Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - 5-Star Bryson Tiller Commits to KU + How He Fits Into the 2025-2026 Kansas Jayhawks

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, Bryson Tiller commits to Kansas. We break down on a bonus episode of the show. What it means is scouting report with KU's newest five-star commit. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Derek Johnson, you can find me on X at DJohnsonRadio. You can find me on Blue Sky at Derek Johnson. And this is Locked On Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:00:35 You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition, bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks, Bryson Tiller keeps the good times rolling for KU basketball on the recruiting trail. Another four- or five-star recruit, I guess, depending where you look, committing to Kansas.

Starting point is 00:00:54 So we're going to get into what happened here, scouting a part on Tiller. I think it'll be an interesting fit with KU, so we'll get into that. And also what it means for KU next season and the class of 2025, which now has three commits over the past, what, two weeks now for KU. So it is really coming in hot and heavy at this point in time. So Bryson Tiller did a video earlier today where he committed on a 24-7 sports like live stream and had a pre-planned video that kind of went into all of that. And I was over the course of the recruiting process. I think at one point in the past episode, I was like, I don't know that I'm buying the Bryson Tiller to Kansas like thing, because

Starting point is 00:01:32 I was just like, I think there were like three visits, maybe, maybe even four. Um, I think a lot of them are like unofficial visits with Tiller and KU. And I was just like, how, how often does a guy keep visiting that often? And he doesn't commit, I guess you could say, well, they keep visiting. So like, there's clearly interest, but it's almost just like, okay, if the first time wasn't good enough, you know, how many more do you need? But maybe in today's day and age of college basketball, there's just more to it. And there's more to it with like the NIL and maybe going back and forth from that perspective. I don't entirely know, by the way, I'm generally curious if anybody clicks into this because of

Starting point is 00:02:04 Bryson Tiller, the singer. So I guess this is good for SEO. But anyway, Tiller, he plays for City Reapers of Overtime Elite, or OTE, as it's called. He was recruited there from high school. He was offered $100,000 to play there. He turned that down, though, to maintain his collegiate eligibility. Now, I don't know now if that's allowed.

Starting point is 00:02:23 I know there's certain states that you can take NIL money, even in high school. It's like, I don't know how that works. I guess that's not NIL money, that's salary. So again, I don't entirely know how that works. But again, he visited KU what felt like three or four times and ends up picking Kansas. He is a six foot, I guess it depends where you look, six foot nine, six foot 10, 240 pound power forward with a giant wingspan. Seven foot three is the listed wingspan. And so that's a real common theme you look at with this KU recruiting class. Darren Peterson, six, five, six foot 10 wingspan. You look at Samis Calderon, who committed to the team earlier this week.

Starting point is 00:02:59 You know, I've seen some places that I've met like seven, two, seven, three. I've seen somewhere else that even mentioned seven, five wingspan. Let's say it's even seven, two. That's still a big wingspan. Then you think about Floyd, but doing that possibly being back as a sophomore next season, when these guys arrive and he's got like a seven, four wingspan,

Starting point is 00:03:12 that's going to be really hard to score inside on the interior on KU with all those guys with wingspans, but it will be interesting to see what position he plays at KU. Is he going to be a four? Is he going to be a five more on that coming up in just a moment on this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode today is brought to you by PrizePix, the best place to get real money sports action. With over 10 million members and billions of dollars in awarded winnings, PrizePix has made daily fantasy sports accessible to all. You just pick more or less on at least two players for a shot to win up to 100

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Starting point is 00:04:51 I continue on this bonus episode of the show. Thank you for your never day or tuning in to each and every show. We'll have a recap for the KU basketball game against Oakland later today. And then the KU BYU recap might come like Sunday morning because that game is happening so late. So we'll wait and see on that. So information on Bryson Tiller, KU's newest commit. 24-7 sports has him 20th as a four-star.

Starting point is 00:05:10 ESPN has him 26th as a four-star. Rivals has him rated 21st overall as a four-star. And then on three, he is 23rd overall there. So you look at it and basically everywhere you have a top 25 commit in the country, right? And so you end up with a kid who on the 24-7 composite, this is weird how this works. A lot of those places are like four stars, but with the composite where it's like factoring in these different things, he does end up being a five star on the 24-7 composite where he is the number five power forward. So I don't know how that entirely works.

Starting point is 00:05:50 But anyway, here's a scouting report from Eric Bossy of 24-7 Sports. I'll just skim some of it. You can find the full scouting report there. One of the most polished frontcourt players in the class, great positional size, and the type of skill you'd want to see in a modern day four man he's capable of operating on the block or facing out to the three-point line makes jump hooks good passer out of the post doesn't get sped up there is range to hit shots beyond 20 feet but sometimes he can settle for jumpers rather than playing to his size

Starting point is 00:06:19 and he's continuing to work on his ball handling and could really flourish if he becomes a more dedicated rebounder. Here's on three scouting report. Bryson Tiller has a strong physically developed frame with good length. He's a good athlete in straight lines, so more of like a straight line runner, not like super agile, I guess you would say. When he plays from the mid post and he has a strong presence, he plays downhill off of one dribble, has a lot of success.

Starting point is 00:06:43 This mentions him being active, high pointing the ball in terms of rebounding. He's a good rebounder and likes to dribble, looking to extend his range a little bit more and more consistently. He's a physical defender, good explosion, but there are questions about lateral movement. So I guess defending in space would be a big question here. For me and some of the highlights that I watched, I would say I was really impressed with the transition dunks. When he gets ahead of steam running in transition, he can throw down a big dunk on you, and obviously it helps to have the size and the wingspan that he has. I really liked his passing field as a big man.

Starting point is 00:07:18 I think there are some similarities, especially if he is going to be a four-man, which you read from some of these scouting reports. You think of what KJ Adams has done. I don't think he's that type of passer, if he is going to be a four man, which you read from some of these scouting reports, you think of like what KJ Adams has done. I don't think he's that type of passer. But I think there are some similarities in terms of being able to have your four man, you know, be a really good passer in terms of what he's going to be able to do with

Starting point is 00:07:37 the offense. So I think there's some similarities there. I thought he could definitely take, like if you had more of a slower big or like more of a traditional big on him, I thought he was really good at like if you had more of a slower big or like more of a traditional big on him, I thought he was really good at off the dribble, especially from the high post, being able to kind of work through that. He was what I thought was an impressive rebounder. And you look at most of his like averages, right?

Starting point is 00:08:06 For the playoffs last year for OT, I think he's been nursing an ankle injury, so I don't think he's played any games this year, but like for the playoffs last year, he averaged 15.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 1.4 blocks at OTE. During the regular season at OTE last year, 12.2 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.6 blocks. Consistently, you're finding 7, 8, 9 rebounds per game from Bryson Tiller. So that's good to see there. I do think a lot of the highlights I watched were, there weren't a lot of like, I don't know, there were a lot of disjointed defenses, I guess would be the way that I would put it. I don't know that it's it's the best league in the world for like real basketball. They have this weird rule where you end up with like transition play and one guy has to like start at the baseline. But like, I guess it shows that you can be good in transition. And he certainly was in that. You know, his team won it all in 2023.

Starting point is 00:08:46 So that's cool. Albeit he had the Thompson twins. That's two lottery picks. That's going to help. I think if you're looking for like a KU comp, you could argue to me, he's like a more physical, much longer version,

Starting point is 00:08:58 but not nearly as refined shooting version of Perry Ellis. Like you see some of the dribble moves of Perry Ellis, I guess some of the spin moves, some of the touch of Perry Ellis, not quite as much touch, not as much shooting as Perry, but he's also longer to make up for it. I think there's actually a lot of, and getting to watch this guy even more during the basketball tournament for the KU team that they put together, Billy Preston.

Starting point is 00:09:21 We never really got to see fully what he was going to be at KU. Got to see him a little bit more during that. I think there are some real shades of Billy Preston from what you get here from in terms of the game. Like, Preston likes to take mid-range jump shots. He can dribble a little bit for a big man. I think Preston

Starting point is 00:09:38 may be a little bit more wing tendencies, but it seems like that's kind of the way things are going in terms of the game for Tiller. Now, at 6'9", 6'10", 240, with that big of a wingspan, he can easily be a five-man in the college game. And I think you'd be successful doing that because if you have a five-man who can dribble it a little bit, has good touch, has the size to be able to do it, and can shoot a little bit, like you look at some of his OT stats, it hasn't happened consistently. He's typically between 20% to 33%, depending on what number you're looking at,

Starting point is 00:10:07 mostly in the high 20s. So he can do it. If that's your five-man, that's great. But if you're going to play him at the four, you probably more so need a five-man like Hunter Dickinson in terms of being able to shoot the ball a little bit. Because basically, if you're going to continue playing this way with two traditional bigs, I guess you would view it as, like one of the four or five needs to be taken like two, three,

Starting point is 00:10:29 threes a game on solid efficiency, in my opinion. So maybe it becomes more ideal for KU to play him at the five, but you think about like next year, if KU has Flory Badunga back, I mean, I guess theoretically like if Flory's playing 25 minutes, there's still 15 minutes to be had at the back of five in that situation. But there's even more minutes to be had at the four at that situation. So you watch some of his tape. He's dribbling.

Starting point is 00:10:56 He's doing this or that. There's a lot of high-ranking big men that want to play like guards. Think of like Carlton Bragg. He wanted to play that way. He wanted to take jump shots. And that never really fully meshed with Bill Self. Obviously, there was some off-the-floor stuff with Carlton Bragg. And I think Tiller is, from everything I've seen,

Starting point is 00:11:14 seems like that stuff's not going to happen. But I don't know. I guess, who knows. But Tiller might think he's more of a 3-4. And, in fact, I found this to be very interesting. I found this quote on On3. He compared himself to liking to play like Jason Tatum. Self probably thinks he's more of a 4-5.

Starting point is 00:11:33 So we're going to see. There could be some head-butting there that could lead over some questions. What's agreeable? What's some clashing? Does it lead to a Bill Self doghouse moment? I don't know. The thing is, we've seen highly rated players. This goes for across the country at KU as well, that don't know the thing is we've seen highly rated players this goes for across

Starting point is 00:11:45 the country at ku as well that don't work sometimes at certain schools and sometimes it's you know just about the fit that the fit wasn't there that um it was trying to shove a square into a a or a round peg into a square hole or something like that and it's it's almost just becomes taking the high rated recruit despite the lack of fit that I think would be the worry here. Now, I don't know what's going to happen there with the position. You could also make the argument that you just take the top talent every

Starting point is 00:12:14 single time and you try to make it work from there. And I don't have a problem with that argument, but in a world where you do almost have to like budget your NIL dollars, that there is a limited amount that you're going to get from your donors every year. And you have to figure out, okay, like if we spend this much money on this guy, that's going to leave us with less money to do this. Maybe it does make more sense to skip over on talent if it's not a good fit roster wise. And so if he's preferring to play the three, four, I do have questions about that. Or if you're going to view him as a four-man for like a majority of the time,

Starting point is 00:12:46 I also have questions about that because I don't love playing two bigs in today's day and age of college basketball. And if there's some questions about him defending in space, how's that going to go if he's a four-man? But again, maybe you can convince him to be more of a four-five. And if that's the case, like if we're just talking about the skill set, if we're just talking about Bryson Tiller in a vacuum, I really like what I saw.

Starting point is 00:13:06 And I think he's very talented and he's a very good talent to work with. And my biggest question just is how smooth of a ride it's going to be between Bill Self and Bryson Tiller. Because I really like the player. I do have some questions about the fit, but we'll wait and see how that kind of works out for KU. All right, this is Locked on Jayhawks. Let's continue on with what it means for the class and KU in 2025. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you

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Starting point is 00:14:54 more of maybe your developmental guy. And so you look at it, there's a lot of length, there's wingspan in this group. Overall, there's a lot of talent coming in. Now you have your big man in addition to your guard. Maybe they go for one more high school recruit. Maybe that would be more of like a spring type of thing. And then the rest is probably going to be like transfer portal. Now, when you look at how this impacts the team for next year, you look at the possible 2025 to 2026 roster. If Bryson Tiller is a four man,

Starting point is 00:15:21 it'd be more about what style would self-play. For instance, like let's say AJ store and Ryland Griffin both come back next year, which I don't know how likely that is, but I don't know. I guess, you know, store isn't having the season so far that you'd hope for that. He'd be able to go off to the NBA, but even if one goes, you'd have a, you'd have a guard like could be a Marco Jackson could be a transfer portal player. You'd have Darren Peterson. You'd have two of possibly like pass be a Marco Jackson, could be a transfer portal player. You'd have Darren Peterson. You'd have two of possibly like Passmore, Griffin, and Storr to play the three and the

Starting point is 00:15:49 four, which means you'd have one starting true big and center Flory Badunga. So it's possible that like a bunch of players go pro or leave or whatever. And then you start Tiller next to Flory. Does that work though? Because Flory is not a shooter. Tiller, like we said, can shoot a little bit better in the mid range than from three, but he's still working on the consistency and the percentages haven't been great. And if you have questions about Tiller in terms of his agility,

Starting point is 00:16:13 do you want him guarding wings at the four in some of those matchups? And so do you end up just playing Tiller as a backup five to Flory where Flory gives you a 22 to 25 minutes a game and Tiller gives you the rest, or maybe Tiller gives you 10 minutes as a backup five and he gives you some minutes of the backup four and you play him next to even if Zach Clements is back for another year, but could you have a lineup with Tiller and Clements where we have one as more of the shooter, even though I'd have questions about the foot speed defense there. So either way, I would assume that Tiller is going to get minutes at both the four and the five, but if they return all three of Ryland Griffin, AJ Stewart, and Rakeese Passmore, that's more wing minutes, and I think it behooves Kansas to play more players at the three-four

Starting point is 00:16:53 in that situation. Now, if they lose one or if they add another one in the transfer portal, that could change things, but there definitely right now seems to be minutes available in some capacity, right? It might not be 30 minutes a game, but I definitely envision Tiller being a rotation player next year for KU as things stand in some form or fashion. But it'll just be interesting to see what exactly that role is and if there is any grinding of gears between the two parties to figure it out. But if they can figure it out, like I said earlier, this is a very talented player that could turn into an absolute stud for KU down the road. That'll do it for this long episode of our bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back later today for a KU Oakland recap.

Starting point is 00:17:33 This has been Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - 5-Star Bryson Tiller Commits to KU + How He Fits Into the 2025-2026 Kansas Jayhawks

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