Rakease Passmore, Zach Clemence status updates: Bill Self gives latest on two Kansas players

The Kansas Jayhawks are looking to get healthy for the final stretch of the season. That starts with getting a pair of depth players, Rakease Passmore and Zach Clemence, back as quickly as possible.

Ahead of Kansas’ next game against the Colorado Buffaloes on Tuesday, head coach Bill Self shared an update on Rakease Passmore and Zach Clemence. That started with Passmore, who missed the team’s recent trip to the Kansas State Wildcats with the flu.

“He’s got the flu after he got his concussion,” Bill Self said. “So, whether or not he’ll be available tomorrow night remains to be seen, but yeah, the poor kid came back and was back in practice one, maybe two, days and then he got the flu.”

Rakease Passmore is a freshman guard who came to Kansas as a four-star recruit in the Class of 2024, according to the On3 Industry Ranking. He’s been limited in 15 games this season for the Jayhawks, playing about 5.6 minutes per game. Now, the hope is that he will be able to return relatively soon.

Unfortunately, Bill Self has a much less positive update on Zach Clemence. The forward still isn’t ready to play in games.

“I think Zach’s closer to being able to practice some,” Self said. “I don’t think he’s close to being able to play in a game yet, and he’s been cleared to do some things in practice, but he’s not at the point where he can go every day.”

Clemence hasn’t played since December 14th against NC State. He suffered a groin injury, which has now clearly proven to be tricky for the talented forward to come back from. With that, he’s only played in eight games this season, hurting Kansas’ depth off the bench in the process.

Self will look to get Kansas back on track against Colorado. The Jayhawks dropped their last game against Kansas State, which represented their third loss in five games, and dropped Kansas to just 7-5 and fifth place in the Big 12 standings. That led to Self admitting that Kansas isn’t in the conference title race.

“I’ll pay attention to the race. We’re not in it to win it,” Self said. “We’ve got five losses now. So even if we were to win out, I don’t think you’re going to have two teams lose four times. So, no, I, I’m not looking at it like that. But I am looking at it as, not trying to minimize anything the way the college world is today in basketball, it’s the same way in football.”

Kansas can begin building momentum for the postseason with a win over Colorado, even if they’ll still be on the outside looking in at the regular season race.