OPINION

By Mike DeCourcy

updated 9:26 p.m. ET April 10, 2008

Mike DeCourcy

Now that he has his national title, Bill Self had no reason to care if you wished to speculate on his future. It did not interfere with Kansas' pursuit of the NCAA championship, so go ahead and debate this all you want.

You're wasting your time, though. It was obvious he wasn't going anywhere but home to his estate in Lawrence -- and, at some point, into athletic director Lew Perkins' office to discuss the feasibility of a contract extension and raise. (He's going to want a big one.)

Self was well aware Oklahoma State wanted to bring him back to coach at the university he attended and from which he earned two degrees, where he met his wife, where he played and earned four varsity letters, where he ignited his coaching career. He is well aware it will be an offer unlike any college coach has received.

The only obstacle to his remaining at Kansas, though, would have been KU deciding it had no strong desire to keep him. How long are the odds against that? It's certainly less likely than a basketball team rallying from nine points behind with 2:12 left in a championship game.

When Self told me last week, "My intentions are to be at Kansas, period," the nature of the offer that would be presented by Oklahoma State -- a $3.5 million annual salary, plus a $6 million signing bonus, according to The Tulsa World -- had not been made public. But he knew. Of course he knew. Just about everyone in basketball has known for months that Oklahoma State likely would remove Sean Sutton and throw all the money it could lift at Self. The only surprise was that the university waited so long to initiate the change.

The media, of course, hear what they want to hear.

Self says: "I'm sure that when this week is over, Lew and I will iron everything out." They hear: It's still open for him to leave KU.

He says, "I would answer the phone. " They hear: You can't overstate the importance of going home.

He says: "If they were to ask me what they should do, I would suggest they move in a different direction." They hear: He didn't say no.

What fun would it be to consider this process rationally?

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What they should hear is this: Self is, relative to his peers, dramatically underpaid. His contract base is about $1.4 million. That's well short of Indiana's Tom Crean, Louisville's Rick Pitino, Michigan State's Tom Izzo and Kentucky's Billy Gillispie, among others. Self coaches at the Big 12 school where basketball is most prominent, but he is not the highest-paid coach in the league. Incentives will push Self's pay to at least $1.8 million this year, so he's doing fine, but he's not stupid. He's got an enormous amount of leverage here, and he's not going to discard it until he understands what KU's intentions might be.

Perkins is no fool, either. He has built one of the most impressive athletic departments in the nation. KU played in the Final Four and a BCS bowl. If Perkins were to lose Self now for choosing not to pay him the going rate for an elite coach at a prestige school, how would that play?

But Self and Kansas struck a deal, just as Florida and Billy Donovan did last season. His paycheck will grow, and he will not have to abandon the program he has built at Kansas to make that happen. It took Self a long time to put himself in position where he could enjoy the fruits of a championship season. He is not going to run away from that even if the road out of town is paved with $100 bills -- unless he is chased.

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