Kansas and Bill Self are the kings of college basketball, but the FBI consequences will come later – Espanol News

Kansas captured its fourth national championship in program history with a thrilling 72-69 win over North Carolina on Monday night in New Orleans.

For Jayhawk fans, this not-so-simple fact is all that matters right now and all that will matter in the days and weeks ahead. That is good. That’s the way it should be.

For KU head coach Bill Self, things are also pretty good right now. They could be about to get a little complicated in the not too distant future.

With the victory inside the Superdome, Self became the third active coach in college basketball with multiple national championships, joining Jay Wright and Rick Pitino. He also became the first coach in the long and storied history of Kansas basketball to return more than one national title to Lawrence.

Self’s two championships will be remembered as a pair of historic comebacks.

Against John Calipari and Memphis in 2008, Kansas trailed by nine points with just 2:12 left. Some missed free throws by the Tigers and a 3-pointer by Mario Chalmers just before the regulation buzzer sent the game into overtime, where the Jayhawks prevailed, 75-68.

On Monday night against North Carolina, Kansas posted the biggest win from behind in national championship game history, coming from 16 down to defeat the Tar Heels, 72-69. The Jayhawks also became the first team to lose by 15 or more at halftime in the national title game and come back to win.

Self is now looking down on potentially a monster third career comeback that could end up being his biggest.

You wouldn’t have known it from listening to any of the Kansas Final Four broadcasts on TBS, but the Jayhawks are facing NCAA accusations of five Level I violations. Self is directly mentioned in three of the Level I violations, which are the more serious that the NCAA distributes.

However, there is good news for Kansas. In its only ruling so far, the Independent Liability Resolution Process, which KU is using in its case, let NC State go with what most would consider a slap on the wrist. The biggest reason why?

“We didn’t want to hurt or punish the student-athletes who were currently competing,” said IARP member Dana Welch.

In the weeks that followed, NCAA President Mark Emmert echoed this sentiment.

While NC State was dealing with two Level I infractions compared to Kansas’s five, Welch and Emmert’s citations still feel important. After all, there is no player on KU’s current roster who was involved in any of the alleged wrongdoing that took place 4-6 years ago.

Of course, there is a key figure highlighted in the NCAA Allegation Notice who era with the Kansas basketball program at the time of the alleged violations and that he remains the face of the Jayhawk basketball program.

While coaches like Rick Pitino (Louisville), Mark Gottfried (NC State…and Cal State Northridge), Sean Miller (Arizona) and Will Wade (LSU) have lost their jobs, at least in part, due to the FBI corruption scandal , Self hasn’t just stayed in Kansas, he’s prospered. The Jayhawks made the Final Four in 2018, were the fourth seed in 2019, would become pre-tournament favorites in 2020, were the third seed in 2021, and now sit atop the college basketball world. .

Mike Krzyzewski just finished his career at the age of 75. Roy Williams did the same thing last year at 71. Self won’t even turn 60 until December 27 this year. There are some who will tell you that he is the best active coach in college basketball right now, and with the current landscape of the sport, it’s not hard to predict that some of his best years could still be ahead of him.

This is where the sinister but who has been lurking on the fringes of this story finally jumps out and takes center stage.

Self is going to be hit by the NCAA/IARP with some kind of personal punishment. That seems to be almost a certainty. It could be a multi-game suspension, it could be a multi-year show cause, it could be a full-season suspension; who knows.

Trying to predict exactly what the NCAA will do is as silly a task as filling out a group in early March, but not being on the sidelines the next time Kansas plays a real game feels as safe as picking a 2nd seed. to take care of a 15. Sure, we might have a San Pedro situation on our hands where Self inexplicably slips completely, but a Villanova-Delaware scenario is still the much safer bet.

After 19 years of top-level success, Self has nothing left to prove, even with all this suspension speculation surrounding him. What’s next?

The obvious and most likely answer is that he gobbles up whatever shitty sandwich the NCAA gives him and then goes back to expanding the empire he’s already built in Lawrence. But is there another challenge out there that might draw you in? The NBA? A different job among the top 10 in the sport? Take time away from sport altogether? West Coast mini-concert tour with Snoop?

Once again, the most likely scenario is that in a couple of years we’re back to normal for Self and Kansas, and the Jayhawks are back to doing what we’d expect them to do: winning Big 12 titles and chasing national championships. For the well-being of a sport that has lost two of its most legendary head coaches in the last two years and is on the verge of losing a few more in the years to come, that’s probably for the best.

But, there is an uncomfortable and unpleasant journey that must be undertaken and completed before any of that can happen. For now, Kansas fans should pretend this chapter doesn’t exist.

Soon, however, Self will have no choice but to turn the next page.