Kansas men's basketball coach Bill Self will miss NCAA tournament ...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Kansas men’s basketball will be without head coach Bill Self for its NCAA tournament opener Thursday against 16-seed Howard.

Although assistant coach Norm Roberts and players have detailed how Self has returned to practice after missing the Big 12 Conference tournament due to health reasons, the recovery process is still ongoing. It’ll mean Self will miss a fourth-straight game. And it means the earliest Self could return would be Saturday in the round of 32, against either 8-seed Arkansas or 9-seed Illinois, if the 1-seed Jayhawks are able to win Thursday and Self’s health allows that.

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"Kansas Men’s Basketball Coach Bill Self will miss today’s NCAA Tournament game versus Howard but continues to progress well from a recent health issue,” a KU release stated. “Assistant Coach Norm Roberts will serve as acting head coach today.”

So far this season, Kansas has played seven games with Roberts filling in for Self. In those games, Roberts and the Jayhawks have gone 6-1. The only loss came in the Big 12 tournament championship game against Texas.

That Roberts is in this position again doesn't come as too much of a surprise. Roberts has described Self's status as day-to-day. And so, Self not being available Thursday while also recently being able to be around the team since he was discharged from the University of Kansas Health System on Sunday falls in line with that.

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.