After brief thought of retirement, Bill Self is back as Kansas’ head coach

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Kansas coach Bill Self acknowledged this week that he’s “probably not yet ready” for the start of the new college basketball season.

Don’t read too much into it, though.

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It’s not because the 63-year-old Hall of Famer is having second thoughts about returning for a 34th season, the last 24 of those with the Jayhawks. Or because of a series of health problems over the past few years that have resulted in multiple hospital stays, a heart catheterization and two cardiac stents to be inserted to help open his coronary arteries.

No, it’s simply that Self is still recovering from offseason knee-replacement surgery, and that might hamper his ability to stomp up and down the sideline with his usual gusto when the Jayhawks play their exhibition opener against Pittsburg State on Friday night.

“I’m still limping around a little bit from some knee complications,” Self said. “Other than that, I’m good.”

That’s certainly good for the Jayhawks.

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Self acknowledged over the summer that he had thoughts about retiring after last season, a frustrating one for myriad reasons. One-and-done phenom Darryn Peterson struggled with injuries, often leaving Self with a disjointed version of the team that he envisioned coaching, and everything ended in a heartbreaking, last-second loss to St. John’s in the NCAA Tournament.

It was the fourth consecutive year that Kansas was bounced on the tourney’s opening weekend.

Then there’s the ever-changing nature of college basketball: those name, image and likeness deals, the ubiquitous transfer portal, and the court cases that even now, on the eve of the season, have left players and teams wondering who will be able to suit up.

They’re enough to make a coach pull out his hair. Or force him into retirement.

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In the case of Kansas, it recently learned that forward Tre White had won an injunction in Indiana to return for a fifth season, while Melvin Council Jr. won an injunction in New York to play a sixth season of…

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Publish date : 2026-10-16 20:48:00

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