Does KU Already Have a Big 12 Head Coach in Waiting? Wild Contract Details

In this video, I break down a major clue that suggests KU may already have its next men’s basketball coach in mind, and it could be a familiar name from right here in the Big 12. Bill Self is back for now, but recent contract details surrounding Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd raise some very interesting questions about Kansas’ long-term plan. I also explain why the Jayhawks may be in a much better spot than North Carolina was when it comes time to make a coaching move.

If you’re a Kansas fan, Big 12 fan, or college basketball fan trying to read between the lines on one of the sport’s biggest future storylines, this is worth watching.

Chapters:
0:00 Does Kansas already know its next coach?
1:04 Bill Self is back, but questions remain
1:48 How good is the Kansas job really?
2:39 Why KU may be better positioned than UNC
3:27 Ben McCollum enters the conversation
5:09 The Tommy Lloyd contract clue
6:10 The Big 12 non-compete disappears
7:05 Why Kansas is the one job that matters
8:45 What this could mean for KU’s future

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#KansasJayhawks #KUbasketball #BillSelf #TommyLloyd #CollegeBasketball #Big12 #KansasBasketball

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Did Kansas already find its next men's basketball coach? Yes, Bill Self is coming back. I'm well aware, but we got a clue that we might already know who KU's next head coach is going to be, and we know him very, very well in Big 12 country. I'll tell you who it is, why it's not going to make another Big 12 fan base happy, and why at the end of the day, whether it's this guy or not, it looks like KU's in a much better place than North Carolina to find its next head coach when the Jayhawks need to. This is the Open for Business Big 12 podcast. Thank you for joining me. This is where the Big 12 just means more. So Bill Self is back at Kansas. He announced that last week. All right. So don't get it twisted. He will be the coach for the upcoming season. There was, of course, speculation because of his health issues. He's had a couple of stints put in, uh, had another issue before the Colorado game on the road earlier this year. There was talk of him retiring, and he even said he needed to stop and think about it, and he took his time to think about it. Now he's back. He's working on putting together a roster, which there's a lot of work to do. Kansas has taken some big hits in the transfer portal. That team is going to look much, much different this upcoming year. But all of that, the health issues, the speculation, it's brought up a ton of conversation around the Big 12 and in Kansas circles about like, hey, what's this going to look like? Who is the next guy going to be? It's obviously a great job. You don't need me to tell you this, but it's one of the top five jobs in college basketball, not just my opinion, backed up by the athletic, who did a survey of 50 plus college basketball coaches across the country. And uh Kansas came in at number three behind Duke and North Carolina. Maybe Kentucky was tied there already. They were in the top five. Uh, you can go check out the article. It's a great read. Anyway, North Carolina, Kentucky, Duke, those are the only jobs in the same category as Kansas. All right. They should be able to command a great, great coach. But you do have to wonder after what just happened at North Carolina okay, how great is it actually going to be? Are you going to have to go get a fired NBA coach to be your head coach and pay him a ton of money, too, like North Carolina did? Or can you actually go get one of the big names in college basketball? Remember, multiple coaches turned down North Carolina. Dusty May, for sure, from Michigan. Ben McCollum kind of did. Tommy Lloyd certainly did at Arizona. And if you want to throw Brad Stevens in there too, NBA GM, that was another one. And North Carolina was a job I just mentioned, ranked ahead of Kansas on that list where the Athletic polled coaches across the country. So how good of a candidate can Kansas actually land? I'm telling you, the clues right now certainly indicate it's going to go better than it did for North Carolina. Okay. Hey, please subscribe to the channel. It's one click, very quick. Many of you watch, but don't subscribe. It helps me a lot if you do. Thank you very much. This isn't exactly what I'm referring to as a clue. Okay. The clue is coming in just a moment. The one that I think is a stronger clue who the next coach could be. But this was still a nice little surprise for Jayhawks fans to see, right? This comes from uh Chris Hassel, who was doing an interview with Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, one of the most plugged-in national guys in college hoops. He dropped in this little quote. He said, if and when Kansas opens in the next year or two or three, Ben McCollum's name would be on the short list, provided he continues to win at Iowa. All right, that's a nugget, my friends. That's a nugget. And uh Ben McCollum is a coach that is, I think, only going to increase in demand, assuming that he does at least make the tournament the next few years at Iowa. He's doing a hell of a job there. And uh this is someone that I think would be interested. Now, maybe this is just KU is interested here, right? But Matt Norland are throwing that name out. I don't know. It seems like there's there's something behind that, perhaps, right? But at least Kansas would be very interested here. Ben McCollum, by the way, was born in Iowa City. So we would see if he would leave his his hometown, in essence, for that type of job. But he played at Northwest Missouri State, coached at Northwest Missouri State. Like he's certainly very familiar with the Kansas program anyway. Seemed like a good omen for the Jayhawks, at least. But here's the real intriguing cookie crumb that we got about who the Jayhawks next head coach could be, okay? I mention Arizona's Tommy Lloyd did not take the North Carolina job. He famously pushed it off, pushed it off to questions about it. Didn't really answer, didn't really address, leveraged Arizona, got everything he wants, doesn't report to the athletic director anymore, got a huge raise, and also gave a legendary quote about how Steve Kerr is his North is his uh Michael Jordan. Great stuff from Tommy Lloyd. Signed that new contract extension, sticking in Tucson, but we're now getting some details on this contract, and there is one detail that is very, very interesting here. Okay. If you remember, this got some run when we were talking about will he go to North Carolina or would he go to Kansas if self retires. There was a clause in his contract that was essentially a non-compete for Big 12 schools. So it said, you can't go coach at a school in the Big 12 conference for a year after leaving Arizona, which is something I have not seen a whole lot of, but apparently it is fairly standard with Arizona coaching contracts going back to their days in the Pac-12, where that clause would be about going somewhere else in the Pac-12. Okay. Now, we can get into the nuts and bolts of like the legalities of that. What would you do if you know, could a coach there there would probably be some sort of settlement, right? Instead of it actually working as a non-compete where we wouldn't coach there and all that, right? But the interesting part here is guess what's not in the new contract? Guess what is not in Tommy Lloyd's new deal? That's right. There is no more non-compete for a Big 12 school in this new contract. Now, I just said Tommy Lloyd had all the leverage in the world. He's at the Final Four, getting asked questions at the podium about are you going to take the North Carolina job? And he won't directly address it, won't directly answer it. That's as much leverage as you could possibly have. And he got in his contract that he does not report to the athletic director. That guy had leverage. That guy was getting what he wanted out of that contract. What he did was get rid of the non-compete at another Big 12 school. Okay. There isn't they replaced it with, hey, it adds a million dollars to the buyout if he goes to another Big 12 school, which is chump change when we're talking about the world of buyouts here. Uh so that's that's next to nothing. So you might say, well, yeah, John, okay, that's any Big 12 school. Why are you directly relating this to Kansas? Let's be real. Kansas is the only job in the Big 12 you would leave Arizona for. In that same survey I mentioned from The Athletic, Arizona was the number six job in the country. Um, the only other Big 12 job that got a vote was Texas Tech. So it's the only job higher up the pecking order than what Arizona is right now. And Tommy Lloyd has not been shy about uh doing a little gushing about what that job is like in Lawrence, at least about the atmosphere in Lawrence. Earlier this year, when uh Arizona played at Kansas and lost, Tommy Lloyd had a really nice quote about just how the atmosphere was different there. Clearly very impressed by it. And now, I mean, look, we know Arizona was not willingly taking that out of his contract, especially negotiating from a place of no leverage. Tommy Lloyd and his representation wanted that out of there. So there's at least some level of desire there, right? If you didn't care at all about Kansas and you weren't going to leave for anything but the NBA, why put that in there? Why do that? Um, so I mean, this is this is no done deal, but it it I'm sure Kansas would have interest, right, in Tommy Lloyd. Why would you not, assuming that he keeps this up unless he falls off a cliff in the next couple of years? And it sure seems like Lloyd at least has some level of reciprocal interest where he wants to keep the door open, where that could be much more possible. It is certainly something to keep an eye on, my friends. Now, Bill Self could be the coach for the next five years and maintains his health. And I certainly wish him the best uh on his health journey. Absolutely. But for now, definitely keep this one on the maybe the medium burner. I don't know if it goes on the back burner, but the medium burner. Uh and hey, why did Bill Self come back to Kansas this year? We could be doing this all right now. Why did Bill Self come back to Kansas? Click here to find out.