Billy Eugene Self Jr. is an American basketball coach. He is the head men's basketball coach at the University of Kansas, a position he has held since 2003. During his 20 seasons as head coach, he has led the Jayhawks to 17 Big 12 regular season championships, including an NCAA record 14 consecutive Big 12 regular season championships, some of which were shared (2005–2018). He has also led the Jayhawks to three NCAA Final Four appearances (2008, 2012, 2022), the 2008 NCAA championship and 2022 NCAA championship. Self was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. At the end of the 2021–22 season, Self had the 18th most wins among Division I coaches in NCAA history and 4th among active head coaches. He is the second-winningest coach in Kansas history, behind only Hall of Famer Phog Allen and is the only coach in Kansas history to lead Kansas to multiple NCAA Tournament National Championships.
As coach at Kansas, Self has a record of 292–16 (.948 win percentage) at Allen Fieldhouse. In his tenure at Kansas, Self has had three home winning streaks of more than 30 wins including a school-record and 11th-best all-time 69 game streak. During his tenure at Kansas, he has recruited several McDonald's All-Americans to Kansas, including Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur, Xavier Henry, Andrew Wiggins, Cliff Alexander, Wayne Selden Jr., Cheick Diallo, and Josh Jackson. Under Self, Kansas rarely loses consecutive games, only fourteen times since taking over. As of February 18, 2023, Self is 110–17 following a loss at Kansas and has only had four three-game losing streaks. He has never lost more than three games in a row. Self's teams at Kansas are also consistently ranked. As of February 18, 2023, Kansas has only played 41 of his 703 games as head coach unranked.
Self has implemented a strong high-low motion offense using size as an advantage in the paint, and a pressing man-to-man defense on all of his teams from his early coaching days at the University of Tulsa through the present. He has also shown great adaptability on the court and has implemented sometimes drastic adjustments as needed to his defensive schemes with various degrees of success. Despite Self's consistency, many reporters questioned his abilities in the NCAA tournament because of his 4–7 record in the Elite 8, but since starting his career 0–4 in the regional final round, he is 4–3 in his last seven Elite 8 appearances. Self has taken Kansas to nine Elite 8 appearances in his 19 seasons at KU, which is the most visits to that round of the tournament in that time frame.
Self was the highest paid NCAA basketball coach for the 2021–22 season. He made $10,184,282 that season. He signed a lifetime contract extension with the Jayhawks in 2021. In 2022, Self became the seventh coach to win multiple NCAA tournament championships since the tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
