.B. (Christian Braun) had eight defensive rebounds; Dave got zero. I’m not saying C.B. rebounded the ball great either. Bigs have got to play big. I thought we had some good defensive possessions one-on-one in the post. We had some really bad ones, too.
“I’ll talk to David.: ‘Just worry about doing simple things, running, rebounding, playing to your size.’ Sometimes he can get sped up, maybe get outside of his base to where he doesn’t recover as well. Dave is more than capable. He and C.B. came back and played a lot better the second half,” Self added.
Of McCormack’s block of Hall, Self said: “It was clean. It was a great defensive play. Immediately he sprints down the floor and posts up strong. They call a foul and he shoots a 1-and-1 just because his activity level was so good. He didn’t get a touch but forces the refs to make a call.”
McCormack says he’s ready to go Friday night.
“I could have done a better job. I had some mental lapses,” McCormack said. “I look forward to the next game. Overall that was a great way to kick off the season,” he added of the win over Michigan State. “It gives us momentum going into the season. You can’t ask for a better start.”
This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 5:16 PM.
