As an 11-year member of the Lawrence community with two children who graduated from Free State High, Bill Self follows the fortunes of Lawrence’s two high schools closely.

As such, Kansas University’s basketball coach has an opinion on the recent unexpected, unexplained firing of Lawrence High hoops coach Mike Lewis.

“Hey, I am not picking sides. I liked coach Lewis a ton,” Self told the Journal-World Tuesday when asked for his take on the situation.

“Usually when things like this (firing) are done, they are done with the thinking that there’s a definite reason for dismissal. From what I understand, there’s no smoking gun. The administration has said there’s no smoking gun. Coach Lewis has expressed there’s no smoking gun. If that’s true, this probably has something to do with basketball,” Self added.

“If it’s from a technical standpoint, maybe I should be concerned because, hey, we run a lot of the same stuff as LHS and have a lot of the same philosophies on some things. I hope that’s not it.”

LHS went 17-5 last season.

“If there’s nothing else, is it about basketball?” Self repeated. “If that’s the case, maybe I should be worried because our philosophies are very similar.”