KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas Jayhawks head coach Bill Self and assistant Kurtis Townsend will serve a self-imposed four-game suspension to start the 2022-23 regular season.
Self and Townsend will miss the Champions Classic against Duke on Nov. 15 as a result of the suspension.
The two will return for the team's game against North Carolina State University in the Battle 4 Atlantis on Nov. 23.
“Throughout this process, we have had ongoing conversations with all the involved parties,” said Chancellor Douglas A. Girod. “We believe the actions we are announcing today move us closer to resolving this matter. We look forward to commenting further when this process is fully resolved. Until then, I want to reiterate our unwavering support of Coach Self and our Men’s Basketball program.”
Assistant coach Norm Roberts will serve as acting head coach in place of Self.
The program will also self-impose recruiting restrictions.
From April to July 2022, Self and Townsend were barred from all off-campus recruiting-related activities.
The university reduced the number of official visits to four for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years and the number of total scholarships to three. Those scholarships have to be distributed over the next three years.
Kansas implemented a six-week ban on recruiting communications, a six-week ban on unofficial visits and a 13-day reduction in the number of permissible recruiting days during the 2022-23 calendar year.
There were also no official visits for 2022 Late Night in the Phog.
The University of Kansas informed the NCAA’s IRP (Independent Resolution Panel) last week that it was self-imposing several sanctions in response to its ongoing basketball case, which originated in 2017.
“We are hopeful these difficult self-imposed sanctions will assist in bringing the case to a conclusion,” KU Director of Athletics Travis Goff said. “Until then, we will continue to focus on supporting our outstanding Men’s Basketball student-athletes and coaches."
Self and Townsend are coming off a season where they won the 2022 NCAA Championship, their second NCAA Tournament win together. Self is one of only two active coaches to have won multiple NCAA titles.
“Coach Townsend and I accept and support KU’s decision to self-impose these sanctions,” Self said. “We are in good hands with Coach Roberts, and I am confident that he will do a great job on the bench leading our team. I am proud of the way our guys have handled this situation and I look forward to returning to the bench for our game against NC State.”
Townsend is the longest-tenured assistant coach in Kansas men’s basketball history. He joined the Jayhawks in 2004 after serving as an assistant under head coach Perry Clark at the University of Miami for one season.
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