Bill Self confirms Kansas will redshirt Jamari McDowell in 2024-2025

Kansas coach Bill Self confirmed after Monday night’s season-opening win against Howard that sophomore guard Jamari McDowell will redshirt this season.

“He actually wants to,” the coach said according Henry Greenstein of the Lawrence Journal-World.

McDowell appeared in 31 games for the Jayhawks as a true freshman in 2023-24. He averaged 1.8 points and 1.2 rebounds across 7.2 minutes per game.

As a recruit, McDowell was a four-star prospect out of Manvel (TX) High School. He ranked as the No. 97 overall player and No. 22 small forward in the 2023 cycle according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

McDowell did play 14 minutes in an exhibition game against Arkansas last month, finishing with two points, four rebounds and one assist. Although the guard will redshirt this season, Self still likes what he sees out of McDowell.

“I think Jamari is a terrific blend guy,” Self told the Kansas City Star. “I think he can fit in and make the other guys on the team be better because he’s comfortable with what we are doing and he understands. He’s really improved a ton. He didn’t get a chance to do a lot the other night, but … he’s a winner first and foremost.

Even without Jamari McDowell playing, 14 players saw the court for Kansas in the 87-57 win over the Bison. Guard Zeke Mayo led the team with 19 points on 5-of-18 shooting from 3-point range.

The Jayhawks move on to face North Carolina in a battle of blue bloods on Friday.

Bill Self reveals he never contemplated leaving Kansas amid NCAA investigation

Bill Self has helped to continue on the very proud basketball tradition for the Kansas Jayhawks. He’s one of the best developers of talent in the game. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t faced lots of adversity during his tenure there, including the exhausting NCAA investigation the Jayhawks survived. 

Luckily, Self and his staff avoided any sort of major penalties following the investigation, but they still had to deal with a number of significant recruiting limitations. Recently on The Field of 68 podcast with Jeff Goodman, Self revealed that he never contemplated leaving Lawrence during the investigation.

“No, no, no. I would have never thought that,” Self explained. “Until we got through it. Never entered my mind until we got through it. What was so disappointing to me was the narrative which I thought was not only unfair to me. And to our program and to coaches, but others as well. That’s not associated with Kansas.”

“The narrative that the NCAA, in my opinion, tried to create to offset what the FBI had come up with at that particular time. I think there’d be some people that would agree with me on that. But dealing with the unknown when you’ve got a muzzle on your mouth where you can’t speak about it. Or whatever the narrative people want to talk about is the narrative and you can’t defend it,” Self continued.

On3’s Wade Peery contributed to this report.