Even with ailing coach Bill Self absent, Kansas basketball team reflects his iron will

Moments after an unsettlingly Bill Self-less Kansas crunched West Virginia 78-61 in a Big 12 men’s basketball tournament quarterfinal on Thursday at T-Mobile Center, KU clarified the ailing Self’s condition.

Contrary to what you might have heard via the online grapevine, KU said in a statement, he was not admitted to the University of Kansas Health System on Wednesday night because he had suffered a heart attack. While details remained vague, Self also is “expected to make a full recovery,” per Steve Stites, the institution’s chief medical officer.

Meanwhile, before acting head coach Norm Roberts even addressed the media, he’d spoken with Self for what Roberts called “way too long” as Self already was talking about wanting to “watch film and all that.”

Even with these reassurances, though, KU said the 60-year-old Self won’t resume coaching at the conference tournament this weekend.

And who’s to say when he’ll return, really, with the matter of his health certainly remaining of concern and a public mystery.

But his presence loomed mightily over this game and his 26-6 team, the defending national champions seeking to secure the overall No. 1 seed. And it was evident in such a way as to suggest this team is an extension of his iron will.

And that it will be fortified by that mindset no matter how long he’s absent — even if that was something made easier for the players Thursday when they were told before the game that Self’s condition wasn’t dire.

“Our motto is kind of ‘faces will always change but expectations don’t,” said Jalen Wilson, the Big 12 player of the year, who led all scorers and rebounders with 22 points and 11 rebounds.

Even when the face is that of Self, whom West Virginia coach Bob Huggins called “one of the great coaches, really, of all time.”

Part of Self’s gifts as a coach include the expectations, discipline and sheer way to play he and his staff have imparted all along.

Or as Roberts put it when breaking the news to the team Thursday morning that “everything’s going to be fine” but that Self won’t be at the game:

“‘But he’s looking out and he’s watching you,’” he added, “‘and he’s going to jump your tail when he gets back.’”

Even for Self, though, there wouldn’t have been much for him to jump the team about on Thursday as it advanced to take on Iowa State on Friday.

The Jayhawks burst out with good energy, largely muzzled the Mountaineers (19-14) all game and hit 20 of 30 field goals in the second half to pull away.

And while it was orchestrated by Roberts, it also was testimony to Self. Not so much in the “win it for him” sort of way that some players spoke of after the game but through the rugged resolve he’s infused.

“There’s no excuses,” said freshman Gradey Dick (18 points), who also noted he’d already learned that Self “is not going to let a lot of things stop him.”

So on a day when Self, in fact, was stopped for his own good, they carried on in his image by focusing on the moment instead of the void. Figuring that Self is “always a ‘next play’ kind of guy,” Wilson would say he didn’t feel distracted at all and thought only about coming together to do the job.

“It wasn’t hard,” said guard Dajuan Harris, who had eight assists and five steals. “If you love basketball, then you know you’ve got to come out and play.”

They wouldn’t draw it up this way, of course.

But that’s also part of what they’ve learned from the resolute coach who last year steered them to a deeply emotional comeback victory over Kansas State the day after his father died.

So even from afar, Roberts said, they made Self proud on Thursday. Because they understood, Wilson said, that “no matter what’s going on, we just play our game.”

Even when “next man up” is for the coach himself.

“That’s what comes with it. That’s what makes the entire story even better,” Wilson said.

Pointing to the possibility of cutting down nets in April, he added that this “will be something we can look back at: Coach wasn’t here, but how did we respond to that?”

On this day, anyway, with everything he could have asked … and signs they can continue to draw from him even remotely.