Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - 5-Star Bryson Tiller Enrolling Early for KU + Tulsa OL Jack Tanner Transferring to Kansas Football

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, Bryson Tiller is enrolling early for KU and the Jayhawks land another transfer portal splash with Tulsa offensive lineman Jack Tanner. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, Derek Johnson here. This is Locked On Jayhawks. You can tune into our show anywhere you get your podcasts and on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe.

Starting point is 00:00:35 Thank you to every day who's catching each and every show. Thank you for making it your first listen every day. And on today's edition of LOJ, we're going to be breaking down Bryson Tiller, the five-star big man that KU has originally was set to be in the class of 2025. He's going to be joining the team early

Starting point is 00:00:51 at semester here for the remainder of this season. We'll break that down. KU football added another transfer portal pickup with Jack Tanner, an offensive lineman from Tulsa, and some of the contracts came out for KU's newest assistant coach's hires, including a new assistant coach with Brandon Shelby. I think it's interesting the money KU has made them, showing the investment they have in the program. So we'll get to that on today's episode of the show, which is all brought to you by FanDuel Sports.

Starting point is 00:01:19 So you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place $5, and you'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. All you got to do is visit FanDuel.com and you can get started today. So let's start with the basketball news. Bryson Tiller, the five-star recruit for KU, he committed to the Jayhawks a couple weeks ago. I don't know, maybe it was a month ago at this point in time. He's going to be joining the Jayhawks that semester to finish the 2024 to 2025 season. And the idea here, according to Gary Bedore with the Kansas City Stars, that he's going to redshirt when he joins the program. Now, you know, I guess hypothetically, we've seen it before.

Starting point is 00:02:02 A player joins mid-semester, you think of a big man in Silvio De Sousa, KU makes the Final Four, where KU was, this year you're much better off with depth, big position. Hypothetically, if somebody were to go down, could you rip the red shirt? I don't know, I guess it's entirely at 21st on Rivals, 29th on ESPN, and then 20th on 24-7 Sports. If you look at the 24-7 composite, he is a five-star that is ranked 21st nationally. By the way, very weird. He's a four-star on all of those four sites, but on the composite, he bumps up to a five-star. I'm not entirely sure how that works, But this is some of the recent scouting report from Adam Finkelstein of 24-7 Sports. Just reading some excerpts here. If you want the full scouting report, go to 24-7 Sports on this profile.

Starting point is 00:02:54 Measured at 6'10", with a 7'3 wingspan, 9'3 standing reach, 11-inch hands. So, I mean, you're talking about physically imposing. Those are all very good measurements. He's comfortable in the mid post, likes to face up, consistently scores over the top of contesting defenders in the mid range. He has shooting touch that is starting to extend to the arc. He's been mostly around a mid-20s percent three-point shooter in overtime elite, but maybe that's something that's growing in his game.

Starting point is 00:03:20 A big screener. Bill Self will like that. Tough matchup in two-man games because of increasing versatility to roll or pop is a good left hand and can also put the ball on the floor for a couple of bounces uh but can get a little turnover prone one of his best assets is his ability to rebound the ball he lacks quick vertical pop to be a prototypical shot blocker but his length and strong frame make an imminent interior deterrent who's capable of providing some secondary rim protection so uh this is a player who he can play the four he can play the five um i think if you're going to ask him to play the four specifically right you think of fast forwarding a year

Starting point is 00:03:54 probably going to be next to florida badunga so there is going to be a little bit of pressure on him to shoot at least from the mid-range and you know even though you could view it as oh well kj adam played the four this year and you didn't get a ton from mid-range shooting you know even though you could view it as oh well kj adam played the four this year and you didn't get a ton from mid-range shooting but you at least had hunter who could shoot a couple threes per game you're not going to have that if you have floored but don't get the five so there's going to be a little bit of pressure for that if he's playing at the five uh it's going to more so be the pressure of you know can you hold up against other fives and and we've talked about this before that in one of the uh i think it was on on three he

Starting point is 00:04:25 mentioned kind of wanting to play like jason tatum or that that's a guy he likes to watch and kind of looks up to um that that would not necessarily jive with bill self but that's the beauty of him coming in early here and uh reading the the article in the kansas city star with some quotes from bill self he mentioned he's gonna redshirt He mentioned that he had an injury that has kind of limited him. So he hasn't played a game this season for OT, but he should be able to go by the time he arrives, which I believe will be in early January. So he won't be there for the big 12 opener against West Virginia, but you know, we'll be there for for majority of those second semester games. I'd be curious to know which party was more motivated to make this happen, right? Was this, I guess when a decision does happen,

Starting point is 00:05:08 like it has to be both parties coming to an agreement, but which one was slightly more motivated? I'd be curious to know. Like from KU's perspective, the things you're getting out of this, you're getting another practice body, you are getting a player into your system early that, you know, would you rather the player spend another couple months at OTE or spend in your program? And either way, there'll be a freshman next season if you're redshirting him. And in theory, with Bryson Tiller, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:38 he's probably not going to be around the program for five years. So who cares if you have to use a redshirt on him now, as opposed to in 2025, he was never going to red shirt in 2025 26 so like of course this all makes sense for ku from those perspectives for tiller's perspective you know he was going through an injury maybe missed part of the ote season maybe you haven't established a role so at that point uh come on to ku i think they're full up on scholarships but we've talked about it before there's plenty of workarounds there because you can just straight up pay a guy, NIL, to pay for his tuition, basically. It's basically a bot scholarship, and it won't matter in the future

Starting point is 00:06:11 because you're going to have extra scholarships. And he kind of earned the coach's trust. He can figure out what Bill Self wants of him, and he can get a leg up on the competition for the following season and trying to establish a position in the rotation for 2025 to 2026. What would be interesting to me is the last time I can remember this happening at, I don't know, I guess there was the Sylvia DeSosa one, but there's been a time since then where a guy joined the team. I want to say it was at mid-semester. It was Shaden Sharp. Shaden Sharp joined Kentucky, I want to say, late into the game or something.

Starting point is 00:06:49 He was like a five-star recruit. And Shaden Sharp, the whole idea was he's going to redshirt and then come back the next season and ball out. Shaden Sharp redshirted, and then he decided to go to the NBA draft. And that allowed him, by joining Kentucky, to go to the draft as opposed to having that full year before joining the team that right so maybe there's even motivation from bryson tiller there realizing that hey if the draft class ends up being weak and and maybe i go test the draft

Starting point is 00:07:15 process even after just red shirting this year and if if they like me enough like i can even go pro after this year right that could be part of it i don't know that's not what i'm expecting but like you have to at least acknowledge it as a real possibility because we've seen it before uh but again that's not what i'm expecting and and i think this is huge for tiller ahead of the 2025 to 26 season you think about hunter dickinson graduates okay i kind of assuming the florida badoon goes you're going to be your starting five following season but what if bryson tiller is just that good in these practices and this this gives him a leg up that you go into next year going no tiller is going to be our starting five i think what's more likely though is you maybe even have a front court of tiller next to florida

Starting point is 00:07:53 dunga kj adams graduates as well of course there's a chance that ku ends up playing you know a bunch of wings and they play a wing at the four right you could potentially have aj store rylan griffin and rickies pass more all back maybe you end up playing a system where you have you know darren peterson at the two uh kind of a combo guard point guard at the one you have two wings at the three and four and then tiller's coming off the bench or flory's coming off the bench whoever it ends up being um but you know regardless of the role whether it's 12 minutes a game whether it's 25 minutes a game i do think it's important and for a better chance it'd be in 20 12 minutes a game whether it's 25 minutes a game i do think it's important and for a better chance it'd be in 20 25 minutes a game it's important for tiller to get to know

Starting point is 00:08:32 the system and he gets to do that in a low pressure practice role i mean it's still high pressure it's kansas basketball but a lower pressure than if you're out there playing and we've seen this season i i think we've seen it plenty of times before, but we're reliving it this season with a lot of the transfers. It takes time to get Bill Self's trust. It takes time to get to know all of Bill Self's plays and his system and specifically the role that is being asked of you and what is going to contribute to winning in what Bill Self is asking of you. It takes time. And we're seeing that right now with the transfers. So that works out pretty well that Tiller gets to basically have a couple months

Starting point is 00:09:12 to just learn that sort of stuff that he can be ready to go in 2025 to 2026 and just kind of come out swinging. So I think this is big for him and certainly makes me look at his role in 2025, 2026. You know, I don't know what I haven't really thought about what the projected rotation is going to be next season outside of, you know, who are some of the players in those positions. But maybe if before I was thinking of him as being a 15 minute per game guy, maybe this would bump it up to 20 or 25. You know, it is a sizable difference. And I think what could end up impacting his role for next year's team. All right, let's get to a little KU football news.

Starting point is 00:09:47 Jack Tanner is the latest commit out of the portal. We'll discuss that next. This episode of the show is brought to you by the College Football Playoff on TNT. It's that time of the year. The College Football Playoff is back, and with the newly expanded 12-team format, it's guaranteed to be bigger and better than ever, bringing you all the hard-hitting and high-flying excitement that you love tnt sports coverage of the college football playoff begins december 21st that's saturday starting with the college football playoff kickoff show presented by at&t at 11 a.m eastern time

Starting point is 00:10:18 leading into the first matchup which is smu battling penn state you get to see andy colden licky former ku offensive coordinator going up against SMU, who just lost the closest game in the ACC title. Then Clemson Tigers look to upset the Texas Longhorns in a showdown at 4 p.m. Eastern. Don't miss a moment of the action. Watch the college football playoff presented by Allstate live on TNT, True TV, TBS, and Max.

Starting point is 00:10:45 Continuing on, and thanks for joining us on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks, making it your first listen. You can check out one of our other episodes. You can check out Locked on College Football, Locked on College Basketball for your second listen as well. Okay, Jack Tanner has committed to Kansas out of the portal. He is a 6'6", 295-pound offensive lineman who spent a season on what was a bad Tulsa team

Starting point is 00:11:06 out of the American Athletic Conference. Got a lot of playing time, though, as a freshman. He earned 438 snaps, 437 snaps, nine games played, and he started the Final Four, which tells you that he was getting better as the season went on. So he came into Tulsa as a three-star out of high school, 83-graded three-star out of Highland Village, Texas, and Marcus High School, and ended up getting playing time right away as a true freshman, which is tough to do.

Starting point is 00:11:34 And you look at it, and that's the case for both of KU's additions to the offensive line, right? You added DeAndre Harper from Northwest Missouri State. He played a lot as a true freshman. Jack Tanner plays a lot as a true freshman. And the beauty there is you get players with experience, but still have a ton of years left. And the beauty here with both linemen you've now brought in with Harper and Tanner,

Starting point is 00:11:54 both are six foot six. So you're working with guys, you know, I think a lot of people think the world of Matt Gildersleeve, and I think he's an excellent strength and conditioning coach myself. You're giving him a really good frame to work with here that he can really develop those players to another level. Now, you look at the pro football focus grades for Tanner, they don't really jump off the page. 51.5 overall grade is not great. 57.8 in run blocking, only a 39.2 in pass blocking. Those are not great numbers, right?

Starting point is 00:12:26 You would like to see things be a little bit better than what some of those are. But again, keep in mind, he was thrown into action. Like when you look at positions that it is probably the most difficult to play right away as a true freshman. I mean, it might depend, right? And for certain five-star kids, like there's kids who might go to Alabama or Georgia who are 6'6", 330 of muscle and are ready to go and start as a true freshman sure those are they're far and few between it's really hard to play offensive line as a true freshman and

Starting point is 00:12:54 um not to mention you're on a tulsa team that probably didn't have like a ton of talent around you they weren't great this year but they were also in win now mode for their head coach who ended up getting fired this season and so he's probably put in a situation where if you're the head coach you're going man i know this might not be best for for this kid's long-term potential or development but we have to throw him out there because otherwise i'm gonna get fired and i don't know that that was the best situation it's probably unfair to him but the result now for kansas and lance leipold is you get a true sophomore in 2025 with three seasons left to play if you want to redshirt him this year then you have four seasons

Starting point is 00:13:32 left to play and you can even again with the new redshirt rules you can have him play in four games and be theoretically a backup um and then still get the redshirt and still have three seasons left and he has real game experience like that is a huge huge plus. And I'll say this too, to the idea that, yeah, you might look at those PFF grades and be like, eh, those aren't great. But again, you have to factor on a curve for playing as a true freshman when realistically, if you were to say, okay, you know, if Kansas would have brought him in out of high school, how long would it have been before he hits the field? Probably a couple of years, right? Maybe you red shirt him in year one. Maybe he's a backup year two.

Starting point is 00:14:05 Maybe he's starting by year three or year four. He didn't get that luxury at Tulsa. And there's a guy that this reminds me of, Bryce Cabledew. Bryce Cabledew was thrown to the fire too early for Kansas. He was thrown into the fire in 2020 as a true freshman. That offensive line was not very good for KU, and it was kind of the same thing. It was like, okay, this team's 0-9,

Starting point is 00:14:24 Les Miles is throwing guys out there. He's just just like I don't know what else to do Bryce Kablew had a 49.9 PFF grade as a true freshman playing in 2020 it was probably unfair to him to get out there and playing but he got a little bit better in 2021 PFF grade gets up to about a 56 uh so you know still not up to where you want it to but it's a little better than 2022 again kind of same thing a little better 57 PFF grade not quite where you want it to, but it's a little better than 2022. Again, kind of same thing, a little better, 57 PFF grade, not quite where you want it. But then finally, when everything is adjusted, when the game is slowed down mentally, when the body has caught up to it and everything, 71.6 PFF grade in 2023. And this season, he was one of the five or six best offensive tackles in the entire Big 12.

Starting point is 00:15:02 He had an 80.2 PFF grade. And so I say all this to say, sometimes it's unfair or sometimes a kid gets thrown into the fire earlier than maybe they should because of other circumstances around them. And that could actually sometimes be a good thing because they learn from it, they get experience. And in other ways, this is going to be an opportunity for Kansas to develop him similar to what they did with Bryce Cable do. And so for that reason, I am confident that KU is going to get the best out of Jack Tanner. He logged 377 snaps at left tackle, 60 at right guard. So that's beautiful, too, for KU. They love having guys who are cross-trained, can play multiple spots.

Starting point is 00:15:37 That's a way to get you on the field a little bit sooner. And I think you're working with Matt Gildersleeve. I think there's going to be a bright future here. I know this isn't the be-all,, but he does have like a KU family. So, you know, again, like if you have just some guy walking on the streets and he'd love to, he's a KU fan versus the guy who's 6'7", 350, like who do you think is going to be the better offensive lineman? But if all things are equal, if you have the guy who's extra motivated to play at that

Starting point is 00:16:01 university because he has ties to it in some way like that can't hurt right uh they can't help or i mean they can't hurt in terms of motivation and in terms of you know i don't know all the offseason work that you have to kind of put into it so now you look at the offensive line room for ku i think between both harper um who you added from northwest missouri state and now tanner you look at guys who can be depth for you this season, but can also be future pieces for you, which is exciting. So now you look at it and maybe you're going to try to add another offensive lineman to the portal. Maybe you're going to try to go for more of an experienced player to balance this that can be more of a ready-made starter right away. And obviously you can't have enough offensive lineman. The depth is crucial. So you've added

Starting point is 00:16:43 to that. You've added to the offensive linemen for 2025 and beyond. Because even if he doesn't end up being a starter this year, even if you redshirt him this year, okay, well, maybe you feel good about Bryce Foster and Kobe Baines and Nolan Gorchika. Those guys are all redshirt seniors. So that's going to be three more guys you lose at the end of this season. And you're going to need other guys ready to step up.

Starting point is 00:17:01 And I think Tanner will be that next wave of offensive linemen for KU. All right, let's finish up some other news for K step up, and I think Tanner will be that next wave of offensive lineman for KU. All right, let's finish up some other news for KU football, including from the assistant coaching ranks. I think some interesting stuff's been happening. This episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Because right now, new customers can bet $5

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Starting point is 00:18:57 I'm finishing up on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. A little news around things. One transfer possibly out. Seems like Charlie Weinreich, if you look at his social media, might be on the way out which might make sense after you brought on laith marjan he was the former transfer from nebraska never really saw the field or uh ended up kicking for ku so you can understand why that would happen now some assistant coaching news uh brandon shelby who was officially hired as the defensive backs coach right dk mcdonald becomes the defense coordinator so uh they they brought shelby up from an analyst role where he was last season to be the defensive backs coach and uh

Starting point is 00:19:30 pretty impressive resume for Shelby he was at Indiana for 13 seasons I mean you don't survive in today's college football landscape I know obviously Indiana has been great this year I know in the past Indiana hasn't been like an Ohio State of the world. They have had some good seasons here or there. But you don't survive 13 seasons at a school without knowing what you're doing, without being good at your job. So I think that speaks well and also shows probably he's a loyal guy. He obviously has some ties to the Midwest. He's originally a KC kid, so that can't hurt in terms of recruiting, too. He played at Oklahoma.

Starting point is 00:20:02 That can't hurt either. He played in three straight PCS bowl games for them back when he played. I think this is a really good hire for KU. He's got a really good resume there. But beyond that, I found what was interesting is it was a release today,

Starting point is 00:20:15 I think from Jordan Guskey in the Capital Journal. $300,000 is the contract for Shelby. And then it was also released Matt Gildersleeve, $550,000. And so why I find that interesting, I think this is good news for KU and good for obviously good if you're either of those guys, is that it clearly shows the investment level for KU. I mean, obviously there's just a lot of money that has to happen, right? Between NIL, between the stadium funding, between paying coaches.

Starting point is 00:20:57 And the fact that Kansas and they are able to scrounge up the money to pay assistant coaches who, in the cases of both Shelby and Lubick, I know Lubick technically co-offensive coordinator, but neither one of those guys are play callers. And you're paying them real assistant money that you would see in other high level conferences. I think that's a good sign for KU and the state of the program. And obviously will help you continue to retain these coaches and have interest. If you do have an open coach opening, double down on that, that that will be out there that you have real money to go pay. So that's a very important thing. All right. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page.

Starting point is 00:21:27 If there's more breaking news, we'll get to that. Otherwise, at some point here, we are going to evaluate the KU basketball position groups compared to preseason expectations. And we'll have an episode later this week, too, with Nick Schwert. I'll talk to him in a little bit. And also a KU Brown preview.

Starting point is 00:21:41 All that coming up. This has been Locked on Jayhawks. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - 5-Star Bryson Tiller Enrolling Early for KU + Tulsa OL Jack Tanner Transferring to Kansas Football

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