New Kansas University men’s basketball coach Bill Self is known not only as a strong Xs and Os guy, but perhaps even more importantly, a standout recruiter.

“Bill could sell popsicles to Eskimos. He is the best recruiting head coach I’ve seen,” said recruiting analyst Greg Swaim of Oklahoma-based gregswaim.com, who gives the 40-year-old Self an “A” for his ability to find and sign high school talent.

“Recruiting is 75 percent of it anymore,” Swaim said of success in college basketball. “You combine the recruiting end of it with the coaching end of it, and I think Bill is the best (coach) in college basketball.”

Self — he had players from Texas, North Carolina, Illinois and Florida on his University of Illinois roster the past three years, signing blue-chip guard Dee Brown and others out of hotbed Chicago — received commitments from four top players, including future NBA player Charlie Villanueva of Queens, N.Y. this past recruiting season.

“They work their (expletive) off,” Swaim said of a coaching staff that includes Norm Roberts and Tim Jankovich. “Recruiting is like shaving. If you don’t do it every day you look like a bum. These guys are well shaven and dapper.

“Bill and Norm are trend-setters,” Swaim said. “They are the genuine article. They are articulate. They do their homework to know what it will take to impress certain kids and their parents. On in-home visits, their whole presentation is well thought out. They get the kids on campus and blow ’em away.”

Swaim says the new KU coaches are so impressive …

“Frankly I don’t see how they lose anybody they want in the future,” Self said. “Bill at Kansas is like giving our armed forces the best tools. He’s the best man who now has the best tools.”

Self has a strong right-hand man in the 38-year-old Roberts, who hails from Queens, N.Y.

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“Kansas is in great recruiting hands. Norm is one of the best in the business,” said Mike Sullivan of rivalshoops.com, which is based on the East Coast.

“Jankovich is very good, too. I’m quite familiar with Norm’s work, being from the New York area,” Sullivan said. “He played a big part in getting Villanueva out of New York. For Illinois to come in the New York area and beat out teams in the East is quite an accomplishment.

“The recruits like him,” Sullivan said of Roberts. “We do polls from time to time and Roberts always comes out as one of the coaches kids trust and like the most.”

Sullivan — he’s also long been an admirer of former KU coach Roy Williams’ work ethic and ability in recruiting — says Williams will not have an easier time recruiting at the ACC school than Self will at Big 12 power KU.

“Roy obviously gives them (Tar Heels) some credibility right off the bat,” Sullivan said, “but those days of picking and choosing are over. People who are fans of UCLA, Kentucky and North Carolina expect to win every recruiting battle. It’s a different recruiting world now.

“Maybe it was true when Dean Smith, (Adolph) Rupp and (John) Wooden coached, but there are so many quality Div. I programs now. There are no dynasties like that. The closest a school has come to picking and choosing the last several years has been Duke and Duke didn’t win this year.

“North Carolina,” Sullivan maintained forcefully, “is not a better program than Kansas. It’s not. Kansas and North Carolina are on equal footing in a lot of ways. Both have names, recognition, traditions and both have done an exceptional job of winning games. This is not a step up for Roy Williams. It is a lateral move but a move he personally felt he needed to make.”

What KU has in Williams’ successor is another relentless recruiter who already has gained major points in the recruiting world by making immediate contact with junior recruits like Marcus Monk, a 6-foot-6, 205-pound guard from Lepanto, Ark., who told analyst Shay Wildeboor of rivals.com Wednesday that he’s already heard from, and is impressed by, KU’s new staff.

“From what I’ve seen of Bill Self and Norm Roberts, Kansas will be in great shape,” Sullivan concluded. “How ironic it would be if Kansas won the national title next year. There’s a chance. People didn’t expect Syracuse to win it this year. Nobody expected that.”

“Oklahoma State’s playing Missouri 12 years ago in Gallagher-Iba (Arena) and Bill is an assistant coach,” Swaim said. “It’s halftime and they are going to the locker room and Cindy (wife) starts going into labor. Bill says, ‘Honey you are going to have to wait. We’re playing Missouri.’ He met her later and they had Lauren,” Swaim laughed of Self’s daughter.

“You people will all love him, Swaim added of Self. “There’s a reason the media dubs him, ‘Hollywood.’ He is glitzy, well-spoken. He sometimes stutters a bit, but it doesn’t look bad on him. It’s a timing thing for him. He’ll tell a one-liner and stutter a bit while everyone is laughing.

“Nothing against Roy Williams, I have the utmost respect for Roy, but I think Bill Self will stay there forever. Bill Self’s heart is in Kansas. It’s at Oklahoma State too, but Oklahoma State is not Kansas. He broke the hearts of many at Oklahoma State when he took the Kansas job. They know they now will never get him, but I tell you what, they understand and are happy for Bill, too.”

“Bill was at my Shootout in Oklahoma City sitting next to Eddie (Sutton),” Swaim said of the Oklahoma State coach. “Bill said, ‘Who is that kid out there?’ It was a kid from Leavenworth, Wayne Simien.

“I told them, ‘Guys, he’s going to Kansas.’ Sure enough he did. Two years ago, there’s a kid dunking on everybody. Roy and Eddie ask, ‘Who is that kid with the headband?’ It’s J.R. Giddens. It’s ironic Bill recruited some of these kids like Simien and Giddens who he’ll now get to coach at Kansas.”

“Without the injury to Sean May, Matt Doherty would be at North Carolina, Roy Williams at Kansas and Bill Self at Illinois,” Sullivan said, noting UNC’s season fell apart after an early-season injury to power forward May. As a result, Doherty was forced out after the season.

“The only thing North Carolina missed was an inside presence. Sean May could score and rebound,” Sullivan added. “A lot of people felt with North Carolina’s schedule, they actually deserved an NCAA bid. With May, they might have won the tournament. You look at the domino effect. It would not have happened had May been healthy.”