Bill Self was a strong head coaching candidate for OSU this past offseason

News On 6 Sports Director John Holcomb says Kansas coach Bill Self was a strong candidate for the Oklahoma State job this past offseason. Sources also confirmed to News On 6 that multiple discussions were had over a period of time. There is no understanding as to how close Bill Self came to accepting the head coaching position.  

 "OSU talks about Self perhaps becoming the new head coach at OSU back in March, we can confirm that there were serious discussions, plural, more than just one, that Self was contemplating things over a period of time, that the financial aspect of hiring a two-time national champion head coach and bringing him back home to Stillwater was not going to be an issue. At one point though, the timing became what it was. Things dragged on long enough and OSU obviously ended up hiring Steve Lutz. Self were not certain, not 100 % certain that he would have ultimately said yes and come back to take over the program where he played. And being an Oklahoma native, certainly there were those ties and there were different reasons and different things floating around. That might have caused him to not say yes in the end. But there were serious discussions and the financial aspect of things was not a major hurdle."

Oklahoma State ultimately hired Western Kentucky’s Steve Lutz as the Cowboys’ coach. Lutz led the Hilltoppers to the NCAA Tournament in his first season and coached Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to the NCAA Tournament in each of his two seasons in charge there. Lutz spent seven seasons as an assistant under Greg McDermott at Creighton, and four years on Matt Painter’s staff at Purdue.

OSU is currently (13-13, 5-10) in year one under Lutz. The Jayhawks, who were ranked No. 1 in the preseason, come into Saturday's home game against OSU with a 17-9 record (8-7 Big 12).

A native of Edmond, Oklahoma, Self played basketball at Oklahoma State, where he was a four-year letterman from 1982 to 1985. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business in 1985 and a master’s degree in athletic administration in 1989, both from OSU. Self spent seven seasons as an assistant coach at Oklahoma State, initially joining the Cowboys’ staff in the 1986-87 season. He worked under head coach Leonard Hamilton for four years before moving on to serve as an assistant under Eddie Sutton for the three seasons before he was hired as the head coach at ORU.