The Kansas basketball program is one of the most storied in college basketball. There have been only eight head coaches in the program's history. One of those, James Naismith, was the inventor of the game and the only coach to have a losing record at Kansas. Another coach was Phog Allen, the inventor of basketball coaching.
Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, and Ralph Miller all played at Kansas under Allen. John McClendon, who is considered the father of the fast break, tutored under Allen at Kansas. College basketball has more threads that pass through Kansas than any other school.
CJ Moore with The Athletic (subscription required) made a list of the best college basketball coaches of the 21st century. It is no surprise to see a couple of familiar names make the list.
Kansas basketball head coach Bill Self and former head coach Roy Williams make the list of top 21st-century coaches
There is no way Bill Self and Roy Williams don’t make a list like this. They have both been so successful, not only at Kansas but at Illinois for Self and North Carolina for Williams.
The biggest mystery is where each might place on such a prestigious list.
In the 90s, Williams took the Kansas basketball program to another level. Larry Brown won the championship in 1988, but it was Williams who ramped up the expectations at Kansas. He led the program to four Final Fours and two Championship games. He fell short on all of those occasions, but he won a lot of games and conference championships.
His best teams were the 1996-97 and 1997-98 squads. The Jayhawks went 69-6 over those two seasons. The 1996-97 team lost to a red-hot Arizona group in the Sweet 16 that would eventually win the title. The following season, Kansas was upset in the second round. Those bitter losses did little to distract from his other successes.
Williams left Kansas for North Carolina in 2003 after two straight Final Four appearances. He went on to enjoy great success with the Tar Heels, winning three championships in three Final Four appearances.
Roy Williams finished second on the list.
Self replaced Williams at the start of the 2003-04 season and has enjoyed astonishing successes. From 2005 to 2018, Self and the Jayhawks won 14 consecutive conference regular-season titles. He added three more since. KU also has 13 tournament titles during Self’s tenure.
Self won national championships in 2008 and 2022, and added two more Final Fours at Kansas. Only Mark Few of Gonzaga has won more than Self’s 702 victories at Kansas and Illinois.
Self’s teams have had a bad habit of losing early in the NCAA Tournament, having been ousted eight times during the first weekend. After winning it all in 2022, Kansas has struggled to live up to its lofty expectations, losing in the second round twice, and last season, they were eliminated in the first round.
Despite these recent down seasons, based on how well Self’s teams perform during the regular season, he is rated as the best college coach of this century.
It is not surprising that the best two coaches of this century strolled the sidelines at Kansas. Their incredible, consistent excellence while at Kansas is a big reason. The last time Kansas didn’t make the NCAA Tournament was in 1989, during Williams’ first season, and one in which Kansas was banned due to violations under Larry Brown. Three and a half decades of excellence earned these two Hall of Famers the top two spots as the best college basketball coaches this century.