Bill Self after Gonzaga loss: 'For the last month, I've been thinking about next season'
It’s been a rough past month for Bill Self and Kansas, which saw its season end Saturday in a second round NCAA Tournament loss to Gonzaga. The Jayhawks suffered several injuries down the stretch and were without leading scorer Kevin McCullar for March Madness.
Other KU players such as Hunter Dickinson, who missed the Big 12 Tournament, played despite being banged up. The Jayhawks managed to at least avoid an upset in the first round and made it a close game against Gonzaga early Saturday, even leading 44-43 at halftime.
However, they ran out of gas in the second half as the Bulldogs got on a roll and never looked back in an 89-68 blowout. Speaking postgame and reflecting on the challenges of the past month of this season, Self gave an honest answer on what his expectations were entering the tournament.
“I think for the last month, I’ve been thinking about next season, to be honest,” he said. “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 I’ve thought about for a long time.”
Kansas had once been one of the top teams in college basketball, entering the season as the preseason No. 1 team. But the injuries caused it to go just 4-4 over its final eight games entering March Madness.
Self understands that something things like that are unavoidable in basketball, a difficult part of the game.
“The thing about it is, in basketball, early on you can play through some things,” the coach explained. “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.”
With that, Bill Self and Kansas now turn their attention toward bouncing back stronger in the 2024-25 season. Self has taken the Jayhawks to 20 straight NCAA Tournament and won two national championships and will no doubt have them in the mix yet again.