This transfer doesn’t figure to be a big part of the 2025 team
Bill Self has picked up another transfer, according to 247 Sports, and this time it’s possible (though not set in stone) it will be the last roster addition of the offseason.
Most of this year’s transfers are “win now” guys. You get players AJ Storr and Zeke Mayo to come in and help make a push for the Final Four right away, playing alongside the trend G5|more experienced players and bolstering their chances to play up to their ability. Noah Shelby, a 6’3 guard however, is two years into his career and has yet to really prove he’s ready to play at a level where he could become a valuable piece of the Kansas rotation.
Shelby does come in as a player with some accolades coming out of high school in the 2022 class. He was a 4 star recruit per 247 Sports, and played his freshman year at Vandy before taking a step down to the mid major ranks at Rice.
In two years at two different levels of competition, Shelby has yet to put his game together and live up to his ranking as a HS prospect. For that reason, and with Shelby only having two years of eligibility remaining, it’s already widely rumored (if not outright assumed) that Shelby will be redshirted, hoping he can spend a year improving by practicing under the best coach in basketball, playing against some elite talent, and come out next year ready to contribute in what would be his junior year at that point.
Shelby, despite playing lower competition in the AAC at Rice, actually took a step back between his freshman and sophomore years as he took on a bigger role with a few extras minutes. At Vandy, Shelby played sparingly as a true freshman, making it dangerous to try and extrapolate meaningful insight into his game from the numbers. In his sophomore year at Rice, he played in 29 games but still wasn’t getting big minutes. As a 6’3 shooting guard, he’s never blocked a shot at the collegiate level, though he figured out how to get a few steals here and there at Rice.
Offensively, Bill Self has his work cut out for him in trying to make Shelby a contributor. For a player typically referred to as a combo guard, he really hasn’t shown much ability to make plays for others. Unfortunately, he also struggles to make plays for himself. Last year he shot a poor 30.8% from three, and a downright awful 38.5% from two, and managed to do it without drawing fouls to make up for it. His ORtg last year was an abysmal 90.8, despite not playing major conference competition. He doesn’t turn the ball over much, and if you watch his highlights you’ll see a guy with the potential to play very well if and when he figures it out.
When shopping for transfers, news of a new commit is always going to generate excitement, but in this case it’s just a move for the future, allowing the coaching staff some time to figure out if they can unlock the talent he showed that had him getting scholarship offers from programs like Auburn, Baylor, Texas, and yes, our own Kansas Jayhawks.
The simple message here is that this is a player likely to redshirt and play under close observation from the staff as they determine if he can be an asset to the team for his remaining 2 years of eligibility. If he looks great out of the gate, the Jayhawks will get some extra depth at guard. Most likely though, this move is for the future, taking a small risk on a guy who looked like he had the skills to succeed coming out of HS.
Time will tell, but Self had the scholarship available and no doubt still sees what he saw when he offered Shelby a scholarship two years ago. If Shelby just doesn’t have it, he can move on again through the portal at the end of the season. If he does have a skill set Self can unlock, KU will have some fairly experienced (and well-traveled) depth at the guard position with Dajuan Harris playing his last year of college basketball. This is a pickup where we likely just won’t know how what he’ll get out of him for another year. Hopefully he ends up showing every bit of the potential that scouts saw from him before he came to college.