Why KU coach Bill Self is redshirting just one player during the 2025-26 season
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Bill Self announced Corbin Allen will redshirt 2025-26, practicing but not playing games.
- Redshirt preserves Allen’s four remaining seasons of NCAA eligibility.
- Self cited NIL, transfer risk and prefers on-court evaluation over blanket redshirts.
Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self has finalized his decision to redshirt just one player, former Oak Park High School standout guard Corbin Allen, during the 2025-26 season.
Allen, a 6-foot-5 two-time DiRenna Award winner, will be the only Jayhawk to practice but not be eligible to play in games, Self stated after Monday’s 94-51 season-opening victory over Green Bay at Allen Fieldhouse.
It had been a likely scenario since May, when Allen committed to KU, that he’d take the redshirt path. After this season, he’ll have four remaining years of eligibility.
Self did not mention any names of players who might have been considering using this as solely a developmental season.
He did explain the reason that just one player is redshirting.
“In today’s world with the NIL and all that stuff, you redshirt somebody and they could just as easily be transferring, going somewhere else next year,” Self said Monday in his postgame news conference.
“I’d like to kind of see what we’ve got in many ways. If it’s best for them over time to redshirt them, I totally get it, but if it’s a coin flip, right now, I think I’ll err on the side of playing them more so than maybe what I have in the past.”
A year ago, forward Zach Clemence was granted a medical redshirt after getting injured early in the season. He also had redshirted the 2023-24 campaign after first entering the transfer portal, then deciding on a developmental year at KU.
Guard Elmarko Jackson also redshirted for medical reasons last season, while guards Jamari McDowell and Noah Shelby redshirted for developmental reasons. Freshman forward Bryson Tiller arrived at KU at semester a year ago and redshirted second semester as he recovered from injury.
Both Shelby and Clemence entered the portal after the season and are now at Texas A&M. Clemence started, scoring two points with five rebounds in A&M’s 98-68 season-opening win over Northwestern State on Monday. He had scored 20 points with seven rebounds off the bench in a recent 95-88 exhibition victory against Arizona State. Shelby did not play in either game.
“Zach Clemence last year ... Zach pulled his groin and didn’t play and it was in his best interest not to play. There’s no doubt about that. That was the best interest for him,” Self said. “But you know, looking back now, should we have (kept him eligible to enter games)? He was never 100%, so he really couldn’t be out there. But that’s a tough decision now, knowing that you redshirt a guy, there’s a 50/50 chance he’s going to probably leave anyway. So you’re not going to get the benefit of coaching them another year.”
Other scholarship players to redshirt at KU in recent seasons: Kyle Cuffe (2021-22; then had a medical redshirt the following season); Jalen Wilson (2019-20, medical reasons); Mitch Lightfoot (2019-20) and Dajuan Harris (2019-20 for academic reasons).
It should be noted in NCAA football a player can compete in as many as four games during the season and still redshirt. In basketball, a player can play in the exhibition season, then a redshirt decision must be made. Fifteen of 16 players on the KU roster entered the game Monday, making it clear nobody else will redshirt the season.
“I wish we had — the football rule is crazy, because you get four games and they can be any time during the season. I wish they would give us a chance to maybe get a few games, even if it’s in the first half of the season, that we could actually put guys out there and see where they’re at,” Self said in October.
As far as Allen … originally on Nov. 21, 2024, he chose San Diego over Kansas City, North Dakota State, Ball State, Murray State and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Eventually he decommitted and was recruited by KU, Oklahoma State and others.
Allen shared the DiRenna Award, which is presented to the top player in the KC area, after the 2024-25 season with Keaton Wagler of SM Northwest. Allen was the sole recipient of the honor his junior year.
“Corbin will be a nice addition to our program. He had a great high school career at Oak Park and has been well‑coached by our own Kansas alum, Sherron Collins,” Self said after Allen signed with KU. “We feel Corbin can be a contributor in time, and we look forward to helping him develop and watching his progress.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 7:07 PM.
