WATCH: Bill Self’s full quote on thinking about next season
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SALT LAKE CITY (KSNT) – A comment from KU head men’s basketball coach Bill Self is making rounds on the internet after KU’s round of 32 NCAA tournament loss to Gonzaga.
“For the last month I’ve been thinking about next season, to be honest,” Self said. “Not in the moments during the game…”
However, that’s a five second snippet of a 1 minute and six second answer to a question specifically about next season.
“[Do] you already feel like [you] have to start thinking about next season,” Vahe Gregorian, a columnist for the KC Star, asked.
Self’s comment about looking ahead to next season did not include any mention of a disbelief or disinterest in his 2023-24 team. Instead, Self expressed that the campaign which just wrapped up forced him to come to a few conclusions which will impact next season.
“We had eight guys on scholarship, that were healthy there late,” he said. “… We could’ve done a much better job, as a staff, putting more guys out there that could play.”
KU stuck to basically a six-man rotation in the NCAA tournament loss, with all five starters playing 28 or more minutes. They Jayhawks’ starting five likely would’ve all been over 30 minutes if the game hadn’t gotten lopsided enough for Self to sit star senior Hunter Dickinson down the stretch.
“The thing about it is, in basketball, early on you can play through some things but [over] the course of a season there’s a grind that goes with it and bodies get run down, injuries occur, that’s all part of it,” Self said. “When you don’t have as much fire power that maybe you’ve had in past years, it certainly showed this year.”
Here is the full quote, all in one place:
“I think for the last month, I’ve been thinking about next season, to be honest. Not in the moments during the game, but obviously, we played — we had eight guys on scholarship, and we play — I mean, that were healthy there late. Injuries are part of the game. That’s not an excuse. But we could have done a much better job as a staff of putting more guys out there that we could play. And so that’s something that I’ve thought about for a long time. The thing about it is, in basketball, early on you can play through some things. But the course of a season, there’s a grind that goes with it and bodies get run down, injuries occur. It’s all part of it. When you don’t have as much firepower or that maybe you’ve had in past years, it certainly showed this year.”
Bill Self, KU head men’s basketball coach
KU Athletic Director Travis Goff took to social media to help clear up the potentially misinterpreted narrative that Self had checked out on this year’s team.
“Let’s be very clear-every coach in America is thinking about next year during the current season: re-recruiting current roster, traditional H.S. recruiting, looking ahead to portal,” Goff said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “[Coaching is] more complicated than ever. Love this squad. Already fired-up for next [year.]”
Goff continued, responding to a reporter who posted only the first part of Self’s quote.
“Grateful for the best [head coach] in the nation,” Goff included in his second post on the topic.
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