KU coach Bill Self says he’s ‘relieved’ after NCAA case. It’s clearly more than that
First-year Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland beat his counterparts to the T-Mobile Center floor for the Big 12 men’s basketball media day scrum, and almost immediately he spotted the crowd.
For someone else.
One table assignment to his right, a set of cameras, phones and voice recorders pointed toward a black backdrop, waiting on a man who probably didn’t need the name tag plastered out front.
Bill Self.
“You want me over there?” McCasland quipped to a contingent of reporters who were staring at a folding chair reserved for Self.
It would be misleading to pretend this was some kind of first-time thing. Kansas tends to be the center of attention at the conference’s “Tipoff” day, hosted just 40 miles from its campus.
But it’s hard to envision a year in which you could feel it to this extent.
Kansas has had a lot going on lately, placed in that spotlight for reasons beyond past success or the anticipation of a season that includes a No. 1 preseason ranking, and in places beyond the heart of Big 12 country.
Some of them, particularly the the troubling rape allegation against transfer Arterio Morris, should require they turn the spotlight on themselves and give a severe look at their own processes — even after Morris has been dismissed from the team, and even if they are publicly offering versions of “no further comment” on the ongoing case.
In other forms, the illumination came long ago from an outside entity; it’s the first time in six years we’ve been able to use the past tense on that reference. When Self ultimately took a seat in that folding chair this week, much of the conversation was about what is not going on at KU.
A long-standing NCAA investigation into the operations of the men’s basketball program concluded last week with a few vacated wins but otherwise a proverbial slap on the wrist.
So what’s the other side of that look like?
“Now it’s time to go for the throat,” Self said.
To be clear, I’d asked Self about how the final ruling from the IARP’s Independent Resolution Panel changes the trajectory of recruiting. I think he knew that was the topic, anyway; he actually interrupted before the question was finished, and you could sense the spite in his response.
The quote was topic-based.
The sentiment was not.
There is a different kind of energy from KU’s 60-year-old basketball coach, the kind that might surprise you when you know he had two stents inserted to treat blocked arteries last spring. This week was actually his first appearance at T-Mobile Center since that health scare prevented him from coaching in last year’s postseason, which opened at this same venue.
Maybe that’s part of the reason for the energy, he said, knowing this job was once pried from him before he was ready to loosen his grip. Another part: He truly believes he has a team capable of achieving what he’s achieved only twice before.
Parts.
It’s clear, whether in his words, his facial expressions or in the nature of the way he released them, the biggest piece of that pie chart is the conclusion of an investigation that Self long referred to as a “cloud” hanging over the program.
It was more than that. That much is evident, more in its wake than before. Self confirmed that he offered to sit out the 2022 NCAA Tournament in exchange for closing the case — at the advice of his dying father.
“When you’re involved in something as stressful as this, and you feel responsible for so much of something that’s so much bigger than just an individual, I mean, you think about it between every bite,” Self said. “You go to bed thinking about it. And, granted, the longer it goes on, the less you do. But instead of thinking about it, you know, 14 hours a day, you’re only thinking about it eight.”
Look, no one is going to feel sorry for Kansas. Former Kansas State coach Bruce Weber refused to cut his hair until all schools involved in the FBI investigations were punished, and that was two years ago. This probably isn’t the outcome that would have had him racing to the barber shop.
Outside the Allen Fieldhouse walls, there is anger that the punishment lacked anything resembling a punch. Many had hoped for a drop-them-to-the-canvas haymaker. And to be as clear as we were in analyzing the case last week, the IARP ruling did not proclaim KU’s innocence in five Level One allegations, but rather it commented on the lack of evidence needed in order to determine guilt.
KU rolled the dice that the IARP would treat its case more like a case in a court of law — requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt — and not just connect some dots.
I’ve opined about that result. KU found a jury who wanted more evidence — who wanted to see the fire, not just the smoke.
What’s new this week is that regardless of your opinion about the IARP’s conclusion — and most are suggestive of your allegiance — this is our first look at the aftermath.
Self describes it as relief. But it’s clear there’s more than relief.
Moments after Self left the table at T-Mobile Center, in stepped Hunter Dickinson, a newcomer to KU who has already been picked as the Big 12’s preseason player of the year. And he noted that Self has used the same terminology with them.
Go for the throat.
“That would be a good motto for us,” Dickinson said.
It’s a bit outrageous in practicality, considering Kansas earned a No. 1 seed in four of the last six seasons (or would have, had the 2020 tournament not been wiped out by the pandemic) and won the NCAA championship in 2022, all under that “cloud” of allegations.
Self literally watched the former president of the NCAA, who wanted to be the judge, jury and executioner in KU’s case, hand him the trophy. And now they’re going to go for the throat.
But practically isn’t the point here. The sentiment is.
There was a (forget) you attitude that season.
That cloud is gone. But the attitude remains.
This story was originally published October 21, 2023 at 7:00 AM.