Social media today can be an awful place. There can be so much garbage floating around that sometimes it just doesn't feel worth the time. The one area, however, where social media still has value is in sports.
This isn't about the trolls who like to pick on players or coaches. This is about when news is reported and passed along. Certain people and outlets can develop a strong reputation for their reporting or astute opinions.
There is a social media outlet called College Basketball Report. They don't seem to have an actual content-creating website, but they often pass along interesting news. They also have some cool graphics and post interesting opinions that make for good discussion points.
On Wednesday, however, CBKReport posted their top 40 college basketball coaches going into this season on X. They post these types of things periodically. On this particular post, they had Kansas basketball head coach Bill Self listed as the 17th-best coach in college this season.
Our top 40 coaches in College Basketball heading into the 2026-27 season 📋 pic.twitter.com/881BWK3htV
— College Basketball Report (@CBKReport) September 23, 2026
There are not 16 coaches better than Bill Self all time, let alone right now!
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but facts are facts. Self has four Final Fours and two national championships, one as recently as 2022, and KU would have been the favorite in the COVID-canceled 2020 NCAA Tournament. He's won national Coach of the Year awards in 1999-20 (TSN), 2008-09 (multiple), 2011-12 (TSN, Naismith), and 2015-16 (AP, NABC).
Self is 12th all-time in wins with 855 and is the career win leader at Kansas. He's coached 16 Consensus All-Americans, and he has a career winning percentage of 75.9 (23rd all-time), all the while perennially playing one of the hardest schedules in the country.
He is in the James Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, and Sports Illustrated recently ranked Self as the third best coach in the 21st century. In his 33 years as a head coach, including stops at Oral Roberts, Tulsa, Illinois, and Kansas, he has 21 regular-season conference championships. 16 of these conference titles have come at Kansas, including an astounding, record-setting 14 in a row.
This is not to disparage any of the coaches on this list; there are some terrific and talented coaches out there. That said, many of the coaches listed ahead of Self haven't been around long enough or won enough hardware to be included in this conversation. Todd Golden, Jon Scheyer, Nate Oates, Brad Underwood, TJ Otzelberger, Grant McCasland, Ben McCullum, and Tommy Lloyd are all fine college basketball coaches, but what have they won?
Dan Hurley's recent run of excellence at UConn cannot be denied, and it's understandable why someone might pick him as the best AT THIS MOMENT. Kelvin Sampson has always been a terrific coach, but he doesn't have the history of success like Self. Ditto for Mark Few, Lance Painter, and Rick Barnes.
Self isn't the only all-time great coach being dissed. Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo, and John Calipari all should be in the top 10 with Self.
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This is a whole lot of “What have you done for me lately?” Yes, Self has had his struggles in the recent NIL era, but his last national title was in 2022, for crying out loud. It's not as if he's been irrelevant in the game. He's recruited Darryn Peterson and Tyran Stokes to Kansas over the last two seasons.
These lists are designed to spark responses just like this. It is a discussion. It just doesn't make much sense to push aside and disregard Hall of Fame legends like Self, Calipari, Pitino, and Izzo for a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies.
Now, if this is a list aimed at ranking head coaches based on rosters and expectations for this season alone, then it becomes more of a discussion point. If this list is ranking the best coaches going into the season in general, then it is ludicrously wrong. Self, Izzo, Pitino, Calipari, and maybe Hurley are the top five. Period.
If recency bias and current rosters are the criteria, it is still wrong based on the coaches alone, but maybe the Hall of Famers aren't all in the top five. Despite some poor results in recent seasons, Self and some of these other coaches can still determine the outcome of a game from the sidelines. That can't be taken away. It is their established skill set, and it has to be considered every single season they continue to coach, regardless of their rosters.
As far as Self is concerned, the roster is better than it's being credited for, and Self will prove how wrong this list is.
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