Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Aggressive Dajuan Harris Nearly Leads Kansas Jayhawks Basketball to Win Over Buddy Hield's Bahamas

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas loses their finale in Puerto Rico to the Bahamian national team, but still some more good takeaways for this Jayhawk basketball team falling 87 to 81 and rounding out their trip in Puerto Rico. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m.

Starting point is 00:00:36 on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us, like and subscribe to our show on YouTube. We did a Game 2 recap of KU in Puerto Rico,

Starting point is 00:00:53 which was Game 1 against the Bahamian National Team on Sunday. Today is Game 2 against the Bahamian National Team, Game 3 overall for KU in Puerto Rico. First, though, these days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager for your small business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs helps find the right people for your team faster and for free. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, so KU falls 87-81 in game three of their trip in Puerto Rico that

Starting point is 00:01:28 rounds it out. They're going to be leaving tomorrow. They'll spend another day out there, you know, get some more, I guess, team bonding, pool time, beach time, all that sort of stuff. Obviously, Arterial Morris was unavailable in this game for KU, which led to the starting lineup being different. But as we kind of talked about on yesterday's episode and Friday's episode, that was probably going to be the most logical thing anyway, that it sounded like Bill Self wanted to play a starting lineup of Nick Timberlake one game, Artario Morris another game, Elmarco Jackson another game. And that's what we saw.

Starting point is 00:01:57 We saw Elmarco Jackson in the starting lineup, along with the other usuals with DeJuan Harris, Kevin McCuller, KJ Adams, and Hunter Dickinson. I think that tells you that, yeah, it is a close competition between all three of those guys in Jackson, Morris, and Timberlake, and any one of them could win the job. And it's just going to come down to what happens between these next, I don't know, two, three months before the start of the season begins behind the scenes for determining who that guy is going to be on opening night. The Bahamas had a little bit better of a roster than they did on the Saturday game. The Saturday game, Buddy Heald was the headliner.

Starting point is 00:02:32 They had Tum Tum Nairn, the former Michigan State longtime point guard, and some other players who were playing overseas professionally in leagues like France and stuff. It was still a very talented team, but this one took another step forward. Eric Gordon ended up playing, who's been a long NBA veteran. They had some more talent on the team. Unfortunately, though, DeAndre Ayton, he had a vigorous workout before. He ended up not playing, which that kind of stunk

Starting point is 00:02:58 because that was one of the matchups that I think myself included. A lot of KU fans were really looking into seeing what did Hunter Dickinson look like against DeAndre Ayton unfortunately we didn't get to see that but we got to see more of Kevin McCuller going up against Buddy Heald we got to see Eric Gordon uh KU kind of held him in check a little bit I mean he didn't have like a bad game but I think it was two of seven from three um KU was down 46 to 40 at halftime they crawled back it was kind of a tight game and then uh Bahamas was able to kind of pull away at the end and win 87-81.

Starting point is 00:03:29 But, you know, it was a close game against a team with some NBA pros on it, a team that you had just beaten on Saturday. KU shot well from two-point range again. It wasn't quite as good as Saturday when they shot 70% from two, but they shot good enough from two, especially against a team with a bunch of, you know of adult men, older men who physically are matured and everything like that. You shot well inside the arc there.

Starting point is 00:03:52 You again, though, similar to Saturday, struggled from three-point range. You went just 7 of 26 from three, which continues you struggling from there on Saturday. You also went just 14 of 23 on free throws. I think on Saturday it was what, 14 of 27. So you weren't quite as bad as you were on Saturday. You had the Parker Brown airballed free throw, which Christian Brown was on the broadcast and he kind of, you know, jabbed at him for same with his mom when she was on the broadcast. Those are both things that need to

Starting point is 00:04:18 get better. And at the end of the day, I've said this on the past two and I'll say it again here. I'm not overly concerned with those shooting numbers. It is such a small sample size still. The free throw numbers worry me more than the three-point numbers. You shot well from three in the first game, albeit competition kind of led to that. The free throw numbers, that is something that can be a little bit more sticky if you're just a good or bad free throw shooting team. And to have that kind of back-to-back games, that could be a little bit worrisome.

Starting point is 00:04:44 How about winning the rebounding battle? Again're playing a team with you know pros playing overseas and stuff that physically is mature and has a bunch of adults on the team winning the rebounding battle you forced a lot of steals I think they had 26 turnovers did the Bahamas team you had 11 steals that was a theme the entirety of the week and we'll get to the full week takeaways on on a future episode here with Locked on Jayhawks. It's more for this game. But that is something you did continue into this game, forcing chaos, pressuring the ball, pressuring ball handlers at half court or full court with some of your guards that are so good at doing that with DeJuan Harris, Elmarco Jackson, Kevin McCuller. That was good to see this team do because, you know, let's say you do end up being

Starting point is 00:05:24 a kind of middling three-point shooting team. You're going to be looking for other ways to make up for it in points and forcing turnovers, getting easy shots, avoiding half-court situations where you can just win in transition with an athletic team becomes crucial at that point in time. And they showed that again in this game, even against a team with professionals. So obviously you were shorthanded without Artaria Morris.

Starting point is 00:05:45 You still almost found a way to win the game. This was a good performance. This was a good performance. I don't view this at all and be like, ah, can you believe they lost? No, like this was a positive. I kind of went into the week before any of the games were played and went, you know, we don't know much about the Puerto Rico select team, but with the Bahamian national team, like you might lose both games.

Starting point is 00:06:06 And that was kind of dependent on which pros played. Now, knowing in hindsight, Deandre Ayton wasn't going to play. You probably would have said, yeah, can you win one of the two games? But even knowing buddy healed and Eric Gordon,

Starting point is 00:06:15 we're going to play the fact that you won one of the games. And at one point in the game, you won, we're up what? 14 points at one point. And then this game, we're kind of neck and neck to the very end. I think that speaks well to who you are as a team and how you're going to perform this season. We obviously have very high

Starting point is 00:06:27 expectations of what this could be this year. And then you add to it that you were shorthanded. Maybe if Morris plays in the game, you end up winning this game. The only negatives really that I think you can have in this one are you didn't have another great KJ Adams performance. That was my biggest thing I was watching for this week. How would KJ and Hunter play next to each other? How would they fit next to each other? KJ was outstanding the first two games. This game, he was a little more quiet. He ended up playing 32 minutes, but he only scored three points. Now he did some other things well, like he rebounded pretty well. He had, I think from Hunter and him combined, you had 15 rebounds, which was, you know, one qualm that Bill Self had from the previous game. So he did improve on that. You would have

Starting point is 00:07:04 just liked to back it up with three strike games, but overall you like KJ's performance. And he didn't shoot well back-to-back. Again, such a small sample size that even some of the negatives I don't really want to get into that much or I think are even that worthwhile in getting into. So overall, this was a good performance today. This was a good trip for KU in a lot of different ways.

Starting point is 00:07:23 I do have a couple favorite play nominees. I want to start doing this with game recaps. Favorite play nominees. There's two that really come to mind for me. I guess if you want to go least favorite play nominees, it'd probably be either the Nick Timberlake, Miss Dunk, or the Parker Brown airball free throw. But from a positive standpoint, there was a play where Buddy Heald got it in transition offensively for Bahamas and was driving in, and Kevin McCuller just stripped it clean. Got the basketball, worked it ahead to DeJuan Harris, who eventually weaved in the lane and got a wide-open layup. That was a really fun play to watch, especially because you had McCuller stripping Heald. The other one was the missed shot, and I forget who missed the shot, but Hunter Dickinson had like a two-handed put-back slam.

Starting point is 00:08:03 That was cool to see, you know, some of the athleticism too from Hunter Dickinson. Those were my favorite plays of the game, and those were those nominees. All right, we're going to get on to which players individually to me stood out for the Jayhawks and what's next from here for KU. First, though, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager for business. You want to be a hundred percent certain that you have access to the best qualified candidates available. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for free. It's super easy to create, which means you're

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Starting point is 00:09:22 Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. That's linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, players who stood out to me in KU's loss to the Bahamian national team here in game two. DeJuan Harris from the jump, man. We heard from Bill Zub after game two in the post game that he would like to see DeJuan get more aggressive and score more. DeJuan had two points in each of the first two games.

Starting point is 00:09:51 And on one hand, some of it might've been intentional, him trying to get teammates involved, trying to make them happy, trying to be a facilitator and be at his best there. But it is going to be important at certain games where others aren't hitting in certain just facets of the game, right? You go back to several games last year where there was just a stretch where DeJuan Harris might have scored four straight points, six straight points, eight straight points, or just had a big hand and KU's missed their last five shots. He just goes and hits a shot for you to get you out of that rut. That is part of the point guard's job to know when to go, know when to facilitate. And he does that very well. And in this game, you saw him show that ability of like, yeah, I can when I need to be that

Starting point is 00:10:31 scoring type of guy. So he had 23 points in the game. He went 10 of 14 from the floor. He was three of seven from three. The assist numbers dropped because he was more focused on scoring just two of them, three rebounds. He also had five steals. So he was electric, causing pressure,

Starting point is 00:10:46 creating chaos on the defensive end of the floor. But that was good to see from the standpoint of, not that I expect DeJuan to be that guy every game, score 23 points. I do expect more of the games like he had in the first two, where he had two points, nine assists, than games where he has 23 points and two assists. But, like I said, what if there's a game where Hunter Dickinson's in foul trouble? What if there's a game where some of your other guards are struggling to hit shots?

Starting point is 00:11:08 What if there's just a little stretch where you need to end an 8-0 run by the other team and the lineup you're out there with is struggling to score the ball right now? Can you go get a shot or can you hit a shot in that moment? DeJuan Harris showed today what he showed a lot of at different points last year too, that he can be that type of guy Nick Timberlake really impressed me in this game I thought this was his best game of the three he did miss that dunk but even then I mean that would have got him to 15 points he finished with 13 points for the game really got his nose dirty going for six rebounds and that's what really stood out to me not just his activity getting rebounds he also had a really nice steal at one point of just kind of fighting for the ball

Starting point is 00:11:46 on what should have just been kind of a normal routine pass for the Bahamas team. He ended up hitting a semi-contested three in like the first quarter, then had that steal immediately after. He hit another three later on. I was impressed with him with the jump shot. There were a couple other like mid-range shots that he just barely missed that you kind of saw the rise in separation. And he got off a pretty good look at a jump shot even though it was kind of contested um and it

Starting point is 00:12:08 just kind of rattled in and out so if one more of those drops if both of those drop then you're talking about an even another level that he would have got to in this game i i was impressed with with what he did and how he performed in game three here hunter dickinson not quite as good as game two hard to be that way when you have 28 points on 11 of 13 from the floor. He was really good again. The efficiency doesn't jump off the page in this game. I think he went six of 14. Not horrible, just slightly below 50%.

Starting point is 00:12:34 He had 16 points, nine rebounds, four assists. That's been a common theme through all this. He's getting three, four assists per game. The assist number is really good for Hunter Dickinson that he's passing around to the team, and he doesn passing around to the team, and he doesn't want to be a selfish player. He wants to get his teammates involved, which is good. You heard Bill Self talk about wanting more rebounds

Starting point is 00:12:51 from Hunter and KJ, and you got that from Hunter in this game. Nine rebounds. He was very active on the offensive glass, creating extra possessions for KU in this game. There were a lot of times he tapped balls out that maybe he didn't have a great shot to get to with two hands,

Starting point is 00:13:04 just to keep it alive and allow somebody else to grab it and keep the possession going. That's going to be critical for this team this year. If you're not going to be a great three point shooting team, which they did struggle the last two games, you have to find ways to get extra possessions, forcing turnovers, making free throws, getting offensive rebounds, winning on the defensive glass as well. And you saw some of that in this game with the offensive rebounding. And then Kevin McCuller, I was really impressed with. Now, the stats were, I don't know, maybe better for Kevin than any other player on KU when you're just talking about filling it up. He had 19 points, he had eight rebounds, he had seven assists, and he had two steals. So he really did a bit of everything. There is a little bit in the post game

Starting point is 00:13:42 on the radio show with, you know, Greg Gurley interviewing Bill Self. Bill did mention he thought that he got goaded a little bit by the Bahamas team because he thought that they were talking a lot of trash to him. He was talking a lot of trash back and eventually it got Kevin to a point where he was doing too much one-on-one with Buddy Heald and that Bill Self thought that it caused him to maybe play more of an individual game than a team game to a certain regard in the game that cost them a little bit. So he did mention that in the post game. And I think it's important to bring that up here. And maybe there is a little bit to that, that maybe hurt Kansas a little bit at times.

Starting point is 00:14:20 Overall though, 19 points, eight rebounds, seven assists seven assists two steals you saw him hit on the base point uh to where i was very impressed with him and i was impressed with him really all week all three games impressed with him um i go back to the first game i think he had nine points in the first game all in the. Second game, he had a controlled 13 points and hit a few pro moves. This game, he had his best all-around game for the entirety of the game and did a little bit of everything in there, too, that I thought Kevin was really good. And overall, you know, Buddy Heald only played like 20, 21 minutes, and he still had like 18 points or something like that.

Starting point is 00:15:00 But you're putting so much energy on there. There was the one play where Christian Brown was on the broadcast, and he was like, well, you still still gotta even give him less space than that and make him a driver which is fair but he played pretty good defense on him and he just hits this like fading three to the side so you're exerting all that energy defensively playing good defense um you're still having that production offensively even if like Bilsa said maybe at times you did make it too much of a one-on-one game overall he was very was very impactful, and I don't think that'll be something that really happens over the course of the season because this, as much as it was about the team and progressing

Starting point is 00:15:30 and finding synergy and what works and what the team or what you're good at and playing, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff, at a certain point in time, this type of game is an exhibition, and you're playing against pros. You are trying to show what you can do individually, and it's an opportunity for you to showcase that for the next level. So I kind of understand it. Let's finish up here with Locked on Jayhawks. What is next for this team now that their Puerto Rico trip, now that all their games have finished up? Finishing things up with Locked on Jayhawks, what's next for this team? We will have more episodes this week. Nick Schwartz is going to join us later this week. We got some more KU football positional previews we'll get to this week. Also, there was some big

Starting point is 00:16:08 news from Monday. Jalen Daniels was not participating in practice, and Lance Leipold said that he has some sort of back injury that he's kind of nursing and getting through. Didn't sound like it was an overly big deal from Lance Leipold, but we'll get to that on tomorrow's episode. So make sure you're subscribed to our podcast or our YouTube page so you can find that. Give us a like or a positive review if you could. So what's next for the KU basketball team? Well, obviously they'll head home. They head home tomorrow after this trip. They won't have another exhibition game or something for a couple months. Johnny Furphy will join the team at that point with them back in

Starting point is 00:16:44 Lawrence. He's got to integrate with the team, right? I mean, it's not just about how does he integrate with the team on the basketball court? How does he fit in? Where is he a part of the rotation? What positions is he playing? Is he more of a two, a three, a four, right? Some of those questions, it's how are you going to fit in with the team off the court? Because it sounds like the team has been pretty tight-knit, pretty close together so far. So they've already had that. And now you just had a week-long trip in Puerto Rico. Everybody's going to be tight together, right? That's got to be hard for the new guy coming along, especially from another country in Australia. And now you got to, you

Starting point is 00:17:14 know, join into the team and be a part of things and try to work your way in. You're the new kid at school, right? So that's going to be the challenge there. Arterio Morris trying to get healthy. And then you'll have the start of the school year here in a couple weeks. Boot camp for KU. We'll get things going, and that's always fun with the newcomers when maybe you don't know what to expect. Eventually, we'll get into late night in the fog at the beginning of October. You'll have a secret scrimmage in there, which I don't think it's been announced

Starting point is 00:17:39 which school KU is going to secret scrimmage with. They just have one exhibition game this year against one of the D2 schools, which means that their other one, instead of doing a second one will be one of those secret scrimmages like they did last year against Illinois. So you'll have all that probably at the end of October. And I think the other exhibition is the beginning of November, and then you'll start the season on November 6th against NC Central. Shortly after that, you'll have the Champions Classic. So things kind of far away, but also kind of not, because that means if NC Central's on November 6th, that's, I guess, officially from today, less than three months away. So it is coming here, and we got KU football

Starting point is 00:18:16 coming up too to kind of pass the time before then. So from a standpoint, KU will be trying to figure out who they want to start at the two between those three guys. That'll be kind of the biggest position battle. Timberlake, Jackson, Morris. Although at the end of the day, all three of them are probably going to play a big role and play a good amount of minutes. So maybe it's just a few minutes here or there for which one's the starter and which one's not.

Starting point is 00:18:37 The other big rotational battle, I think for me, will be, is the eighth man Parker Brown? Or will you play KJ Adams as a backup five and Johnny Furphy will be the eighth man or will you play a nine man rotation? Doesn't happen a lot under Bill Self. It's not that it's never happened. It has happened. Like you go back to the 2010-2011 team. So those would be kind of the big conversations about how things go. Kevin McCuller, Jamari McDowell, both get a red shirt.

Starting point is 00:18:59 I know that's the plan with Zach. Or I'm sorry, I said Kevin McCuller. Zach Clements and Jamari McDowell, both plan for them to redshirt with McDowell. Maybe, I don't know, shrug with Clements. That's the plan, but we'll see if he can play well. I think that'll continue to be the plan after what we saw kind of in Puerto Rico. But that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:19:19 Like I said, on tomorrow's episode, we're going to have a KU football episode. Jalen Daniels was not practicing on Monday. He was dealing with some sort of back tightness, some sort of back injury. We're going to talk about that, what it means possibly for the quarterback position, if there were to be more there with some sort of injury that were to keep Jalen Daniels out. How big of a deal is it on tomorrow's episode? Nick Schwert will join us. We'll have some more KU football, more KU basketball episodes coming at you in the future shows.

Starting point is 00:19:45 You can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can hit me up with any questions or anything you want to talk about on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio and you can like and subscribe to the show on our YouTube page. Have a good rest of your day. See you next time with Locked on Jayhawks.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Aggressive Dajuan Harris Nearly Leads Kansas Jayhawks Basketball to Win Over Buddy Hield's Bahamas

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