The records of Bill and Norm

Well, I wrote to Travis Goff (cc: to Chancellor Girod) about this.
Got nothing back.

Here's my "decision paper" for your consideration and vote.

You can tell me to go pound sand if you disagree (I won't, but you can tell me to...)

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT (BLUF – or TLDR if you prefer)

The official KU (and thus NCAA) records for the AY2022-23 season should show that Norm Roberts was 7-2 in the 9 games he coached in place of Bill Self. Bill Self’s record should show he was 21-6 for the season, and thus Self’s total record should read -

577-130 at KANSAS
784-235 for his entire career and
55-21 (46-16 at KU) in the NCAA Tournament


FACTS

1. In January 1947 doctors forced Forrest C. “Phog” Allen to the bench with 14 games left in the season. Assistant Coach and one time KU star hoopster Howard Engleman coached the Jayhawks for those 14 games. His 8-6 record is in the KU and NCAA record books as his and is NOT included in Phog Allen’s career record (590-219 at KU and 746-264 for his entire career).

2. Prior to the AY2022-23 season KU Athletics announced the self-imposed, NCAA sanctions related suspensions of both Self and Assistant Coach Kurtis Townsend. At that time KU Athletics told the public the four (4) games Roberts would coach in the absence of Self would count as “program” games, not attributable to either Roberts or Self.

3. Roberts ended up coaching 9 games total due to Self’s health crisis in the post-season. Roberts coached KU to a 4-0 record in the first 4 games and a 3-2 record in the Big 12 (2-1) and NCAA (1-1) tournaments, finishing AY2022-23 with a 7-2 overall record.

4. Based on the final Post-Game Notes of the season, KU Athletics is including Roberts’ 7-2 record as part of Self’s record.   kuathletics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/36-Arkansas.pdf  
To quote from the document, “The KU loss… Made Bill Self 584-132 while at Kansas, 791-237 all-time and 56-22 in the NCAA Tournament (47-17 while at Kansas).”

That’s...

KU 584-132; Career 791-237; NCAA Tournament 56-22 (47-17 at KU) versus
KU 577-130; Career 784-235; NCAA Tournament 55-21 (46-16 at KU), which is Self’s record without the 9 games coached by Roberts.

5. Next season Self is poised to pass Allen as the winningest coach in KU history. Whether he needs 7 wins or 14 wins to pass Allen depends entirely on how KU Athletics accounts for the games Roberts coached in the official records.


DISCUSSION

1. Phog Allen’s 590 KU wins is a major record in the KU and NCAA records book.

2. Following KU historical precedent, in order for the records comparison to be “apples to apples”, all of the games Roberts coached in the post-season during Self’s health crisis should be counted as his record, and not included in Self’s record. This would be comparable to how the record was recorded for Allen and Engleman in 1946-47.

3. Following KU Athletics earlier announcement regarding the first four games of the season, as a minimum those games should not be included in Self’s record. They should either be counted as “program” games as originally announced, or be included in Roberts’ record for AY2022-23. The latter really is preferable, in line with the previously referenced historical KU precedent of attributing wins and losses to the assistant coaches who stepped up when the head coach was not available.

4. It should be noted that the NCAA might not count the first 4 games of the season as Self’s given the KU imposed suspension of Self. The NCAA will most likely be even further unhappy with KU for including them in light of KU being on record that it would not.

5. It should also be noted that non-KU college basketball fans might accuse KU of trying to pad Self’s record. In particular I think Kansas State and Missouri fans would have a field day in the regular media and social media. You can easily see it coming.

6. Self does not need “cooked books” accounting to plant his flag on the KU summit next season. Points 4 and 5 are both easily avoided by KU Athletics acting in accordance with the historical KU precedent and counting the Roberts games as his record instead of including the results of those games in Self’s record.

CONCLUSION
See the BLUF at the beginning of this discussion piece.

USAF Jayhawk wrote: The fact that KU Athletics clearly announced before the first game was even played that the suspended games would NOT count toward Bill Self's record makes their current position look even worse. One could argue that the games at the end of the season be counted because by then Self's fingerprints were all over the team.

Agree to your point 1.

Re: your point 2, it has merit, but looking at the 1946-47 precedent the same case could be made for Allen getting credit for Engleman's record. Phog had them for months before he had to step down (coached the first 13 of the 27 games played that season). But if KU changed its position in that case and counted Engleman's record as part of Phog's I would back off the post-season argument in the Self-Roberts case.

But still, I have to point out that one of the factors that everyone talks about when comparing coaches is game day performance, and Self's record in that regard is a big reason he gets the big bucks.

Going back to Phog, I'm sure Phog was as involved as he could be with Dick Harp's first team, but in the end it was Harp on the bench come game time. I have to believe if we had Phog coaching Wilt's team that year UNC loses that 1957 title game.

And maybe, just maybe Self would have been a difference maker in the post-season this time.

Not knocking Norm, just looking at the history of each man as a head coach.

AZhawk87 wrote: Honestly, I don’t understand why it’s as big an issue as everyone is making it. Self is the head coach, he sets the standard in practice, he sets the strategy for the games, and games won or lost are on him.

Do we give an assistant the win if Self gets the flu before the game and can’t coach? Or if Self gets kicked out of a game in the first minute? No. It’s Self’s team, and the assistants step in when needed.

At the end of his career, I can’t imagine he or anyone else will care about a few games here or there when he didn’t coach.

The issues…

590 is a major KU record.

We seem to think these records matter.
And being consistent in how they are kept is a way to show they matter.
How do you compare and contrast records when coaches’ histories are treated differently?

So maybe they really aren’t important after all?

But doesn’t it look like KU is padding Bill’s record, which I think most folks would agree at the very least does not look good to the public?

And what if…?

Barring any unforeseens, Bill will pass Phog next year — but will it be with 7 wins, 11 wins or 14 wins?

Once Bill gets W#14 next season, the record keeping discrepancy dwindles in importance and nobody will really care.

But what if Bill only gets 9 wins and then never ever wins another game for whatever reason — is he the all time KU leader?

FWIW, the NCAA lists Norm with a 4-0 record last season for the suspension games, and Bill with 4 less wins than KU is giving him.
NCAA.org: records of Kansas Men’s Basketball Coaches
So based on NCAA records, it will take 11 wins for Bill to pass Phog, and with only 9 more Bill is still #2. But by current KU records he would only need 7, so he will have passed Phog.

And if Norm got credit for all the games where he was the game head coach, it would take 14.

As you and others have discussed here, there is an argument for counting the post-season games against Bill’s record.

And if KU Athletics were not counting the suspension games as Bill’s I probably would not makes waves about this because of the validity of that argument.

But there is the KU Athletics preseason statement that the first four suspension games would NOT count as Bill’s.
Yet now we learn they are being included by KU (again, not by the NCAA).

My bottom line is at a minimum KU needs to take those first four wins out of Bill’s record, as the NCAA has done.

EDIT:
My personal preference would be for all 9 Norm games to be recorded as Norm’s, in light of the Engleman precedent.
However, I have just read that Phog was actually out of state recovering in 1947, and not available to assist Howard in any way, so the situations may not be as comparable as originally envisioned. If true, it gives more weight to the argument for including the 5 post-season games in Bill’s record, and I would be okay with that — but since it was announced as part of KU’s self-imposed punishments in the attempt to appease the NCAA, the first four can NOT be Bill’s.