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Kansas Jayhawks’ Bill Self says Big 12 will ‘be fine’ following departures of OU, UT

Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self told the Dallas Morning News there’s no hard feelings against Texas and Oklahoma, schools that last July announced plans to leave the Big 12 Conference after the 2024-25 school year.

“That’s kind of worn off, to be honest with you. There’s absolutely no feelings, zero, of animosity or anything like that with the coaches or administrators,” Self, who is about to begin his 20th season at KU, said from the recent Big 12 meetings in Arizona in a Q and A administered by the Morning News.

“We were all disappointed when those two made the decision to go somewhere else but on the flipside, I think the Big 12 will have our struggles ahead of us but I think we’ll survive. We’ll be fine. From a competitive standpoint, I think the teams that we’ve added certainly add competitive value.”

The Big 12, in response to the decisions of Texas and Oklahoma’s to join the SEC, have added Houston, BYU, Cincinnati and Central Florida.

“The reasons we’re the best league (in men’s college basketball),” Self said in the Morning News Q&A. “is because you’ve got many schools … but nine out of the 10 have been to the Sweet 16 or Elite Eight in my tenure here. So it (league dominance) is not going anywhere.”

Self noted: “Cincinnati and BYU may have as big a sleeping giant possibility (in basketball) as anybody. Central Florida will be a great add. They were one possession away from beating Zion (Williamson) and Duke three years ago. Adding Houston I think will be a good add. Certainly the interest level from what I’ve been told, since Kelvin (Sampson, Houston) has been there has been so high and the city is excited. Houston deserves to have a good basketball program with all the history. Kelvin is bringing it to them. There isn’t a basketball coach that gets their teams to play harder than Kelvin.”

Self was asked about TCU coach Jamie Dixon’s suggestion that the 12 teams in the new Big 12 should continue to play a round-robin schedule.

“Jamie may (suggest that) but that would be 22 games and 22 games is a lot of games. I’m not going to disagree with Jamie because when you play an exempt tournament, and then the Big East Challenge and the SEC Challenge and a good home-and-home, there’s no other games to play. So I think that may be a little much. I hope it stays around the 18 number,” Self said.