Kansas head coach Bill Self talks with media members following the Jayhawks' arrival at the team hotel in Providence, R.I., on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Photo by Nick Krug

Providence, R.I. — Kansas guard Shakeel Moore was planning to make himself available to play for the Jayhawks in their Big 12 tournament quarterfinal matchup against Arizona, but didn’t end up getting into the game.

“(If) you put him in against Arizona and the game doesn’t go well, you may have lost him for the season just by putting him in there,” KU coach Bill Self said on Tuesday of his fifth-year senior guard. “I told him I’d rather he play this weekend, but we don’t know how it’s going to be.”

Indeed, Self described Moore’s status in advance of KU’s first-round NCAA Tournament matchup with Arkansas — set for 6:10 p.m. Central Time on Thursday at Amica Mutual Pavilion — as “day to day.”

“He practiced a little bit on Friday and Saturday and today he practiced less,” Self said. “I’d like to see him get out there. Hopefully he can go some tomorrow and he’ll be available to us at least.”

Moore has spent the season dealing with the repercussions from an offseason fractured ankle that forced him to miss the start of the season and most recently, due to a recent reaggravation, has kept him out of action for the past month.

When he was healthiest — around the time of the Jayhawks’ home game against Arizona State in early January, by his own estimation — he entered the starting lineup and provided a level of athleticism and physicality on defense that helped KU put on some of its stingiest performances of the season.

“When he was starting, that was when we were actually playing our best ball,” Self said on March 8.

He also added that KU had believed “the best thing that happened to Dajuan Harris in the last three years was Shakeel Moore because he would push him every day.”

In any event, Moore had been less effective and received dramatically less playing time over the course of February before he disappeared from the rotation altogether. At the Big 12 tournament, even as he said he would “definitely be available” to play, he was also trying to ensure he could make himself available for March Madness while keeping an eye toward his future prospects in professional basketball.

In the near term, the Jayhawks could certainly use a healthy Moore to help deal with Arkansas’ guards. Moore, along with center Hunter Dickinson and wing Rylan Griffen, did not play in the exhibition at Bud Walton Arena on Oct. 25 in which the Razorbacks’ Boogie Fland and D.J. Wagner combined for 46 of Arkansas’ 85 points.

“If he’s able to play or be close to 100%, it allows us to match up a little bit better athletically,” Self said.

The point guard Wagner has carried a significant load for Arkansas over the course of the season and Fland, who averages 15.1 points per game, is set to return on Thursday after missing two months due to a thumb injury.

“Those guys are big guards, strong guards, 6-3, 6-4, strong, fast,” Self said. “And (Moore’s) not that tall but he certainly can match up physically.”

If Moore, who averages 3.8 points per game and scored a season-high 11 at TCU on Jan. 22, got into a game during the NCAA Tournament, it would be his first action since KU’s loss on the road at BYU on Feb. 18.

Kansas guard Shakeel Moore (0) warms up prior to tipoff against Arizona on Thursday, March 13, 2025 at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. Photo by Nick Krug