Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - A BILL SELF GUY: Jayhawks Get Transfer Tre White from Illinois + 2026 OL Kaden Moody Picks Kansas

Starting point is 00:00:00 Kansas got another Bill South type of guy, versatile wing Trey White, transfer from Illinois and KU football got a 20-26 commit. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What is going on Derek Johnson here with locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us here on the show. Thank you for tuning in anywhere you podcast including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show and on any audio platform as well. And thank you for joining us as well as the everydayers tuning into each and every show or making it your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:46 We're going to be breaking down Trey White, the multi-time transfer deciding to make his fourth stop at the collegiate level with the Kansas Jayhawks. He's a former Kansas commit. Now eventually finding his way into Lawrence will break down his game because in a lot of ways becomes a Bill Self type of guy in terms of the game he brings to the table. We'll also finish up in addition to Trey White scouting in Portfield with KU with little KU football action. Kaden Moody, who is a class of 2026 three star off its alignment committed to KU over the weekend as well. Today's episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by TurboTax.

Starting point is 00:01:22 That's right. It is tax week. And with TurboTax, if you're ready for stress-free taxes and the most money back guaranteed, head over to TurboTax.com today and get matched with your expert. Okay, so Kansas lands Trey White. He becomes their second portal addition. They just had one on Friday evening. And thank you to Everdayers who already caught that one.

Starting point is 00:01:42 And don't forget to check out them landing, Jayden Dawson, who is a really good pickup for them from Loyola Chicago, kind of fits a specific role. And now Trey White becomes the second. And the immediate theme, just to go over here for Trey White and Jade and Dawson, is that these are guys who have that dog in them,

Starting point is 00:01:59 so to speak, a little bit, right? And they're gonna have to prove that a little bit more at Kansas specifically than their previous stops were like, you talked to Loyola Chicago people and that's how they viewed this kid right that he was a two way player that he was a gritty player in certain ways. With Trey White, he is a defensive two way wing who can play the three and the four. These are more Bill self guys, then maybe you've brought

Starting point is 00:02:22 in in the past and it feels like you know, some of those those questions we had, okay, can Kansas recruit the portal for fit over just star power so far, I think you're kind of two for two in hitting on that. But anyway, Trey White, it's also an interesting story because he committed to KU back in the summer of I think it was 2019 when he committed to KU and he was like a sophomore or junior in high school at that point in time, I think he was a sophomore going into his junior year. But eventually decommitted, you know, months later from that ended up in USC his freshman year. I think that would have been for Andy Enfield. And then he ended up after his first year USC going to Louisville

Starting point is 00:02:57 for a second year with the Cardinals. Then from Louisville, he ended up at Illinois last season for Brad Underwood. They made it a six seed seed made the second round of the NCAA tournament. And then he entered the portal again for what will be his senior season final season college ball comes to Kansas as a senior. He can play the three or the four I prefer him a little bit more at the four but cool with minutes at both but yeah, if I was picking to give him you know,

Starting point is 00:03:24 more of his minutes at the four and less than the minutes of the three, I would prefer that. But like I said, six, seven, two or five, he can kind of do a little bit of both. 10 and a half points per game at Illinois. Obviously, you don't have to worry about the transition from a, you know, another power five, power four, whatever you want to call it conference, five and a half rebounds per game, 0.8 assists per game, 0.4 steals per game, 0.4 blocks per game. And then he shot 51% from the field almost, 33% from three on a bit lower volume, 2.2 attempts per game. Really good free throw shooter, 82.4% on free throws this past season for Illinois.

Starting point is 00:04:00 Not a ton of attempts per game, 3.2 per game, which is a fine number. The effective field percentage percentage, good 56%. The true shooting percentage, even better at 61% for Trey White this season. The on-off offensive rating was not great when he was on the floor. The team was about 10 points per game worse on the offensive end of the floor with him out there.

Starting point is 00:04:22 But I'm gonna get into this later. In segment two, we're going to get into some interesting lineup conversation about why that might be, because I think there's some very interesting stuff to dive into. And then the team was about two and a half points better on the defensive end of the floor. Also had a 3.1 rating on Bartorvich's transfer rating,

Starting point is 00:04:37 which is a very solid number there. So you look at the strengths and weaknesses of what White brings to the table. And I should also mention that, you know, some of those stats, he's playing 23.4 minutes per game for Illinois. So it's not the same as some of these other guys that you bring up their stats and they're playing 32 minutes per game or they're doing it at a lower level, right?

Starting point is 00:04:54 You start to grade that on a curve for the per minute averages and it looks even better than it is. And here's an example, when you look at things like rates, as opposed to just raw numbers, you look at one of his strengths it is rebounding the basketball he was in 93rd percentile in offensive rebound rate and 94th percentile in defensive rebound rate so you look at the rebounds you're like five and a half per game like that's a solid number but you're you just think that you think it's a solid number you don't think it's an elite number then you look at the rebound rates and you're

Starting point is 00:05:23 like oh 93rd percentile offensive rebound, 94th percentile defensive rebound. No, he is an elite rebounder, right? And I think part of the reason why is he's a good athlete. He's got good size at six foot seven. He's got the versatility to play the three or the four. And I think that athleticism turns into some of that with the rebounding ability. He also is in the 98th percentile

Starting point is 00:05:45 for second chance points per 40 minutes. So he turned those offensive rebounds into scoring opportunities. And he did it in a lot of games. He was consistent here. He had 12 games with seven or more rebounds. He had eight games with eight or more rebounds. He had four double digit rebound games.

Starting point is 00:06:01 And over there, two NCAA tournament games, he averaged seven rebounds per game. And again, that lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds.

Starting point is 00:06:11 He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds.

Starting point is 00:06:19 He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. He's got a lot of good rebounds. give him maybe some more opportunities to put the ball in his hands than Illinois had. But overall, he can still play off ball and be a good player. And as you continue to build this and build it around Darren Peterson, you're looking for players to be able to play without the ball in their hand and Trey White can do that at a high level. 94th percentile

Starting point is 00:06:36 for shooting percentage, yet he had just a 48th percentile usage rate, right? So you have to be good about playing off the ball and he did it in a myriad of ways. He did it on cuts really good player in terms of cutting to the basket and finding the openings there. He was able to get in the paint, whether that was on a cut, whether that was in transition, whether that was, you know, driving. He was 90 second percentile in paint points per 40 minutes. He shot over 70 percent at the rim this season, which is 87th percentile nationally. Part of that goes back to the cuts and the transition, but also because of his size and athleticism, he was able to finish once he got there. Also, if you watch some of his highlights, he has a really good reverse layup package that kind of stops shot blockers when they do get there

Starting point is 00:07:18 from getting to him. So that's a nice thing for him to have. He did rate above average in ISO scoring a bit lower volume than some of this other stuff, but at least he has shown that in his bag that wouldn't surprise me if he gets to do it. Like I said, maybe a little bit more at Kansas than he does at Illinois, even though you will still have, you know, Darren Peterson and stuff like that.

Starting point is 00:07:36 But yeah, 76 percentile in points per possession on spot ups, which isn't just, you know, again, spot ups is not, you caught the ball and shot it always a catch and shoot does count into a spot up. But a spot up can also be you're spotting up in the corner. So he throws you the ball, you pump fake, the guy blows by you, you drive to the rim and finish right there. There's that or if you just caught it and shot it, that would also be a spot up right. So it's a myriad of things. But

Starting point is 00:07:59 that shows you that again, he can make things happen as an offball player and really attack a closeout in a high level. 83rd percentile in the points of possession for cutting, which I've kind of mentioned is been a strike for him. He also gets the foul line at a high level 86 percentile for free throw temporary and he makes them I mentioned over 82% on free throws when he actually gets there. So he gets there, he converts them. Okay, great on both of those also the defensive end of the court. This guy who's known for being a good defender, right? He has the length, he has the athleticism at six foot seven. This is a guy who can come in

Starting point is 00:08:32 and you're looking for defensive wings, you're looking for defensive stoppers, you're looking to have everything you want around Darren Peterson on both ends of the floor to be successful. And I certainly think he helps you in those areas. Now, going back to the idea, I do think, you know, he can be even better as at a four,

Starting point is 00:08:49 as a four, I should say, than a three. But the idea here is if you are playing a team who plays a little bit bigger, you can play Trey Whitemore in that game as a three and maybe play a bigger lineup with a four, five, if you want to, right? But his rebound ability and his versatility, I think, allow you to use him in multiple ways, similar to how Kansas kind of used Kevin McColler

Starting point is 00:09:10 as a three or a four at Kansas. Now, what are some of the questions here for Trey White coming into KU? The irony is a guy named Trey isn't a huge three-point shooter. He was just 22nd percentile in three point attempt rate. And that was at about an average percentage of them going in. On corner threes. Okay, so there's a couple different sites in how they value corner threes. I think Synergy views corner threes as like, if you take them from kind of the slot area, like the, the, the wing area. It counts those into the corner. I'm pretty sure on CBB analytics, it only counts the corner as like,

Starting point is 00:09:51 basically the line until it breaks off. Right. So on CBB analytics on like synergy is corner numbers are good. But then on CBB analytics is corner numbers are bad. So on CBB analytics, which again is more like strict corner, Synergy is more wing corner, I believe, the corner threes on CBB Analytics only 30%, 29.7% to be exact. So not a great corner three-point shooter for just looking at that, but he was a good wing shooter, and above the break is 36.4%.

Starting point is 00:10:25 So kind of on that wing is where he'll specialize, I think that slot wing, whatever you want to call it, both though do come on low volume that they could easily be switched for better or worse based on the percentage there. He attempted just 73s out of comparison, Hunter Dickinson had 58, DeJuan Harris had 84, AJ Storr in limited minutes took 79, and yes that means DeJuan Harris took 84 threes at a 32.1% clip, White took 73 at a 32.9% clip. So

Starting point is 00:10:58 that level of lack of shooter you could say okay that's why maybe it makes more sense to play him at the four than it does the three necessarily. But that's also why going back to the addition of Dawson, it becomes important because you get a three point shooter that can help out space the floor with a player like white. I also think it makes it so that like, we're, you know, if you're viewing the starting lineup right now as it's very incomplete, obviously, but if you viewed it right now as it's very incomplete obviously but if you viewed it right now it was like Darren Peterson, Elmarco Jackson or let's just say Darren Peterson, Dawson, Trey White and then Center who would be that fifth starter you'd want to add you'd probably want to get another player who can shoot threes pretty well so maybe that is something you look

Starting point is 00:11:38 for more now in the portal. Other mentions here for Trey White not much of a passer just ninth percentile for assist rate he was also, just ninth percentile for assist rate. He was also just 15th percentile for assist to turnover rate. Now, to be fair, if we go back to his role at Illinois being kind of low usage off ball player, you're not gonna get a ton of opportunities to rack up assists.

Starting point is 00:11:56 So maybe that's just what goes into that. And as much as he's known for being a solid defender, why not more defensive stats? Only eighth percentile steal rate, only 36th percentile Hakeem rate. So that is a little bit of a question of just how good of a defender is he to bring up here. And then I also don't know why this is,

Starting point is 00:12:16 but the team on off ratings get worse with him on overall and O rating, as well as effective field goal percentage, offensive rebound rate, turnover rate, and free throw temperate for the whole team. Like was he misused? Was he in bad lineups? Was some of it on him? Some of that stuff can be noisy. I don't know. So we'll get into that in segment two real quick though. What's up with the four schools in four years? I want to discuss that as well. So let's get to those two big questions coming up on the other side

Starting point is 00:12:44 and what his fit would be with KU. This is Locked on Jayhawks. And today's episode of the show is brought to you by TurboTax. Taxes was waiting and wondering and worrying if you were going to get any money back and then waiting and wondering and worrying some more. Now, taxes is matching with a TurboTax expert who can do your taxes as soon as today. An expert who gives your taxes their undivided attention

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Starting point is 00:13:29 at TurboTax live full service real time updates only in iOS mobile app. See guaranteed details at TurboTax.com backslash guarantees. Thanks for joining us here on Lockdown J-Hawks. Don't forget to make Lockdown College basketball or Lockdown College football your second list every day. Okay, so some of the big questions for Trey, we discussed some of them. I mentioned some of the lineup ones. Let's go with the four schools in four years,

Starting point is 00:13:54 because that's something that, you know, maybe that worries you a little bit, especially after AJ Storr. And I do think with AJ Storr, it goes beyond just the four schools in four years now, because he's transferring away from Kansas. But in the case of Trey White, because the store one is eight in eight years. In the case of Trey White, this is somebody who will be on his fourth college in four

Starting point is 00:14:21 years. And I don't know what his high school situation was. Like, I don't know if this is something where he did similar things, or he was jumping around high school. I do think he finished his career prolific prep, which is the same school that Darren Peterson goes to, obviously, there's no crossover. But I don't know if there's, you know, coaching connections or something that helped lead this. But you start

Starting point is 00:14:41 to be able to make sense of it a little more when you look into the context here. With USC, they brought so he goes to USC year one, then going into year two, USC brings in Isaiah Collier, who's like a in terms of production for them. But like, the hype was there and like, so you could see Andy Enfield or just the writing on the wall for Trey white being like, oh, you're going to be behind a lot of these guys, they're going to be playing a lot of guards, like you're going to be fifth in the rotation here, yada, yada, yada. So he goes to Louisville. And it makes sense he transferred from Louisville at the end of the year, because the coach gets

Starting point is 00:15:20 fired, right? Now, how do you explain him transferring away from Illinois? He played a good role. And if he would have came back this year, would he've played an even bigger role? Maybe he viewed it as the other guys were gonna come back at similar positions and he wanted to go from being 23 minutes per game to 30.

Starting point is 00:15:36 And maybe he has the opportunity at Kansas. I do think this, the fact that, so Bill Self is close with Brad Underwood, that coach at Illinois. The fact that Kansas feels comfortable, that Bill Self feels comfortable taking him, I think, tell like, I don't think Brad Underwood would lie to Bill Self

Starting point is 00:15:50 about what's going on with Trey White. I think, yeah, I'm sure if Bill Self was making this move, he got some sort of approval from Brad Underwood that this could work in the right way. So honestly, I'm not as concerned about it with, as opposed to like when it did happen potentially with AJ store. So I mentioned some of that that lineup thing that I think is very interesting. And this goes back to the idea that why I think he is more of a four than a three.

Starting point is 00:16:14 But again, you can play him some minutes at the three do both. Right. But I like it more at the four. And here's part of it. So he was in six lineups at Illinois that played at least 20 or more minutes. The three of them, because there were three with positive net ratings, three with negative net ratings, a three with positive net ratings. He was either playing the four or if he was playing the three, because he's playing with another wing where it's like, who do you distinguish as the three or the four? It was in a lineup where the five man was a Vsitch, who's a three point shooting center for Illinois

Starting point is 00:16:48 to open up the floor, which basically allows it so that if you are playing the three, there's more spacing because the center is able to shoot. But in the three lineups with negative net ratings, he was in for and these are all the lineups he was in for 20 or more minutes. Again, there were six of them. He was either the three or you could argue he was the three, four again,

Starting point is 00:17:09 where there's two wings. That's like, who do you count at what? But there was a non shooting center in Morris Johnson. So here's the thing, if you play him at the four, some of the spacing questions go away if you play him at the three. Some of those issues that led to negative net ratings for the team come up. So that's where I think it is important. Can Kansas play him more at the four than the three?

Starting point is 00:17:31 But other things he would help with the team. I mean, he would obviously get to the free throw line. They didn't get to do that enough this past season. He'd help with rebounding. After you lose Hunter Dickinson, you need to find more rebounding this year, right? He would help with athleticism and defense. Those are things that Bill Self will love, and clearly they've needed to get, you know, more athletic here.

Starting point is 00:17:50 The low usage and off-ball play works perfectly when you have a player like Darren Peterson. And what they wouldn't solve is obviously the three-point shooting or the spacing necessarily. But again, if you play him more at the four, you're at least getting more three-point shooting than you had at the four this past season, if you play him more at the four, you're at least getting more three point shooting than you had at the four this past season though. You could also view it as like, okay,

Starting point is 00:18:10 but if you end up getting a center who doesn't shoot threes, then you basically just traded, okay, KJ wasn't shooting threes at the four, your center next year is not shooting threes, Hunter took two per game, that's what you'd be getting the Trey White at the four. Can you just find more three point shooting at the other positions at that point in time? But yeah, man, I think

Starting point is 00:18:29 overall, like this guy that I'm projecting be a starter, obviously, we have to wait and see what happens with the rest of the portal. Because Kansas still has six open scholarships at this point in time. But I mean, if you're just projecting the starting lineup based on who's actually on the roster right now, I think you'd have to go with Darren Peterson, on who's actually on the roster right now. I think you'd have to go with Darren Peterson, Marco Jackson, the the whoever Well, I guess you have to say Bryson tiller at the five, right, but

Starting point is 00:18:52 probably most likely going to be a transfer there. But I, like I said, we're talking guys currently on the roster. So you take tiller at the five Dawson at the three, and then you'd say Trey white now at the four, and I think he's gonna play big 4KU in terms of big role and big minutes. And what did we talk about coming in the offseason? I think it's going to be more important for Bill Self as opposed to getting the guy who shoots 40% from three. If he doesn't do the other things that is going to get him on the floor

Starting point is 00:19:19 and keep the trust with Bill Self, he's better off just bringing in a guy who is, you know, going to be haste typee type of guy gonna be a junkyard dog gonna be somebody who does the little things to help you in basketball games, because he's gonna have that trust he's gonna be on the floor and then you're not gonna have to worry about the cohesiveness. And of course, yeah, I do have some of those shooting questions. But like I said earlier, give me the Bill Self team that he trusts, because we've seen other Bill

Starting point is 00:19:43 Self teams or Yeah, maybe they haven't been the best three-point shooting team in the world, but He's able to squeeze the very most out of him and they end up with a one two or three seed or something and the NCAA tournament Because he can trust them and similar like you look at Michigan State this year with Tom Izzo Like he loved that team. He trusted that team. They were a horrible three-point shooting team They made the elite eight and you know very easily could have made the final fourth few things go your way against Auburn right? So love the fit and love the idea of what types of players you were going for here. If you're Kansas but this move does make it that you do need probably another

Starting point is 00:20:17 score on the perimeter another three point shooter on the perimeter. All right, KU football made a move to Caden Moody three star offense alignment. on the perimeter. All right, KU football made a move to Kaden Moody three star off its alignment. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Monarch Money. And have you ever checked your bank account and wondered where did all the money go between dining out online shopping and entertainment? It's easy to lose track. That's where Monarch

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Starting point is 00:21:50 High School out of Oklahoma. He is a class of 2026. And he is a three star crew 87 rating on 24 seven sports which puts you or puts him I guess I should say in I guess the upper half of the KU football ratings becomes the 14th commit in the class for KU and yes on the composite ranking right now and on the overall ranking for 24 seven sports they have the seventh best class in the country. Now part of that is just based on the the number the quantity of recruits they've gotten if you just go by like average score it's obviously not going to be top 10 but it's still going to be pretty good this this kids class continues to develop to develop at a very high level.

Starting point is 00:22:28 And so, uh, you look at adding a, I think third offensive lineman here. If you're Kansas, yeah, I mean, you had Kayden Snyder, which I guess Kayden is just a popular offensive lineman name for KU, but he's a four star recruit, uh, from Salinas central in Kansas. As a local kid, Moody becomes the second highest rated offensive lineman in the Malachi Mills 6 to 6 offensive lineman from Indiana was an 86 graded three star. In the case of Moody, he had offers from Purdue, Baylor, Memphis, among others here.

Starting point is 00:22:58 Athletic offensive lineman played both ways as a sophomore and a little bit on the defensive line last year. But an athletic player that obviously you say this with like every offensive lineman played both ways as a sophomore and a little bit on the defensive line last year, but an athletic player that obviously you say this with like every offensive line that comes in, he's listed at six six 300. I don't know that he's quite 300, but you're going to be looking to add weight to him, you're going to be looking to add muscle to him, but you like to get athletic guys and that is a constant theme of what KU usually goes for with offensive lineman at the high school ranks. It seems to be a couple things to me, smart guys, players who can be versatile on the offensive line, right, like possibly play different positions on the line. And then guys who are athletic to where they are putting trust in Matt Gilder sleeve, which deservedly so because he's been a great strength and conditioning coach for KU that he is going to pile on the way he's going to get them in the right regimen to get their body up to big 12 level that now you're going to combine that with the athleticism and the smarts that you're looking for because you know that there's there's very few schools in the country. It's mostly like the Alabamas

Starting point is 00:24:01 and the Georges and the Texas is of the world, right? And there's other ones too, that are able to recruit consistently the offensive linemen who have it all coming out of high school. We have the six, six, 330 pound frame that can play right away as a freshman to do this and that. Kansas is a team that has to live on recruiting kids like this, where you're projecting them out that they're going to build up that body eventually. And so finding those other traits you're looking for is so important. It seems like they did it again with Kate and Moody here. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. We'll be back at you to talk more portal talk, maybe more KU football talk on our next episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - A BILL SELF GUY: Jayhawks Get Transfer Tre White from Illinois + 2026 OL Kaden Moody Picks Kansas

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