The precarious state of Kansas Jayhawks basketball and Bill Self and trust
Media days are for messaging, and you might be surprised at how much planning goes into them. Communications professionals give their advice, talking points are listed, priorities are set.
Kansas coach Bill Self was prepared. We know that because he repeated this message at least a dozen times to reporters, cameras and microphones at the Big 12’s basketball media day this week at Sprint Center:
“Our administration, our chancellor and myself are all aligned on this.”
That’s been the general message since the NCAA’s notice of allegations last month. That will continue to be the message for the immediate future, and for that, Kansas’ athletic administration and chancellor should be enormously grateful.
Because the only way Kansas will get through the NCAA investigation from a notice of allegations is together.
And so far, at least, the administration and others around Self have given him reason to wonder who has his back.
Jeff Long, the athletic director hired before the NOA but after the Adidas trial that sparked it, has a clause that extends his contract in the event of NCAA penalties. As a matter of course, that sets up Long to potentially benefit financially from fallout with Self’s program. Chancellor Douglas Girod has said the clause was his idea.
Let’s give the benefit of the doubt there. Coaches often have similar clauses when they join programs under investigation. Business is business.
But, then, Long and those under his watch in both administration and marketing set Self up to look like a fool.
They put him in a video announcing Snoop Dogg’s performance at Late Night that was understandably translated by many as a middle finger toward the NCAA’s NOA.
Then they had him introduce Snoop for a performance that was supposed to be “radio edited” but was anything but. The show was entertaining — Snoop is a legend — but also hard to translate as anything other than a middle finger toward the NCAA.
The administration and marketing departments had to do just one thing with that show — avoid committing an unforced error and making a bad situation worse.
The administration and marketing departments did just one thing with that show — they committed an unforced error and made a bad situation worse.
Maybe Long wasn’t as careful or assertive as he should’ve been. Maybe he trusted the wrong people. Maybe the wrong people made the wrong mistakes. Whatever happened, it’s ultimately Long’s responsibility. There are few places around the basketball program where Self isn’t in charge. Booking gigs is one of them.
His reaction in real time, and his comments afterward, are clear signs that Self voiced concern about the performance ahead of time. Assuming that’s true, someone who is supposed to look out for the best interests of both Kansas and the basketball team screwed up.
Someone Self is supposed to trust let him down.
“In no way do I point fingers or place any blame,” Self said at media day. “I think it was something maybe as a department moving forward we’ll communicate within the department much clearer, much better. I’m not going to talk about what happened within the walls of our athletic department and I know we all accept responsibility on whatever takes place. Certainly I have to as obviously it’s a basketball-type event.”
That’s as close as Self will come to saying whether someone broke his trust. He is careful with his words. He always is.
The university recently hired a new athletics PR director, but lets be real: Self is the department’s spokesman. The coach has been fairly transparent in his 17 years at Kansas. He is meticulous about his public presentation. Particularly right now, he is offering a strong and unwavering face.
But it’s easy to imagine how this is playing in real life, in the places behind the wall of messaging:
At the moment that everyone in the department needs to be clearer than ever, and work for each other more than ever, the university’s single most important employee has reason to feel embarrassed by those who are supposed to protect him.
Self and the administration are bound together, and it’s in everyone’s best interests to cover any cracks. What’s good for the administration is good for Self, what’s good for Self is good for the program, and so on.
A common enemy unites, and right now a team of lawyers is preparing a response to the NCAA that likely includes context for some of the texts and evidence presented in the Adidas trial as well as an aggressive attack on the legitimacy of labeling former Adidas rep T.J. Gassnola a booster for the program.
That’s never been done before in an NCAA case, by the way.
But now we digress.
The point here is that at a moment everyone needs to be together and looking out for each other, the administration and marketing departments have left Self exposed.
Self is almost cartoonishly stubborn and competitive. He has called the NCAA’s case “unsubstantiated” and “based on a false narrative.” He reiterated that message this week.
He is pot-committed to the fight, you could say, no matter what those around him do.
But there are at least two key reasons for the athletic department to clean it up. Both are centered on preservation and the university’s best long-term interests.
The first and most obvious is that trust and cohesion are imperative in this fight. The stakes are enormous, higher than any recruiting pitch or NCAA Tournament game. If one person isn’t certain another is focused on and advancing the best interests of the group, the whole operation is compromised.
The second is Self’s immediate buy-in and long-term future. He has said he would not scram if and when the penalties hit, and doing so would go against the reputation he’s spent a lifetime building and the toughness he’s spent most of the last two decades pushing into his program.
But would that change if he feels others in the department have let him down?
That would be a major problem even if you believe Kansas needs a new coach to move forward from potential heavy sanctions. Because the best way to move forward would be a clean break, with the timing deliberate, the replacement given the best runway toward success.
The worst thing would be any internal issues spilling out in the wake of penalties.
If the department handles this professionally, the worst-case scenario is that KU’s next coach builds up and moves on from major sanctions — but does so with momentum and support.
If the department continues to commit these unnecessary and unforced mistakes, well, there’s only so long the public presentation will remain “aligned.”