Doc Sadler is back on KU Jayhawks’ men’s basketball coaching staff, this time as analyst

Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self walked through the dimly-lit lobby of the luxurious Fairmont El San Juan Hotel on Tuesday night, moments after enjoying a team dinner in the building’s ballroom.

To Self’s left, filing past an easy-listening artist playing in the lounge, was current KU director of student-athlete development and former Jayhawks assistant coach Joe Dooley.

To Self’s right was another longtime friend and Kansas staff member, Doc Sadler — whom, The Star was told, has rejoined the KU coaching staff as an analyst.

“The whole team made it here and this old guy made it, too,” 21st-year KU coach Self said with a smile, referring to both Sadler and the 2023-24 Jayhawks.

The KU team’s commercial flights were on schedule Tuesday morning and afternoon, assuring a mid-afternoon arrival to San Juan, Puerto Rico, site of three upcoming exhibition games on the Jayhawks’ current summer hoops tour — a tour allowed by the NCAA once every four years.

Sadler, 63, is beginning his second stint on Self’s KU coaching staff. He previously worked for KU during the 2012-13 season as director of basketball operations.

Sadler left KU for Iowa State in May of 2013 when Sadler was hired as a full-time assistant on Fred Hoiberg’s Cyclone coaching staff.

Sadler was head coach at Southern Mississippi from 2014-19, then returned to join Hoiberg as an assistant, this time at Nebraska, from 2019-22. He worked at Oklahoma during the 2022-23 season as special adviser to head coach Porter Moser.

The Greenwood, Arkansas, native also has worked as a head coach at Nebraska (2006-12), UTEP (2004-06) and Arkansas-Fort Smith (1998-03).

Dooley, by the way, returned to KU as director of student-athlete development for the 2022-23 season and has remained on Self’s coaching staff in the same role this season.

The Jayhawks were to practice at a high school in San Juan Wednesday in preparation for Thursday’s exhibition against the Puerto Rico Select Team. Tipoff is set for 11 a.m. Central Time at Ruben Rodriguez Coliseum in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, about a 30-minute drive from San Juan.

KU will meet the Bahamian National Team at 4 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. Monday at the same venue. There is a chance NBA players Eric Gordon, Klay Thompson, Kai Jones, Buddy Hield, Deandre Ayton and former Kansas guard Remy Martin will play for the Bahamian team.

KU also will practice Friday and Sunday.

The games will be broadcast on the Jayhawk radio network. There will be no TV broadcast of the games.