How Bill Self and Kansas rebuilt from their worst season

LAWRENCE, Kan. — In retrospect, even Bill Self admits the timing wasn’t ideal.

Less than an hour after Kansas’ 2023-24 season ended in an 89-68 second-round NCAA tournament defeat to Gonzaga, Self was asked how long the loss would stick with him.

“I think for the last month, I’ve been thinking about next season, to be honest,” the Kansas coach said.

The wheels had long since fallen off for Kansas, which opened last season at No. 1 and still sat at No. 4 in early February. After opening the season with 13 wins in their first 14 games, the Jayhawks went 10-10, including 5-7 in their final 12 games. Their 23-11 overall record and 10-8 record in the Big 12 were the program’s worst since Self took over in 2003.

Self looking ahead to more hopeful days wasn’t a surprise. But saying it right after a 21-point tournament loss raised some eyebrows.

“If you sit in our meetings, 50 percent of the time what we’re talking about isn’t this year’s team,” Self told ESPN in late October. “It’s who we’re going to recruit. Portal, money, what can we afford? Salary cap, roster management. That’s what we talk about all the time. Now, the timing of saying it right after the game …

“… But what I said was actually 100 percent accurate.”

Self’s postgame comments set the tone for Kansas’ offseason. And after a hyperaggressive portal push in which the Jayhawks signed five perimeter players, Kansas finds itself in a familiar position as the 2024-25 college basketball season begins: No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.

After two exhibition games that included a loss at Arkansas and a win over Washburn, the regular season started off with an 87-57 win over Howard. Now, the difficult part: living up to the expectations, avoiding a repeat of last season’s collapse. And it starts with Friday’s blue-blood showdown against No. 9 North Carolina (7 p.m. EST, ESPN) — the first heavyweight team on a schedule that also includes Michigan State, Duke and Creighton before Big 12 play begins.

“There’s definitely a different mindset and a different kind of motivation,” center Hunter Dickinson said. “We’re going to need everybody we’ve got.”

Lost in the analysis of Kansas’ second-half struggles last season was that the Jayhawks were one of the best teams in the country through the first two months. At full strength, they beat UConn, Tennessee and Kentucky. The losses in February and March coincided with the health of All-American forward Kevin McCullar Jr., who sat out eight games because of a bone bruise and was hampered for the final two months of the season.

Without him, Self had to rely on a shortened rotation that included his starters routinely playing 35-plus minutes per game.

“I actually thought last year we played to that ranking early in the season,” he said. “But when it counted the most, we didn’t sniff playing to that ranking. There were reasons why, but you can’t make excuses.

“If a pro goes down, if the wrong guy goes down, it’s going to hurt your team regardless. But we didn’t have a way to combat that with depth.”

So by the round-of-32 loss to Gonzaga, Self already had a reloading plan in mind. In Dajuan Harris Jr., KJ Adams Jr. and Dickinson, he had three veteran anchors around whom to build. Five-star freshman Flory Bidunga, ranked No. 18 in the ESPN 100, was coming in to provide depth behind Dickinson.

What was left to add? Guards and wings. Shooters and athletes with length. Kansas ranked 11th in the Big 12 last season in 3-point shooting and the Jayhawks consistently had trouble creating their own shots and defending teams who could attack aggressively off the dribble.

“I told my staff, we got to get guys that are good enough — eight starters that can play meaningful starter minutes at Kansas if something happens,” Self said. “And I think that we did that for the most part.”

South Dakota State transfer Zeke Mayo was the first one, picking the Jayhawks on April 2. Florida transfer Riley Kugel committed one day later, followed by AJ Storr (Wisconsin) and Rylan Griffen (Alabama) later in April. Mississippi State transfer Shakeel Moore arrived in June and Northern Illinois transfer David Coit in August.

All of these players bring plenty to Lawrence, but most importantly: They can shoot. Mayo and Griffen each shot better than 39% from 3 last season; Storr and Coit are both above 35% for their careers. Moore was above 36% last season, too.

Another newcomer is ESPN 100 freshman Rakease Passmore, who signed last fall and maintained his commitment despite the influx of talent.

“I think coming in they probably thought he would redshirt or were expecting him to, but I think he’s one of our better perimeter defenders and he makes an impact when he is out there,” Dickinson said of Passmore. “So I feel like it’s going to be hard for him not to be on the floor sometimes.”

When the dust settled, the Jayhawks brought in six new perimeter players with whom to surround Harris, Adams and Dickinson.

“I feel like the athleticism is definitely different than last year,” Dickinson said. “We got a lot more athletes on the team. Like last year, our best warmup dunker was a walk-on. The warmup lines will look way different this year.”

As Kansas kept adding more players, from the outside it looked congested. But then Kugel and high school recruit Labaron Philon decommitted, and Elmarko Jackson, who started 16 games last season, sustained a season-ending injury. The bodies — and competition for minutes — now seemed necessary.

“At some point in our careers, everybody’s going to face adversity for whatever reason,” Storr said. “If that’s playing time, fighting to get on a roster — this is just preparation for that. I understand it’s going to be somebody different every night.”

And there are signs Kansas’ offseason roster approach is working. Against Howard, the Jayhawks shot 50% from 3-point range and made 11 3s; they made more than 11 3s only once last season and hit the 50% mark only twice. They also played 10 players at least 14 minutes; only seven players averaged more than eight minutes last season.

“Everything is interchangeable,” Self said. “How do we address length? How do we address perimeter shooting? Nobody’s going to beat KJ out, but if we’re going to play KJ, we need to put shooters around him. …Our house looks crowded, but after you watch us practice, it’s not near as crowded as what people think.”

Despite most of the newcomers arriving in Lawrence with plenty of college experience, playing at Kansas — and alongside so many proven producers — requires a change in approach. Not only do most have to prepare for a diminished role on offense, but some have to alter their team vs. individual perspective.

“It’s not been a change with my game, necessarily. I would say mindset,” Storr said.

Dickinson went through a similar process when he arrived from Michigan, where he earned All-American honors, in the spring of 2023.

After the Wolverines earned a Big Ten title and 1-seed in 2021, they went a combined 37-31 in Dickinson’s final two seasons at Michigan. As the losses piled up in his final season under coach Juwan Howard, Dickinson made headlines for the wrong reasons: calling Wisconsin “scumbags” on a podcast and wearing a ski mask while walking into a game against the Badgers.

Upon arriving at Kansas, he shifted his motivation from his individual game to winning at the highest level — and that hunger for titles brought a tweak in his personality.

“I probably have dialed it back a little bit in what I say and stuff. Just coming to Kansas, I was trying to mature a little bit,” Dickinson said. “I know how much winning means and especially winning at a place like this, what it can do for your basketball career, for your life in general. … Other people offered me more NIL money, but I knew if I didn’t win, there was no point in going to those schools because it wasn’t going to help me get to where I really wanted to go.”

As a freshman at St. John’s, Storr’s team went 18-15 and missed the NCAA tournament. Last season at Wisconsin, the Badgers went 22-14 and lost to 12-seed James Madison in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

“UConn got four guys drafted and, statistically, some of those guys’ numbers weren’t as good as other players out there. But they’re the ones that got drafted because they won a national championship,” Storr said. “Winning is the main thing I’m focused on right now. I’m going to develop, regardless. When you’re winning, you’re developing.”

On a couple of unseasonably warm October days that turn Allen Fieldhouse into a sauna, Self spends long stretches in practice trying to instill aggressiveness into his newcomers. Though Mayo and Storr were go-to guys at their previous schools, and Griffen might be the team’s best pure scorer, all three have gone through bouts of uncertainty in the preseason.

In the days following Kansas’ exhibition loss to Arkansas, Self told reporters Mayo played too cautiously, and that he has “AJ messed up at the moment because he doesn’t know what aggressive looks like,” but acknowledges “that’s not on him as much as it is on us.” He reiterated that Storr and Griffen need to play to their ceiling if Kansas is going to compete for a national championship.

At practice before the exhibition against Washburn, Self urges Storr to get open and cut harder off the ball. He implores Griffen to take a shot when he instead passes to a teammate.

When Storr finally drives to the rim off a screen and finishes with a dunk, Self is encouraged.

“That’s much better!”