After announcing transfer to UC Santa Barbara, Zach Clemence will return to KU Jayhawks
.jpg "Kansas Jayhawks forward Zach Clemence (21) celebrates after scoring during the first half against the Oklahoma Sooners at Allen Fieldhouse on Jan. 10, 2023.")
Zach Clemence — who entered the NCAA transfer portal on March 22, just four days after Kansas’ season-ending loss to Arkansas, and chose UC Santa Barbara as his transfer destination on May 3 — in a sudden about-face has decided to return to KU.
Clemence, a 6-foot-10, 230-pound junior from San Antonio, Texas, who played sparingly in two seasons at KU, in fact was set to practice with the Jayhawks on Tuesday afternoon following a Bill Self news conference set up to discuss the upcoming NBA Draft to include KU’s Gradey Dick and Jalen Wilson.
KU coach Self said Clemence will redshirt this season while continuing to be on scholarship. He is actually eligible to play in games because he never enrolled at Santa Barbara and didn’t begin summer school classes or workouts there.
“Zach got back last night. He got on campus this morning,” Self reported Tuesday. “I had a conversation last week with Zach. Last week he contacted me, discussing all things going on with him, him transferring, all this stuff. He asked me, would it be a possibility if he could return. We discussed what we both thought would be best for his future basketball wise.”
He continued.
“I feel good about our roster,” Self added. “Zach will not come in and impact the guys we recruited (related to how) we told them ... we were going to utilize them. Zach’s thinking was it would be in his best interest in a perfect world to redshirt and help us every day in practice, allow himself an opportunity to help him grow and get better, see how that takes him to a place where he can be a major contributor at this level at some point in time.
“I think it’s a good decision if he was not totally content with the decision he made (leaving in first place). I know he feels good about it.”
KU now has 11 players on scholarship, including bigs Hunter Dickinson and Parker Braun. Self said KU could sign one more player.
“If there is an opportunity to recruit somebody to make us better I’m totally open to it,” he said.
Clemence averaged 1.4 points and 1.3 rebounds in 2022-23, his sophomore season at KU. He missed three games early in the season because of concussion-like symptoms.
He also had a knee injury midway through the Big 12 season. In fact after injuring his knee at Iowa State on Feb. 4, Clemence appeared in just three games the rest of the season. He played nine minutes in the final 13 games of the Jayhawks’ season.
