Bill Self has been cheating his arse off, we all know that. But to say KU chokes every year is just not accurate. He's been to the E8 or better in 8 of 16 seasons (if you exclude this season) although he's been knocked out in the first or second round 6 times. So his teams are usually boom or bust in the post season. We seem to accept E8's as successful seasons here now. Self has been more successful in the regular season whereas Cal has been better in the post season. But I will say the regular season means as much to me as the post season if we want to keep the all time wins lead. I don't think we'll ever catch UCLA in titles because I don't think Cal wins another with his current model unless he tweaks his roster management.
I am happy with a F4 season every other year if we want to keep calling ourselves the gold standard as Cal likes to say. But we haven't been to one in 5 years now so it's past time.