Kansas men’s basketball head coach Bill Self has been released from the hospital after undergoing a heart procedure earlier this week, the school’s athletics department announced Saturday.
“I want to thank all the amazing doctors and nurses at LMH Health for the excellent care I received during my stay there,” Self said in a statement. “I feel strong and am excited to be home.”
“Our team has had a productive summer and look forward to our batteries being recharged and prepping for this upcoming season,” he added.
Self, 62, was transported to Kansas’ Lawrence Memorial Hospital on Thursday after not feeling well and experiencing “concerning symptoms,” according to the university. The statement said he was expected to be released from the hospital “soon,” and Self was indeed discharged two days later.
Two stents were inserted during the heart procedure for blocked arteries. It was the second time Self had undergone such a procedure, following 2023 when he missed the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments to have two stents inserted and also received a catheterization. That followed an aortic valve replacement he underwent in 2022.
Going into the 2023 NCAA tournament as defending national champion and a No. 1 seed, Kansas lost in the second round to No. 8 Arkansas. He returned to the team in early April and admitted some lifestyle changes were necessary after the health scare.
“I think I have to wake up a little bit and maybe do some things from a lifestyle standpoint, a personal habit standpoint, that I’ve been very, very, very inconsistent with my entire adult life,” Self told reporters then, via the Associated Press.
“And I said that jokingly earlier, can you imagine a doctor telling you to lose weight, eat right and exercise?” he continued. “I’ve been told that a long time, but I’m taking that serious for the first time I probably have in my life.”
The only other time Self missed games on the Jayhawks’ sideline was earlier in the 2022-23 season when he served a four-game suspension for self-imposed penalties by Kansas resulting from an FBI investigation into a college basketball corruption scandal involving eight schools.
Self is Kansas’ all-time winningest coach with a 624-156 record that includes 16 Big 12 regular-season championships, eight conference tournament titles, four NCAA tournament Final Four appearances and two national championships.
He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. And in 2023, he agreed to a rolling five-year contract with Kansas, essentially a lifetime deal that made him the highest-paid coach in college basketball.
The Jayhawks added five-star recruit Darryn Peterson, Rivals’ No. 3 ranked player nationally and the No. 1 shooting guard in the 2025 class out of Prolific Prep in Napa, California.
Kansas tips off the preseason with an exhibition at Louisville on Oct. 24. The Jayhawks open the regular season on Nov. 3 against University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
