KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Big 12 coaches and teams are opponents on the court but allies in every other facet of life.

Kansas men’s basketball head coach Bill Self was hospitalized on Wednesday night with an illness and will miss the remainder of the Big 12 tournament.

University of Kansas Health System Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steve Stites said Self underwent a standard procedure that went well and he is expected to make a full recovery.

In turn, coaches from around the conference gave some thoughts about Self and how the coaches must always take care of themselves in a high-stress job.

“As coaches, we talk to young people about taking care of their bodies and their health all the time, and we probably don’t live that as well ourselves,” Oklahoma State head coach Michael Boynton said.

“But there’s no doubt that just some of the things that add to coaches not having great health outside of their physical, mental health and then certainly sometimes even the physical. So we are thinking of him but we also have a great league of coaches who support one another and I think that helps.”

“Certainly want to wish him the best,” Iowa State head coach TJ Otzelberger said. “For all of us, it takes a lot out of everybody. There’s a lot of time demands and you hope that everybody is doing everything they can. And you wish everybody the best. But you also know it takes its toll. We’ll continue to keep Coach in our thoughts and prayers and hope that he’s able to be healthy and return soon.”

“We are all prayerful. At the end of the day, we’re blessed to play a game and God lets us do what we’re passionate about. Life is short and winning the game of life is the most important thing,” Baylor head coach Scott Drew said.

“There are times when you really don’t have any choice and I went through that. I had no choice,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said. “I was in a hospital with a whole bunch of tubes and somebody coming in every seemed like every 15 minutes and sticking me with something. I want Bill to get well, I want to say as soon as he can but really I think what I need to say or mean to say is that I want him to come out of there the way he’s always been.”

“With him not being here it brought us together even more through the adversity we’ve been through the entire season,” Kansas forward Jalen Wilson said. “That makes us come together more and play as a team. It’s bigger than us. We played for our entire family across Kansas and just another moment to prove how tight this group is and no matter what’s going on the outside noise, that we’re a team and we’re family.”

“Just coming together through it all and Coach Self would obviously want that,” Kansas forward Gradey Dick said. “He’s always preaching next man up and in this case it was coach. It’s kind of a little similar to the start of the season. It’s a little more serious now with Coach Self, but we’re here and it’s all good and just pray for him.”

“We talked last night. I don’t know exact times and those things because I was over here scouting and everything too. But when we found out we didn’t really let the guys know anything really until this morning because nothing was concrete on what was gonna happen,” KU Assistant Coach Norm Roberts said. “Our guys understand that and I told those older guys you gotta lock in and be focused. Yiung guys just understand that this is NCAA tournament, Big 12 tournament time, and everybody had got to be locked in and those guys did that.”

“Coach is doing good. He’s doing good. I talked to him on the phone. He’s doing well. He already wants to watch film and all that so he’s doing great.”