Nov 15, 2023; Austin, Texas, USA; Rice Owls guard Noah Shelby (1) looks to pass the ball during the second half against the Texas Longhorns at Moody Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-USA TODAY Sports / Scott Wachter-USA TODAY Sports
After the portal acquisitions of Zeke Mayo, AJ Storr, and Rylan Griffen, Bill Self has again added to his roster, this time with an eye to the future.
The most notable addition is guard Noah Shelby, who recently announced that he will join the Kansas basketball team and immediately redshirt in 2024-2025. Shelby is a six foot three guard who played last season at Rice after one year at Vanderbilt.
Shelby was a top prospect coming out of high school, consistently ranked in the top 125 when he settled on Vanderbilt in the fall of 2022. Prior to that, he was a former AAU teammate of Kansas newcomer Rylan Griffen. He only played 14 games at Vandy before entering the portal and moving to Rice. Shelby averaged 3.9 points per game last season, starting just one game for the Owls but seeing playing time in 31 games overall.
He will be eligible to practice with Kansas this season, adding a high caliber player to the practice squad.
Kansas also added Will Thengvall as a walk-on for this upcoming season. Thengvall was a star in the Kansas high school ranks, averaging 17.6 points and 7.8 rebounds at Kapuan Mt. Carmel in Wichita on his way to a first team All-Metro selection. He was also named the Kansas 5A Player of the Year this past season. Overall, he’s a skilled guy who will help in practice immediately.
It doesn’t take a genius to see what Bill Self is doing with this roster. The starting lineup and key players are practically set, but more on that in a minute. Now, Self can trot out a team of walk ons that could be playing minutes on other division one teams to go up against any combination of regular rotation players that KU has. Practices are going to be brutal. This is in stark contrast to what they could do last season, as it seemed that Kansas had more walk-ons and redshirts than actual scholarship players. This almost certainly became a reality as the injuries mounted.
Kansas will most likely add one more player to its scholarship roster, either a returning Johnny Furphy (possible but unlikely) or another transfer target (Jaxon Robinson of BYU has been a hot name of late). Kansas is going to be loaded at every key position, and with the additions of Shelby and Thengvall, practices just got a whole lot tougher as well.
