Projecting Self

Self has now won 763 games with 229 losses (76.9%). He has a lifetime contract so he will coach at Kansas as long as he wants. Let's have some fun and project his future. For this exercise we will assume he coaches 10 more seasons (roughly to the age of 70).

1/ Total Wins -- He has averaged 30.25 wins the last 16 seasons. Let's assume he continues that average. 10*30.25=303 more victories. This would give him 1066 wins. That would put him very possibly in 2nd all-time behind Coach K's 1202 wins. Calipari, Huggins and Boeheim are still active and ahead of him so it is hard to project where they will end up. But very likely Self could end up 2nd all time. He would have to coach for 4 or 5 more years at that clip to pass Coach K.

2. Winning% -- Bill is currently at 76.9%. That would put him 4th all-time behind Rupp (0.822), Dean Smith (0.776) and Roy Williams (0.774). He could easily pass Williams and Smith but not likely to pass Rupp. With just a slight imporvement over his last 16 years he could end up 2nd all-time in win%.

3. NCAA wins -- Bill has won 55 games in 23 tourneys. If he plays 10 more years and wins an average of 3 games per year, he would end up with 85 wins. That would put him 2nd all-time assuming Izzo (53 wins), Pitino (54 wins), Calipari (56 wins) and jim Boeheim (60 wins) don't pass him. Calipari is the only one likely to do that. Self would have to win an average almost 5 games per year to pass Coach K. (102). Likely worst case Self finishes with 2nd all-time but has a long-shot of passing Coach K if he coaches a 14 more years and wins 3.4 games per year. .

3. National Championships -- Bill now has 2 (whoopee!!). Okay, he is not passing Wooden. I mean seriously will anyone ever? But 2nd is not out of the question. Obviously that is Coach K with 5. 16 Coaches have won 2 or more. 6 coaches have won 3 or more. They are Wooden (10), K (5), Rupp (4), Williams, Calhoun and Knight (3). This is really the one we all want him to finish 2nd. How fun would it be to win 3 or better, 4 more. That is along shot. But it is certainly not out of the question that he get 2 more. That would put him in an elite club with Wooden, Coach K and Adolph Rupp with 4 or more.

Rupp won all 4 in an 11 year span (age 47-58)
Wooden won all 10 in a 12 year span (age 54-66)
Williams won his 3 in a 13 year span (age 55-67)
Knight won his 3 in a1 11 year span (age 36-47)
Calhoun won his 3 in a 13 year span (age 57-69)

The Nat. Championships is a crapshoot. He could get no more or 4 more. Let's hope. Bottom line in almost every key measure of career coaching success he will end up 2nd best of all-time. That is pretty impressive. If he takes the Coach K and Jim Boeheim route and coaches into his 70's watch out. With some slight uptick in average success he could easily be the most decorated coach of all-time with the exception of National Championships. That one is probably out of reach (Wooden).

CJ, thank you for all do every week, game and season. It is appreciated greatly.
Thanks so much
RCJGKU

Such great work as usual corpus. One observation: self as we know has really won the natty two out of the last three years. Since wooden who does that? I know there are a couple but it shows I think how far bill is ahead of his peers. He has learned so much about assembling a team, selecting talent, designing plays around that talent, teaching team defense, focusing on matchups like they do in the pros, running like crazy and shooting threes which minimizes our talent deficit, etc. And he stays loose now and keeps his team loose. I B am so excited to see how many times he can win it the next 15 years. I will take the over on 5.