photo by: AP Photo/Mitch Alcala

Kansas head coach Bill Self stands on the baseline in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Oklahoma State, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, Stillwater, Okla.

Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self on Friday afternoon pushed back on some aspects of a report from the Tulsa World that suggested he “seriously considered” an offer to become the head coach at Oklahoma State last March.

Self said he has spoken to OSU every time there has been an opening in their head coaching position since Eddie Sutton left in 2006, “not necessarily about hiring me but about — could be names, or what I thought needed to happen in order for OSU to compete in this league at a high level. So yeah, I did talk to them.”

“I did talk to them and my administration knew that I talked to them,” he added. “But it wasn’t near to the point of what was presented in the article, at least the way it was presented to me after other people have read it.”

Tulsa World columnist Berry Tramel had written on Friday morning, citing OSU sources, that “Cowboy decision-makers grew increasingly confident that Self was impressed with the organization of the plan his alma mater had produced and was intrigued at the package, complete with competitive salary and budget to pay players in this new professional age of college basketball.”

Self refuted most strongly a portion of Tramel’s article that suggested that for “a couple of days last spring, Self holed up in a lodge at Karsten Creek,” a golf club just outside Stillwater, Oklahoma.

“I have ‘holed up’ in Stillwater before, but it’s only been the night before that we’ve actually played a game,” Self said. “I haven’t been to Stillwater and spent a night in the last 20 years … Maybe I did 15 years ago or something at some point in time at a reunion or something, but I haven’t been there unless my team is staying there. So that is totally inaccurate.”

Self is an Edmond, Oklahoma, native and OSU alum who played four years with the Cowboys and later served on their coaching staff under Leonard Hamilton and later Sutton for seven more seasons. He became KU’s head coach in 2003.

Last spring, the Cowboys ultimately hired a different sitting head coach, Western Kentucky’s Steve Lutz, on April 1. OSU sits at 13-13 overall and 5-10 in league play and will visit Allen Fieldhouse to take on the Jayhawks on Saturday at 3 p.m.

“I think that they got the right guy,” Self said, later adding that he believes OSU has great people in place and he wishes them success as long as it doesn’t come at KU’s expense.

OSU and its then-athletic director Mike Holder previously tried to hire Self away from the Jayhawks in 2008. Shortly after winning the national title and meeting with Holder at a Shawnee hotel, Self turned down the gig and stayed with KU, while receiving a contract extension, with facility upgrades pending. As he said at the time, “Home called. And we love home. But this is home now.”

“I talked to them more seriously in 2008,” he said on Friday. “… There’s a big difference (between) talking and then actual interest and considering.”

Self prior to the start of the 2023-24 campaign signed an amended lifetime contract at KU that gave him the opportunity to make about $53 million over the course of the following five seasons.