Why did Zach Clemence decide to return to Kansas?
During the first two years of his career at Kansas, Zach Clemence, in 44 games, averaged 1.8 points and 1.6 rebounds per game. Offensively, he shot 35.1 percent from the field, 25.0 percent from behind the arc, and 45.7 percent from the free-throw line.
At the conclusion of his sophomore year, Clemence, the 6-foot-10, 230-pound forward from San Antonio, Texas, ultimately decided to throw his name into the transfer portal in-order to look for a new school to call home.
Clemence eventually committed to UC Santa Barbara, but never made the move to California. Instead, he went back home to San Antonio to spend time with his family. Just when it looked like his time in Lawrence was behind him, Clemence is back on campus and, in short, has returned to the place where it all started.
“Yeah, Zach got back last night,” said Kansas head coach Bill Self on Tuesday afternoon. “He got on campus this morning. If you guys are curious at all, I had a conversation last week with Zach. He contacted me and we were discussing, you know, all things going on with him, you know, his future, transferring, you know, all this stuff. And, he asked me, would it be a possibility if he could return? And we discussed what we both thought would be best for his future basketball-wise. And, I feel really good about our roster. I mean, Zach's not gonna come in and impact the guys that we recruited in a way that we have told them how we were going to utilize them.
“And Zach's thinking was, it would be in his best interest to, in a perfect world, to redshirt and help us every day in practice and allow himself an opportunity to grow and get better,” he added. “Just to 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 wasn't happy with this, you know, totally content with the decision he's made, and I know he feels good about it.”
A member of the 2021 class, Clemence, the No. 50 ranked player in that class, committed to Kansas after receiving serious interest from the likes of Arkansas, Baylor, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, Vanderbilt, and others.
A Kansas fan growing up, Clemence was expected to play a major role early on in his career, but struggled to find his place on the court during his first two years in Lawrence. The potential to play immediately this season was on the table, but Clemence felt it would be best to redshirt this next season and prepare to play a major role the following year.
“Yes,” said Self when asked if Clemence is eligible to play this season instead of taking a redshirt. “He never transferred. He never left. He was just home in San Antonio and school hadn't started out there yet, so he never stepped foot on anyone else's campus.
“Yes,” he added when asked if Clemence can practice with the team. “Yea, he's, he's a normal guy. As a matter of fact, I hope he's able to practice today.”
When asked specially about Clemence returning, Self simply said he never envisioned this happening.
“I didn't envision this happening with Zach,” said Self. “It caught me totally off guard when he reached out to speak about this. You know, we loved Zach when he was here. You know, it didn't work out for him from a playing time standpoint, and I think there's multiple reasons why that didn't happen. When he made the decision to leave, Hunter (Dickinson) wasn't here yet, but Zuby (Ejiofor) and Ernest (Udeh, Jr.) were. You know, he's thinking, well, I didn't play ahead of those guys this year, or I was kind of co-player with those guys this year. And, he wanted a bigger role.
“And, when we got Hunter, obviously, you know, as long as he's healthy, people are gonna have a lesser role from a minute standpoint,” he added. “So, we had two leave and then that opened up the opportunity for Zach to say, well, if I can just practice and get better and learn this year, I think I could be a better player at age 23 than I am at age 22. And that's basically what it came down to.”