LAWRENCE, Kan. — Bill Self gave a lesson in college basketball calculus last week in his office as he went through the roster decisions he had to make this spring.
Self took a gamble this portal season when he saved his budget to stay in the race for Tyran Stokes, the top player in the 2026 recruiting class, who was choosing between Kansas and Kentucky. Stokes didn’t announce until April 28, at which point many of the top players in the transfer portal were off the board.
Kansas had six players transfer, most notably starters Flory Bidunga and Bryson Tiller. Before this spring, Self had only five starters transfer in his first 23 years at KU and never more than one in a single cycle.
“When you look at it, what if Flory stays in the (NBA Draft), and we committed all that money to him,” Self said. “Then what are we doing? Who do we have? There’s more to it than ‘Does he want to be here?’ and ‘Do we want him here?’ There’s a financial component to it, and there’s also a realistic component against it.”
Self enters his 34th season as a head coach, navigating a game that has changed quickly. The 63-year-old proved this cycle that he still has it when it comes to recruiting, landing Stokes in what felt like a make-or-break commitment. If Stokes had not committed, Self could have been left with money in his budget and not enough quality players on the market to justify spending what he had left. That’s now the spot Kentucky is in, unless Mark Pope can sign one or two of the undecided NBA entrants who are also in the portal. If the season started tomorrow, it’s doubtful Kentucky would appear in the preseason Top 25.
When Self won his first national title in 2008, he said there was much more margin for error.
“You may have on the 2008 (national championship) team seven NBA players,” Self said. “Your misses aren’t magnified. Here, your misses are more magnified because you can only pay a certain number of players, and if you miss on those guys, it’s a bigger deal.
“In the past, if you recruit four guys and two of them turn out to be great, that’s a pretty good return on your investment. Now, you recruit four guys, three of them better be studs, because those are the guys you’re paying the money to.”
In the name, image and likeness era, KU still has a strong history and brand recognition, but it’s not at the top of the sport when it comes to an NIL budget.
“I think we’re competitive,” Self said. “I have absolutely nothing negative from our administrative standpoint on their ability to give us a chance to compete. I feel good about it. Now, do I think that we have the highest budget in America? No.”
Flory Bidunga was highly coveted in the transfer portal this offseason. (Ed Zurga / Getty Images)
What’s actually allowed to be spent remains an open question. Self said there’s a lot of uncertainty among schools in the Big 12, SEC, Big Ten and ACC because budgets are ballooning past the revenue-share distribution those programs are allotted by their schools. As The Athletic reported this spring, most high-major rosters will be north of $10 million, and multiple teams are believed to have spent over $20 million.
It’s not a given every deal gets approved by NIL Go, a clearinghouse created by the College Sports Commission, but for some programs, it seems like the cap is a floating number. That’s not KU’s reality.
“I understand there’s a budget, and I also understand we’re building a football stadium and that football stadium is hundreds of millions of dollars,” Self said of KU’s Gateway District project, which the school estimates will cost $759 million. “So with that being said, there’s a fundraising strategy that goes into it that’s not just involving NIL.”
There are also roster-construction strategies that differ from the pre-NIL days.
“You look at our teams the last couple of years, we haven’t been as talented,” Self said. “But one of the reasons why we’ve been good in the past isn’t that we’ve had all first-round draft picks, it’s that we had a collection of vets, guys that played themselves into being NBA players after three or four years, and we had depth.”
Self was one of the best at turning four-stars into five-stars as upperclassmen. Among the 31 players drafted under Self, 18 spent at least three years at KU. But this NBA Draft will mark the third straight that KU has not had one of those program guys drafted.
KU’s 2022 and 2023 recruiting classes, which represented the junior and senior classes this year, each had a one-and-done draft pick (Gradey Dick and Johnny Furphy), but the other six all eventually transferred.
“Now your third option is somebody else’s first option that’s paying first option money,” Self said. “Your best prospects are usually gonna be your youngest kids. But your portal guys are gonna be your culture, and the guys that make the foundation. And in the past, our foundation has always been three- and four-year guys. So you can’t miss on the culture aspect when you sign portal kids, in my opinion.”
Self said he anticipated losing a majority of his rotation because of “money.” As in any profession, it’s usually easier to get a pay bump by leaving than staying. “There’s not an unlimited budget,” Self said.
Self knew he likely couldn’t match the offers for Bidunga and Tiller. His strategy for building the 2026-27 roster was to be aggressive in the high school market. In the early signing period, Kansas signed five-star point guard Taylen Kinney and three four-stars (center Davion Adkins, wing Trent Perry and shooting guard Luke Barnett).
Getting comfortable on campus 🤝@tyran_stokes x @Taylen_0 pic.twitter.com/OBh7pEDNbS
— Kansas Men’s Basketball (@KUHoops) May 2, 2026
Kinney and Stokes likely project as starters, and Self said he sees the others as good enough to play in his rotation.
“I thought it allowed us to recruit the right portal guys if we knew we had the rotation guys already built in,” Self said. “If they’re part of a rotation, now that allows you to spend more money on three portal guys as opposed to going out and trying to sign five.”
Self also knew early in the portal process that freshman guard Kohl Rosario would return and freshman center Paul Mbiya was a possibility to come back. That allowed him to be intentional with what he was targeting in the portal. He needed starter-level players at guard, power forward and center.
The first domino was a replacement for Tiller: Utah forward Keanu Dawes, who ranked No. 36 in The Athletic’s portal rankings, made 68.9 percent of his 2s in two years at Utah and finished top 31 in defensive rebounding rate nationally both years. He also had 22 points and 12 rebounds at Allen Fieldhouse last year. As a low-usage, high-efficiency forward, he was the perfect complement to Stokes.
Next, Self landed a combo guard in Toledo transfer Leroy Blyden Jr., who ranked 46th in The Athletic’s portal rankings. Blyden, who was the MAC Rookie of the Year, was an analytics darling who ranked 12th in EvanMiya’s portal rankings, which uses data to rank the best transfers.
“I thought he was the best mid-major guard,” Self said.
Leroy Blyden Jr. helped Toledo reach the MAC tournament championship. (Ken Blaze / Imagn Images)
Stokes committed after Dawes and Blyden, and all that was left was a starting center. Center was the most expensive position on the market this spring, and most of the top-rated options were off the board after the Stokes commitment.
Kansas ended up retaining Mbiya and signed Christian Reeves, who broke out this season at College of Charleston, averaging 11.1 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.4 blocks. Reeves struggled to get off the bench in two years at Duke and one season at Clemson.
Reeves, who had shoulder surgery and is expected to return before the start of the regular season, will likely battle Mbiya for the starting spot. Mbiya struggled to crack KU’s rotation most of the year, but he finished strong with 12 points, nine rebounds and two blocks in 29 minutes in two NCAA Tournament games.
“I feel really good about our roster,” Self said. “I also think we got two steals: Paul Mbiya and Kohl Rosario. Nobody’s seen them play like they’re capable of playing. And so I thought it was really important to get those two guys to come back.”
Rosario started the first six games last year but struggled with his shot and was on the back end of the rotation the second half of the season. Kinney, Blyden and Rosario will battle for two starting spots. Stokes and Dawes project as the starting forwards, with Dawes giving Self the option to play smaller, faster, more skilled lineups with him at center.
Then there’s Stokes, who has long been considered not only the best prospect in his class but also an emotional player who has a reputation that scared some schools away.
“I think he’s gonna be fantastic,” Self said. “We’ve heard all that difficult (reputation). And you look at it, yeah, he’s emotional. Yeah, he plays with emotion. Yeah, there’s some things that he can probably do differently in a way. But in my experience, I’d much rather have those guys, the emotional guys that play with the chip all the time than have to prod them to go the other direction. So I couldn’t be more excited to have him here.
“The NBA people have told us, ‘Bill, we watched McDonald’s (All American game practices), and he’s the best teammate out there,’ because of how he encourages everybody, and they say ‘He won’t shut up.’ They said, ‘He talks on the court all the time,’ and that’s something we haven’t had.”
How that season goes could come down to whether it was worth the risk to bet on the star recruit. But just as with Darryn Peterson, Self isn’t scared to apply the pressure.
“Is it a top five team preseason? No,” he said. “But would we have potential to get there? Yeah, I think we would. Granted, it’s probably not on paper the equal as some of the other teams are on paper.
“But for us, I think when you’ve got the best player on the floor every night, you’ve got a chance.”
