Nearly 25 years later, KU’s Bill Self reflects on Mizzou hiring Quin Snyder over him

Inbounding the basketball near the Missouri bench during a 1985 game at Gallagher-Iba Arena, an Oklahoma State guard by the name of Bill Self heard ever-fiery Mizzou coach Norm Stewart cussing him out for a perceived infraction.

“The dirtiest SOB in the league,” Self remembered Stewart calling him — though he added with a laugh that Stewart didn’t understand the transgression “was probably from my lack of athleticism and not being able to get out of the way.”

Whatever the case, Self in his office on Thursday tapped his heart repeatedly as he called that a “badge of honor” coming from Stewart.

“I thought, ‘Yes, I have actually made it,’” Self joked.

Not because Self thought he’d actually done something dirty, but because he felt appreciated for hard play by the legendary coach. And the story came up not as some element of animosity as Self and his Kansas team prepare to take on Missouri on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse but as a point to the contrary.

Self’s admiration of Stewart was a major reason he wanted the MU job in the wake of Stewart’s final campaign 25 seasons ago.

“Coach Stewart coached there,” Self recalled, was enticement enough for the then-Tulsa head coach.

“I just thought he was great,” said Self, laughing and adding as an aside, “I loved how he could antagonize people and get under their skin.”

All of which might make you think it got under Self’s skin when Mizzou in 1999 chose Quin Snyder over Self after second interviews with the two finalists at the Hilton hotel near Kansas City International Airport.

At least in quarter-century hindsight, though, Self not only understands the decision but also reckons MU did the right thing.

And that it served him best even at the time.

“In no way shape or form do I blame them for the decision; I probably would have made the same decision,” said Self, later adding, “It was the best thing for me not to get the job. Because, A), I don’t know if I was prepared at that moment to go from a mid-major to a high-major where the expectations were going to be high. And my name recruiting nationally at that moment wasn’t the same as what Quin’s was.

“And there were players in the area, but there weren’t enough players in the area to win the league. At least based on what I remember.”

It’s also perhaps easy to forget now after the chaos of the Snyder era at MU, but the then–32-year-old Duke assistant was the most obviously compelling candidate in the nation. Much as MU almost certainly would have prospered more by choosing Self over Snyder, a fascinating thing to ponder, it’s also revisionist history to portray the decision as an obvious blunder in real time.

The vibe in Columbia on the day Snyder was hired was one of awed disbelief that Missouri could somehow attract the charismatic coach who had been a recognized and rising figure from the time he played for three Final Four teams at Duke.

As opposed to Self, dynamic as he might be, who laughed as he reflected on the contrast. Oklahoma State played in just one NCAA Tournament game during his playing career there, a 56-53 first-round loss to Princeton in 1983.

“Definitely not as known,” he said with a grin.

So for a school seeking its first Final Four and hoping to usher in a fresh new era, the pedigree of the man from a blue-blood program born just months before Stewart began his 32-year-run at MU proved irresistible.

Quite rationally so … despite questions about whether Snyder could run a program that would ultimately prove to be his undoing before his redemptive reinvention as a highly regarded NBA head coach now with the Atlanta Hawks.

Self, 36 at the time, was guiding his second program but was more a subtly rising regional figure than gaudy national sensation like Snyder.

That season, in fact, proved the launch point for 26 straight NCAA Tournament appearances in Self’s Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame career — highlighted by 20-plus seasons and two national championships at KU.

But 1999 had an inauspicious ending that at least subconsciously might have entered into MU’s decision-making.

After his Golden Hurricane beat the College of Charleston in the first round of that season’s tournament, it got scorched by none other than Duke (97-56) on its way to the national title game.

Put it all together, Self said, and it looked like this:

“It’s not like I was the hippest or biggest candidate by any stretch,” he said. “And Quin and Duke, at that time, was the hottest thing.”

Only for Self to become just that about ever since. Snyder and MU surged, including to an Elite Eight appearance in 2002, before fizzling out amid scandal and NCAA issues. Snyder’s Mizzou teams went 42-42 over his last two-plus seasons before he was fired.

Including then-interim coach Melvin Watkins, that means current Mizzou coach Dennis Gates — who appears to be the Tigers’ long-term solution at last — is the seventh coach to guide the team since Stewart’s final season.

Self, meanwhile, has thrived. His next Tulsa team went to the Elite Eight, in turn leading to Self being hired by Illinois.

“And Illinois was perfect for me, in large part because I didn’t have to have a national name yet because there were so many players in the state,” he said. “At Illinois, you get three of the best five players in the state, you’re going to play in the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.”

That’s where Self initiated a dominant 18-4 overall record against Mizzou with three straight wins in the Bragging Rights series over MU and Snyder — whom Self calls a “good guy” and first met when they roomed together working at a KU basketball camp in the mid-1980s.

As it happens, that’s about the same winning percentage (.818) Self has overall (.809) at Illinois and KU.

But, yes, the KU-MU rivalry still means enough that he said this game is circled on the schedule and that come tipoff “the guys will understand” the history.

Part of that, of course, includes Mizzou leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference after the 2012 season and the ensuing hiatus in their rich 100-year-plus series.

Contrary to the perception of some, Self always valued the rivalry itself. When I spoke with him about it in 2013, he said “there’s not a game I’ve enjoyed coaching more in on our schedule than Missouri” and that “we miss Missouri. Without question.”

But before the recent thaw, Self embraced being the de facto spokesman for KU’s longtime stance not to play MU once it left.

“The thing about it is, when they left they made the decision that was best for their school,” he said. “But it was also at a time it could have left us high and dry. I mean, we were thinking Mountain West and all that stuff back then.”

As he considered it all now, Self thought about the endless upheaval of realignment almost ever since and still wondered where it’s all going.

“It’s just the way of the world now,” he said, “and it’s accepted more.”

Just like KU playing MU is again entering the third of a six-game, six-season series.

No, it’s not the same feverish event to meet once early in a season as opposed to home-and-home in direct pursuit of a conference championship and NCAA berth.

But it still has its own distinct drama, including that of the coach MU could have hired then … and might still have if it had.

At the time, Self said, “I’m thinking, ‘How do you do better than that?’ If you take that job, you’re looking to stay at that job.”

While Self noted he felt the same way in taking the Illinois job, it’s not likely KU would have considered a Mizzou guy.

That’s the sort of twist that has happened only with rare exception. See: Gwinn Henry, who ran the football program at Mizzou from 1923-1931 and at KU from 1939-1942.

Snub and all, though, Self wouldn’t have it any other way now.

“It could not have gone better for me with the path that we took,” he said, “and the opportunities that we happened to have at the opportune time.”