Interactive NCAA Bracket

Play Bracket Challenge

The Bill Self Effect: Kansas Coach Makes History with 10th Straight Big 12 Title

Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse more stories
Ed Zurga/Getty Images

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Move over, John Wooden and Adolph Rupp. Kansas and Bill Self are rewriting the history of college basketball.

Here's a trivia question for you: What coach in a major conference has won the most consecutive league titles in the history of college basketball? On Monday night, the answer changed.

The fifth-ranked Jayhawks won at least a share of their 10th straight Big 12 title with an 83-75 win over Oklahoma at Allen Fieldhouse.

Self now has left Wooden and Rupp, who both won nine straight league titles, in his dust on a streak that has no end in sight.

Ed Zurga/Getty Images

This team, like almost every one Self has coached in Lawrence, was expected to win the title once Andrew Wiggins signed on. But there's a difference between expectations and achievement in most places. 

Just not at Kansas.

"It's something you know coming in," freshman Wayne Selden said. "That's the standard here."

Still, it shouldn't have been this easy.

In the year that the Big 12 is considered the best league in the country—good enough to give Marcus Smart's Oklahoma State Cowboys seven straight losses—the Jayhawks nearly pulled off the equivalent of lapping the field.

With three games left to play, Kansas (13-2 in league play) has a three-and-a-half-game lead on second place.

"That's just a phenomenal accomplishment," Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger said. "It's not like you're doing that in a bad league."

No, this was supposed to be the year the league stood up to the Jayhawks.

When Smart decided to return to school, the idea was floated that finally there was a team in the conference that had the talent and the moxie to end this ridiculous run already. The Cowboys had five starters back. The Jayhawks had zero. 

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Sure, Self had the top-ranked freshmen in the country, but Kentucky's John Calipari had what was thought to be the best recruiting class in the history of college basketball, and that group doesn't have any rings in its foreseeable future. 

Self has enough to go around. One for every finger. 

"To me, in a power conference, to do something where the whole key is consistency, we've been so blessed to have good players year in and year out, because we've had a lot of turnover," Self said. "We've had guys we knew would leave and guys that left unexpectedly and those guys are hard to replace."

Self doesn't exactly start from scratch. He always has enough veterans around to let the young guys know what's expected, but this season was the third time during the streak he's had to start five new players.

His challenge is not much different than what Calipari or Roy Williams face each year. Just his results are.

Since Self started his streak, no power-conference school has won more than six league titles.

Most major-conference titles in the last 10 years
Conference titles
1. Kansas 10
2. North Carolina 6
3. Ohio State 5
4. UCLA 4
5. Kentucky 3*
5. Florida 3*
5. Michigan State 3
5. Georgetown 3


*Both Florida and Kentucky are in contention for the 2013-14 SEC title. Here are the current standings.

"It's a direct reflection of Coach," former KU point guard Elijah Johnson said before last season's title No. 9 and might as well have spoken for all 10. "The people who were doing it eight years ago are not doing it now. He's still there. I feel like that has to mean something. He's doing something right.

"I just appreciate the fact that he tries to shed the light on us and make it look like it's us who's doing it. When all of us know who it really is, the head honcho."

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

True to form, Self praised Naadir Tharpe for bringing this one home on Monday night—Tharpe scored 10 of his 19 points in the final 3:15—and also gave his freshmen some credit for being so good so fast.

"Those are three special guys," Self said of Wiggins, Selden and Joel Embiid. "It'd be crazy to think what these guys could do if you could keep them together for a while, but obviously that probably won't happen."

Wiggins had a grin from ear to ear on Monday night—"To win the Big 12 championship, it's a great feeling," he said—and Embiid skipped out of the Fieldhouse with his 10 fingers in the air.

Self's right. It's crazy to think what would happen if they stuck around for a while. But I bet I know what will happen when they leave. 

More Big 12 championships. More history.



Load More Stories

Follow Kansas Jayhawks Basketball from B/R on Facebook



Countdown Clock

Kansas Jayhawks Basketball

Subscribe Now

We will never share your email address

Thanks for signing up.