Kansas’ Bill Self won’t coach at Colorado after hospitalization, says he’s ‘feeling much better’

By Zach Powell, CJ Moore and Justin Williams

Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self will not coach the Jayhawks in their game at Colorado on Tuesday after he was hospitalized Monday “out of an abundance of caution,” the school said.

Assistant coach Jacque Vaughn will be acting head coach in Self’s place. The Jayhawks and Buffaloes tip at 11 p.m. ET.

Self was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital and received IV fluids Monday. He and Kansas did not go into detail on what led to his hospitalization, nor when he will return to the team.

“I’m feeling much better and I want to thank the well-wishers and the great team at LMH Health,” Self said in a statement Tuesday. “I’ll be sitting out tonight’s game, and as I’ve said before, we have an elite coaching staff at KU, and I know our players are in good hands in Boulder.”

It’s the second time in the last year that Self, 62, has been admitted to the hospital. He had two stents inserted in July after he “felt unwell and experienced some concerning symptoms.”

In March 2023, Self missed the Big 12 tournament and the NCAA Tournament because of a heart condition. He was admitted to the hospital for chest tightness and balance concerns, underwent a standard heart catheterization and had two stents placed for the treatment of blocked arteries. Self later said he’d had a heart issue going back to the fall of the 2022-23 season and had an aorta valve replaced. On the day before the Big 12 tournament, he coached practice and then went to the hospital soon after.

The only other action Self has missed in his 22 seasons at Kansas came at the beginning of the 2022-23 season, while serving a four-game suspension as part of the school’s self-imposed penalties in the aftermath of the FBI’s investigation into the underbelly of college basketball recruiting. Longtime Jayhawks assistant Norm Roberts, who retired this offseason, served as interim coach during the two absences that year.

Vaughn, 50, is a Kansas alumnus who has NBA head-coaching experience with the Orlando Magic and Brooklyn Nets. Tuesday will mark his first game as a college head coach.

Self and KU agreed to a new “lifetime” contract in 2023, putting him on a five-year rolling term and making him the highest-paid coach in college basketball. Now in his 23rd season at Kansas, Self is tied for the second-longest-tenured coach at the power-conference level behind only Michigan State’s Tom Izzo. His 637 wins at the most in KU history, and Kansas has never missed the NCAA Tournament under his watch.

Kansas (13-5) climbed to No. 19 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll Monday after consecutive wins over Iowa State and Baylor.

After Colorado, the Jayhawks will travel to in-state rival Kansas State on Saturday before they host No. 13 BYU one week later at Allen Fieldhouse.