Bill Self ready to coach in Champaign again
Sep. 7—CHAMPAIGN — Bill Self probably wouldn't have agreed to a return to State Farm Center (or Assembly Hall as he knew it) a decade-plus ago to pit his Kansas team against Illinois.
Even making it a charity exhibition might not have been enough. Self leaving Illinois for the Jayhawks after the 2002-03 season wasn't necessarily a stunner. It was Kansas, after all, and where he started his coaching career, but he did leave behind an inordinately talented Illini team he had built into a national title contender in just three short seasons.
"That was not something we would have ever choreographed to do it the way it went down," Self said during an appearance on a recent 'Saturday SportsTalk' with current Illini coach Brad Underwood. "I would not have wanted to do this 18 years ago. That was a situation. I'm a big boy and people make decisions and all those sorts of things, but I was very sensitive to that.
"We did love it there the time we were there. That was hard to leave. Timing is never perfect, and it wasn't at all. We made a decision and it's turned out nice."
That last part got Underwood almost sputtering.
"Nice?" he exclaimed. "Nice? Let's be real here. What Bill has done at Kansas will probably never ever be done again in college basketball. The number of championships he's won in arguably one of the ... one or two best leagues in the country — Hall of Fame, two national championships — I hope people in this state come celebrate not that he's at Kansas, but celebrate Bill because he was one of us. He's a guy we all try to emulate in this business. Here's a guy that's figured out winning at a high level, and he did it here."
Self is set to return to Champaign for an Oct. 29 charity exhibition between Illinois and Kansas. The money raised will all be donated in support of wildfire relief in Maui.
The two programs had already agreed to a repeat of last year's "secret" scrimmage they played on the Lindenwood campus in St. Charles, Mo. When wildfires ravaged Maui — devastating enough to almost assuredly move the Maui Invitational off the island — the two coaches agreed to turn the scrimmage into a charity exhibition.
It's what both programs did in 2017 when hurricanes hit southeast Texas and Houston flooded. Illinois played Eastern Illinois in Charleston — a memorable loss to mark the start of the Underwood era — and Kansas played Missouri in Kansas City, Mo., in a charity exhibition that raised $2 million.
"We split the tickets 50-50 exactly the way the Illini do with Missouri in the Border War," Self said. "It was fantastic and sold out in a couple hours."
The agreement to do the same to support Maui came quickly between Self and Underwood.
"Brad said we would do it but wouldn't split the tickets 50-50. I thought that was pretty selfish on his part," Self joked. "But I think it's great. I, personally, look forward to coming back. It will be great for us and hopefully good for Brad's group, too.
"Those people are struggling (on Maui). You hear about these things, and it's hard to imagine the destruction and grief they are feeling. Hopefully, in some little form or fashion, this will ignite or spearhead other schools doing something similar to give back to a group of people and an island that's been really good to college basketball for decades."
How the Oct. 29 charity exhibition will play out between Illinois and Kansas is to be determined. Last year's "secret" scrimmage was broken down into different segments where both teams were able to work on specific scenarios. Even though it will be an actual game, exhibitions are often used in similar fashion.
"Brad's going to want to win," Self said. "I'm going to want to win. I would think the fans would really be into it. The reality is we're still trying to figure out who plays well with who and different combinations."
Some of those combinations will include new Kansas center Hunter Dickinson.
"We got a big guy that Illinois people, from what I understand, love," Self said rather knowingly. "And he's never been one to say anything that would be remotely controversial in an opponent-type environment. If there's a chorus of boos, I told Brad I'm going to walk into Hunter and say, 'God, Hunter these people don't like you at all.' He won't know the difference."
Underwood didn't have to twist Self's arm to get the game in Champaign. The former Illinois coach has been back occasionally, including in 2022 for the Illini's Coaches vs. Cancer event a week after Kansas won its latest national title.
"Really just a great opportunity to reengage with our fans," Underwood said. "It just made sense to bring him back here and walk the sidelines again. ... There's a lot of hype around Bill's team for obvious reasons. They're one of the best teams in the country. We think we've got a really good team.
"It's about getting better. Along the way, we're going to have fun and find out a lot about our teams. In the meantime, we're going to raise a lot of money for what we both think is something very important to both our programs and to all of college basketball."
