Kansas Jayhawks basketball head coach Bill Self is your Big 12 coach of the year. I can't imagine that news is too shocking to anyone. Self captained the best team in the Big 12 and one of, if not the best team in the country this year.
Every year, Kansas loses significant talent and you think they simply can not be as good the next year. Last year they lost Cole Aldrich, Xavier Henry and Sherron Collins. Before the year, i thought KU would be good but I didn't think they'd be this good.
Those three were replaced by the emergence of the Morris twins, Marcus and Markieff (truthfully, though, they were on their way last year) as well as Thomas Robinson, Tyshawn Robinson and others.
There is simply no one as good at not only recruiting talent, but fitting in new talent from year to year as Bill Self. Take someone like Josh Selby. The No. 1 recruit in the country and he comes to KU and becomes, essentially, a role player (and a small role at that). Travis Releford would start on probably every Big 12 team save Texas while Elijah Johnson recently replaced Tyshawn Taylor, who would also start on nearly every Big 12 team.
No one in the country handles talent better Bill Self. No one. It's not even close. I've been impressed all year by his ability to take the best talent in the country and put them in a position to succeed and do it without any of the players expressing frustration.
Everyone seems...happy. It's impressive.
As usual, Self heard about the award from the conference and deflected credit.
"There are a lot of coaches that have done a great job in our league this season," Self said. "The primary reason for any postseason award is because you have good players who have performed at a high level."
This is Self's third Big 12 coach of the year award after winning it in 2006 and 2009. Kansas is 29-2 on the year and 14-2 in the Big 12. The Jayhawks won their seventh consecutive Big 12 title which is an unprecedented conference title streak these days.
Bill Self is the best and it's hard to argue otherwise.