Bill Self life and biography

Bill Self is an American college men's basketball coach at the University of Kansas, where he led the Jayhawks to the 2008 NCAA national championship.

Through seven seasons at Kansas, Bill Self is 202-43 (.824 percent). Overall, Self has coached 17 seasons with a 409-148 (.734 percent) record.

In Self's seven seasons as head coach at KU he has won one national championship, six straight regular-season Big 12 titles and four league tournament championships. In his first trip to the Final Four in 2008, Self's team won the title. He was named just the eighth head coach in Kansas basketball history on April 21, 2003.

Self has guided his teams to 12-straight 20-win seasons and 13 overall. Self has won 10 league crowns in the last 12 years. The other two seasons resulted in runner-up conference finishes.

The 2008 Winged Foot Award recipient for winning the national title, Self is a four-time finalist for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003), and Sporting News named him National Coach of the Year in 2000 and 2009. In addition, Self is one of four coaches in NCAA Division I history to have led three different teams - Tulsa, Illinois and Kansas - to the NCAA Elite Eight.

A member of the USA Basketball Competition Committee and board member for the National Association of Basketball Coaches, Self has coached three league player(s) of the year and 40 all-conference performers.

In 2009-10, Kansas entered the year ranked No. 1 in the national polls and held that ranking for all but three polls throughout the season. In the RPI's highest-rated conference in the nation, Kansas won its sixth-straight Big 12 regular-season title by three games with a 15-1 record. KU entered the 2010 NCAA Tournament as the overall No. 1 seed and posted 30 victories for the third time in the last four seasons.

In 2008-09, Self was named national coach of the year by eight different organizations, including four listed in the NCAA record book - Associated Press, CBS/Chevrolet, Sporting News and USBWA. The 2009 Big 12 Coach of the Year, Self was also selected as the winner of national coach of the year honors by Yahoo! Sports, Athlon Sports, CBSSports.com and ESPN.com. In 2008-09, Kansas lost six of its top seven scorers, including all five starters and returned less than 20 percent of all but one statistical category. KU went on to win the 2009 Big 12 regular-season championship, its fifth straight, going 14-2. The Jayhawks finished 27-8 overall in 2008-09 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 as a No. 3 seed.

Nominated for two ESPY Awards for best team and best game, the 2007-08 Kansas team was one of the best in school history. Ranked seventh or higher all season, KU won a school-record 37 games in winning the school's fifth overall and third NCAA national championship. Kansas claimed the Big 12 regular-season championship and third consecutive Big 12 tourney title. Additionally, a school record five Jayhawks were chosen in the 2008 NBA Draft.

The 2006-07 season was not only historic for Kansas basketball but also in the career of Self. As KU won its 50th league title and 1,900th all-time victory, Self won his 300th career game with a road victory at Missouri. Additionally, KU was preseason No. 1 by Sports Illustrated and was ranked in the Associated Press Top 10 for most of the season.

Self was named the 2006 Big 12 Coach of the Year and finished fourth in the Associated Press national coach of the year voting after guiding Kansas to a 25-8 record. The Jayhawks entered the 2005-06 season unranked and with less than 15 percent returning for scoring and rebounding, yet Self orchestrated KU to a 15-2 record in its last 17 games, including a Big 12 Tournament championship to go along with its league's regular-season title.

In 2004-05, Kansas not only won a share of the Big 12 regular-season championship, but also opened the season ranked No. 1 nationally in the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today Coaches' polls. KU was ranked in the top 10 for all but the final poll of 2004-05.

In his inaugural season at Kansas - 2003-04 - Self guided the Jayhawks to 24 wins and the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight. He tied former KU head coach Dick Harp for the most wins by a first-year KU coach, and only Harp's 1956-57 team - which advanced to the NCAA title game - went further under a first-year coach than Self's Elite Eight squad.

Self came to KU from the University of Illinois, where he guided the Fighting Illini to a 78-24 record over three seasons, including two Big Ten regular-season championships, a Big Ten Tournament title and three-straight NCAA tourney appearances. In Self's first season in Champaign, the Illini advanced to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight.

Prior to his stint at Illinois, Self coached at Tulsa from 1998 to 2000, where he led the Golden Hurricane to a record of 74-27 in three seasons, including trips to the NCAA Tournament in 1999 and 2000. Tulsa went 32-5 in 2000, setting a school single-season record for victories and made the NCAA Elite Eight.

Self began his head coaching career at Oral Roberts, where he resurrected the program. Before Self took over the reins, ORU had compiled the worst record in the program's history with a 5-22 mark in 1992-93. Although Self's first ORU team managed just six victories in 1993-94, the win total increased to 10 the following year. In his third season at the helm, Self guided ORU to an 18-9 record. In 1996-97, ORU registered a 21-7 mark and made the school's first postseason tournament appearance since 1983-84, receiving an invitation to the NIT.

Prior to his appointment at ORU, Self spent seven seasons as an assistant coach at Oklahoma State University. He originally joined the Cowboys' staff for the 1986-87 season and spent the next four years working under then-OSU head coach Leonard Hamilton. In the three seasons prior to his arrival at ORU, Self served as an assistant on Eddie Sutton's staff at OSU.

Before OSU, Self spent the 1985-86 season on Larry Brown's coaching staff at Kansas. While Self was at KU, the Jayhawks went 35-4 and advanced to the Final Four in Dallas.

A native of Edmond, Okla., Self competed in basketball at Oklahoma State where he was a four-year letterwinner from 1982 to 1985. He received his bachelor's degree in business in 1985 and a master's degree in athletic administration in 1989, both from OSU.

He and his wife, Cindy, have two children: daughter, Lauren, a sophomore at KU, and son, Tyler.

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