COLUMN: Why Bill Self should be the Big 12 CotY
- Thread starter ChrisMWilliams
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Same reason that Saban rarely wins college FB COY. He is expected to compete at that level year in and year out.
The way I always tend to think of COTY is "what other coaches could do the job just as well?"
Does anyone seriously think that Self would be just as good if he was in Huggs' situation? Does anyone think that any other coach in this league wouldn't (aside from maybe Drew and Webber) do just as well as Self if they had KU's embarrassment of riches?
Does anyone seriously think that Self would be just as good if he was in Huggs' situation? Does anyone think that any other coach in this league wouldn't (aside from maybe Drew and Webber) do just as well as Self if they had KU's embarrassment of riches?
Yes, I seriously think he would be just as good if he was in Huggs situation. In fact I think he would be better. Bill Self has won everywhere he has coached. He has won his conference in 16 of the last 19 years he's been the coach. Illinois hasn't done anything since him. He coached Tulsa to an elite 8. He isn't some guy that Kansas plugged in and he won because he's at Kansas. He wins because he's an ELITE coach.
And no, I don't think there is 1 other coach in the conference that would go to Kansas and do what Self has done there. 12 straight titles man. 12 straight!
Self and his "bagmen" once again had a nice year. I would go with Huggins though if I had a vote.
KU has some great "bagmen."
KU has some great "bagmen."
Absolutely I do. Self was able to instantly get recruits to Illinois that went on to the NBA and had great success there. Even Bruce Weber was able to succeed for two years with the roster that Self handed him when he left. How have Weber and all his successors done at Illinois after Self left? Terrible. He took TULSA to the Elite Eight for crying out loud.
You want to give Self the award for B12 Recruiter of the Year, go right ahead. I won't argue. We are, however, talking about COACH of the Year.
I'd argue that nobody expected Texas Tech to finish anywhere near .500 in conference.
It's looking like they'll finish 1 game behind us with a squad that went 3-15 last year and wasn't even competitive in a lot of their losses. They don't have a 1st or 2nd team all-conference player on their roster. Tubby is squeezing every ounce of talent there is out of that squad.
Self is a GREAT coach, and has done a good job this year. He's very deserving, I'm just more impressed with Tubby's job this year.
Hey, I don't think Self should be discredited from winning the award solely because he wins when he is supposed to win. The awards would be pretty meaningless if he won it every year though. You could make a very convincing argument that he should have 12 over the last 12 years. The narrative and arguments for him winning it are strong this year, as they have been nearly every year.
As I've thought about it more today, I see the league giving it to him this year since they may not be as dominant in the other year end awards. If Kansas was going to get 2 or more of PotY, DPotY, NCotY I would see them looking elsewhere. Not sure how the other awards are going to shake out either, but if Kansas wins the conference and doesn't get any of the other awards, it would seem logical to give him CotY. There always seems to be some politics involved, especially when it comes to balancing out some of year end accolades.
As much as I hate the guy and Kansas as a whole, I understand that they have created something pretty special over in Lawrence, and the league is right to award that. TwoCo's assertion that there are moving goal posts is exactly right, but that has always been the way it has been, especially with the year end awards and all conference teams. I'm certain that there will be a fair amount of that finagling this year as well.
As I've thought about it more today, I see the league giving it to him this year since they may not be as dominant in the other year end awards. If Kansas was going to get 2 or more of PotY, DPotY, NCotY I would see them looking elsewhere. Not sure how the other awards are going to shake out either, but if Kansas wins the conference and doesn't get any of the other awards, it would seem logical to give him CotY. There always seems to be some politics involved, especially when it comes to balancing out some of year end accolades.
As much as I hate the guy and Kansas as a whole, I understand that they have created something pretty special over in Lawrence, and the league is right to award that. TwoCo's assertion that there are moving goal posts is exactly right, but that has always been the way it has been, especially with the year end awards and all conference teams. I'm certain that there will be a fair amount of that finagling this year as well.
The streak is impressive, and yeah Self had a really good program built at Illinois, but we shouldn't rewarding Self for what he did in the past. The award is for the best coaching job this season after all.
Call me a homer, but I just don't see anyone else doing what Huggs has done this year. He took a hodge-podge of 3-stars and unheralded JUCOs, installed a system that maximizes their talents and minimizes their deficiencies, and instilled the special kind of toughness and grit that's allowed them to play way over their heads and finish in 2nd in the toughest conference in the country. Self would have WVU as winners, but I don't see him winning 23+.
Self has won 23+ games for 18 straight seasons.
Bob Huggins has been at WVU for 9 years. I feel very confident saying that Bill Self would be winning 23+ games at WVU during his 9th season.
I don't think he's saying Self couldn't do that if he was at West Virginia for 9 years though...he's saying Self wouldn't be able to get as much out of THIS year's West Virginia team as Huggy has.
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I also feel very confident in saying that players like Mario Chalmers, Sheron Collins, Darrell Arthur, Jeff Withey, Ben McLemore, Joel Embiid, Cole [FONT=arial, sans-serif]Aldritch, [/FONT]Andrew Wiggins, Cliff Alexander, Perry Ellis, Carlton Bragg, and Cheick Diallo would've never given a place like West Virginia a second look.
People are falling all over themselves to slobber over bill. I think it's just wrong. How many McDonald's AA's does he have? Yeah, yeah, recruiting is part of coaching. Well, I guarantee Self used less skill recruiting the players he's got than half a dozen other coaches in the league used to get the players they got. You can't go anointing bill as some genius when he's got so much just handed to him. Is he a good coach? Sure. But we ain't exactly comparing apples to apples, and I don't think people really appreciate that.
Of course the homer in me thinks Self should get it. While we were the pre-season pick as usual, it was definitely less than unanimous than in years past. The Big 12 was by far the best conference this season and finishing 15-3 on a 10 game win streak and clearing the conference by 2-3 games would be pretty damn impressive. I thought for sure we would be sharing at best this season.
I want to say Tubby but even though projections were dismal for Tech, its hard to give COTY to the 7th place team who will finish 9-9 or 8-10 in the conference.
What about Shaka Smart? Had some growing pains early but up until Kansas destroyed them on Monday, they were probably the 2nd best team in the conference in February. 11-7 is way better than I thought they would finish this year.
I want to say Tubby but even though projections were dismal for Tech, its hard to give COTY to the 7th place team who will finish 9-9 or 8-10 in the conference.
What about Shaka Smart? Had some growing pains early but up until Kansas destroyed them on Monday, they were probably the 2nd best team in the conference in February. 11-7 is way better than I thought they would finish this year.
Schools that landed at least one player from the Rivals Top 50: Your standard Kentucky, Duke, Kansas and then LSU, California, Maryland, Mississippi State, Marquette, Arizona, UNLV, Oregon, Purdue, Nova, Florida State, UConn, Michigan State, Indiana, A&M, UCLA, Louisville, Memphis, Texas, Syracuse, Oklahoma State, Georgetown, USC, Ohio State, Creighton, Oregon State. If those guys can land top 50 talent to those schools, Self could get them to go to West Virginia.