Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Allen Fieldhouse Renovations + Top 5 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Non-Conference Games in 2024-2025

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Renovation news for Allen Fieldhouse plus the non-conference schedule is out for Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball and ranking the top five games including NC State, Missouri, Duke, North Carolina, Creighton and more for Bill Self and KU in 2024-2025.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COMand add a big win to your summer bucket list!FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, KU basketball non-con schedules out. We rank the top five games and renovations to Allen Fieldhouse. 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 find me as well on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. And you can find the show here anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show.

And thank you to the everydayers out there tuning into each and every episode. Thank you for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we are going to be talking about KU basketball. Their non-conference slate is officially out, and we're going to rank the top five games. We'll go through the entire

non-con, and also Allen Fieldhouse renovations have been announced. Before we get into any of that, this episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more as playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like you want them to. But this summer, FanDuel's hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily. That's right, there's something for everyone. Every day, all summer long, visit FanDuel.com to get started.

Okay, so let's start here. The KU basketball non-conference schedule is out, but I want to start with the Allen Fieldhouse renovation news before we get into any of that, because this will be a little bit shorter. So KU Athletics announced today that season tickets are on sale for the newly renovated Allen Fieldhouse, which is going to have a new capacity.

It's down 1,000 people or attendees, whatever you want to say there, from where it typically has been. So for the longest time, people have said the phrase 16,300, right? And they've used that to refer to how many people Allen Fieldhouse holds and you hear it on broadcasts, you hear people talking about it, right? It's going to be an adjustment period. You're going to have to say 15,300 people, which I guess they kept the 300 in there. So you can still have that part roll off the tongue, so to speak. But yeah, that's a pretty noticeable difference. I think when they talked about doing the renovations, there was some talk that there could be less seating.

I don't know that a lot of people were expecting it to be down 1,000 people. people still though with 15,300 in very intimate environment in you know a place that still has all the the legacies and uh the legends and the magic that have gone through it like it's still going to be a great place to play it's still going to be bonkers loud inside of there but i guess it remains to be seen does it have any effect i i don't know it's it's hard to say um but i think they said in the lga world that's like a 6% decrease. So this also means that season ticket holders, at least the non-top tiers, like the top tiers, I'd assume you're unaffected by this. The other ones are being reseeded as well.

So for the most part, you know, if you have a season ticket, you like where your seat's been for the last three, four, five years, you're going to have to pick a new seat, which is a little bit unfortunate, but you know, sometimes change has to kind of happen here. The reason why this is happening though, that might frustrate some people. In fact, I have seen some of that from some fans. Now other fans don't really care. And you know, I'm just going to try to give you what's happening and you can make that decision yourself. There's more chairbacks. I think it was 11,100 more chair backs are being added. So, you know, the wooden chair backs that they have, which will be added kind of around,

they have more accessible seating, and then they have new video boards that are going into the corners. Now, I didn't totally get an indication of where those corner video boards are going in. I'm almost wondering, is it going where like the bleachers were? Like, is it going to be that high up where the bleachers were? And that's what they got rid of. That's getting rid of the seating. Is it going to be more kind of in like the walkway areas? I think that'll be kind of interesting to see, but I think that could add a new cool part about the game. Separately, they have redesigned concourses, hospitality areas, and concession choices. I think the hope of many people when they said that they were going to be renovating Allen Fieldhouse was that air conditioning was going to be added in. I think that was probably, I don't know, maybe the number one thing that a

lot of people would have asked for, but unfortunately that is not part of the renovations here. So that will not be different than years past. But I guess with a thousand less people in attendance, that's a little less body heat. So more naturally cool, I guess, in there is the possibility. Now, this will all be done before the season starts. So this isn't going to be like KU football where KU basketball is going to have to play. You know what?

I don't know. What would be the alternative? Playing at the T-Mobile Center for every basketball game? That wouldn't work. Anyway, you don't have to worry about that because that's not going to be the case. So I think some of the pros of this is that, yes, you are renovating the building. If it does make the seating more accessible and does add maybe a little bit more space for people to sit in, like that's a great thing. Some people like the chair backs. Others don't. I've heard some people say they're uncomfortable.

Some people like them. Right. So it's just kind of dependent. So if you like the chair backs, then you'll love the added chairback seating. As far as the, I guess this makes it even more likely for the sellouts to continue for KU down the road because there's less seats to be had. The downside is that tickets are going to be more expensive to get in. Even the slightest bit. I know the ticket prices for the season tickets went up a decent amount. I think the parking was like over $600 for the season tickets. So some of that stuff, not great as you continue to move toward the corporate side of things where it's just kind of all about money. And you see that in really every way, even it affects Allen Fieldhouse with the corporate side of things. That's a bit

unfortunate. Then again, like these schools need to find ways to make more money because they're going to have to be paying all these players $20 million, right? If you want to reach that max cap, and this is probably one way to make a little bit more money there. So you can see kind of both sides of the coin there as far as those Allen Fieldhouse renovations, but it'll be interesting to see when it is all done and we can all go into games and see what some of the new renovations look like. Now, the schedule is out for the non-con for those games that you'll be in attendance to Allen Fieldhouse for. We're going to go over that here. Then we'll get into our top five games as part of the non-con for KU.

So it'll start on October 18th, which is a Friday night, late night in the fog. Then their first exhibition will be against Washburn. That'll be on Tuesday, October 29th. Their first real game will be on Monday, November 4th against Howard. And then how about their second real game of the season? Normally it's been the Champions Classic. They're going with North Carolina at home in Lawrence on a Friday night. That'll be a ton of fun, juiced up atmosphere to that. You don't really see Kansas play that big of a game before the Champions Classic too often. So then you have Michigan State in the Champions Classic Tuesday,

November 12th. Then an Oakland team at home who beat kentucky in the tournament this past year on november 16th that's saturday november 19th a tuesday your verse unc wilmington has been a really solid squad in uh gosh i don't even know are they in the caa still uh there's so much movement nowadays but anyway they've been solid kind of mid-major uh then you have your vegas showdown you're playing two games duke in las ve at the T-Mobile Arena, and then Furman is going to be back at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence on November 30th. The Duke game's on November 26th, so probably a lot of people are going to be having Thanksgiving out in Las Vegas, which I'm sure would be an enjoyable trip. Then on December 4th, you are at Creighton, which is a Wednesday night game in Omaha, Nebraska. December 8th, which is a Sunday, you're going to be at Missouri playing in Columbia.

So that's going to be a pretty big week, both in terms of two road games and two tough games. Versus NC State, team had just made the final four on Saturday, December 14th. And then you have about a week off before you finish out the non-con, taking on Brown out of the Ivy League for December 22nd, a Sunday game, which that's the classic last game before winter break, which we've seen KU play Ivy League schools the last couple of years. And then you'll get into Big 12 play after that, which we know the home away and two-time opponents,

but we don't know when they'll play. So we'll get into those when that officially gets released out. So let's talk specifically, what are your top five toughest non-con games among that list? We'll get into that coming up in just a moment on Locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

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So head over to FanDuel.com and start making the most out of your summer. FanDuel, official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball and the Locked On Podcast Network. Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every episode. Again, you can check out all sorts of content on our Locked On Podcast Network. And here with Locked On Jayhawks, we're getting into the top five toughest games for the KU basketball non-con in the 2024 to 2025 season. Before I specifically get into the five, I did want to say the best of the bye games, because I think that's kind of just

a different category. You know, the Oakland game is kind of interesting. They're 156 on Bart Torvik right now for the upcoming season. But, you know, they obviously won a tournament game upset Kentucky. They lost Trey Townsend, who was their really good, like, four-man, and Jack Golke, who was their three-point sniper. I mean, they have a lot of good three-point shooters, but he is off playing with, I think, the Thunder Summer League team. So two of their better players there, but still 156 on Torvik. They play an interesting style

with the three balls that, I don't know, we'll see if that continues to hurt Kansas next season like it did this past season. UNC Wilmington, they're 177th on Bartorvik, so not far off. They went 21-10 a season ago. They won over 20 games. What do they have in common with Oakland? They won against Kentucky. It's kind of just a weird, interesting tidbit. UNC Wilmington actually won at Kentucky in the non-con last season. So don't take that one lightly. They've been a very solid squad for really,

it feels like better part of like a decade, maybe a half decade here where they're constantly winning like around or at 20 or more games in a season. I think the toughest by game though, is that Brown game. So they're 169th on Torvik between where Oakland and Wilmington is. But Brown is a good team. They should have beat Yale in the Ivy league final. Obviously we saw Yale go to the NCAA tournament and pull an upset over Auburn in the first round. And I forget what the score was, but Brown was up like, it was like four points, five points with like 20, 30 seconds or something in the Ivy league

championship. And it kind of let things get away and then Yale hit like a game winner. But Brown brings back their top two players from their squad last season. And we've seen KU play those Ivy League schools in their final game before winter break. And they've been close games. You look at maybe the final score and they haven't been totally indicative of that with the last couple of years with Yale and Harvard before that. But those are games at the four minute mark or the eight minute mark, depending on the game and whether it's a combination of Ivy League typically has good schools. Again, we see the Ivy League pull upsets in the NCAA tournament all the time, whether it's a combination of that, whether it's a combination of maybe you're looking ahead a little bit because it's your last game before Christmas break and you're just thinking about

wanting to get home and stuff. And a little bit of that creeps in to the mental side of your mind before the game, that look ahead game a little bit. Combination of those two has led to some close games. So I think that'll be a tough one with Brown. Our number five game though on the non-con for KU is at Missouri. That game will be on Sunday, December 8th. It'll be played in Columbia.

So this will be, obviously they renewed it for a six-year series. We'll see if they continue to renew it after that. I feel like they probably will. I don't know. I feel like it's probably successful for both. I mean, Kansas is selling out every game, but like for Missouri, obviously they'd want to have it. They're selling out those games and not selling out a lot of the other ones.

But this will be the second trip to Columbia as part of the restart here. And then the next two after that will be at the T-Mobile Center. So the number five on this list, I was between that Missouri game and I was between the NC State game at home. And on one hand, it sounds silly to pick Missouri if that's the comparison, because if you look at what they did last year, Missouri had a defeated SEC season. They didn't win an SEC game in 0-18, then lost their SEC tournament games, technically 0-19. NC State made the Final Four. So why would NC State not be the tougher game? But obviously, these are different teams. These are not last year teams. NC State graduated DJ Burns, DJ Horn,

Casey Morsell. Those are the three best players. Missouri added some solid new players in the portal. It'll be a hostile environment. NC State, when you get home, the other one, you get a hostile environment playing in Columbia. And on Bartorvik, Missouri's 61st for 2025, NC State's 55th. So it's close enough that the home away splits that kind of makes it the difference. But I actually think Missouri could be a pretty feisty squad this year. Tony Perkins transferred in from Iowa. He's a good scorer and can really get down the lane and score inside. You have Mark Mitchell from Duke, who's a really good athlete, really good defender, versatile player. And you surround those guys who neither one of them is like great shooters, but they're athletic players.

You surround them with good floor spacers. Tamar Bates is a really good shooter. Caleb Grill is a really good shooter. So I think Missouri is going to be a pretty solid squad next season and playing on the road. That'll be a relatively tough game for KU. The number four on the list for the top five toughest games for KU in their non-con in 2024 to 2025 is the Michigan State game in the Champions Classic. It's pretty crazy that you play a Champions Classic game and it's like, oh yeah, that's not one of your even three toughest non-con games. So this game is going to be on Tuesday, November 12th. It's going to be their third game of the season. And maybe that makes it a little bit tougher, but it's the same thing for Michigan State that you're trying to overcome early season.

I don't know, just rust shaking off or figuring each other out as the season comes on. Interestingly enough, Champions Classic this year is in Atlanta. I can't remember. I thought it's always been Indianapolis, Chicago, New York. Is this the first time Atlanta has been part of the rotation? So that'll be kind of interesting how that impacts things. But the Spartans are ranked 18th on Bart Torvik. So they are projected to have a pretty good team by that metric. They are unranked on ESPN and CBS's preseason top 25s.

I do think they're going to overperform the latter of those two. I'm not saying I'm expecting Michigan State to be a top 10 team or anything like that, but could I see them being top 25-ish? Yeah, absolutely. Again, they're 18th on Torvik. They've got a couple of good players, I think, who have breakout potential to become really good players this year in Jaden Akins and Xavier Booker. They've got a good transfer in Frankie Fidler, who's going to add some shooting.

I just kind of trust Izzo to, even if we haven't seen Tom Izzo the last whatever really I guess since the Caches Winston 2019 Michigan State team that went to the final four so over the last five seasons then 2020 through 2024 we haven't seen Izzo be able to put together like one of those you know really good Michigan State teams like that that was the top two or three seed in the NCAA tournament. They've just kind of been hovering around that like seven to 11 seed range, but I trust him to at least get them to that point where they're a tough, competent team, even if they're not a juggernaut.

And that'll make it a tough game on its own. But obviously they have potential for more because we have seen it before with Izzo and Michigan State, even though it has been a handful of years here. All right, we're going to finish up our top three games on the non-con for KU basketball in just a moment. Finishing up this episode of Locked on Jayhawks with our top five toughest non-con games.

We still have our top three to get to for the non-con that was released for KU basketball. Again, thank you to every dayers tuning in to each and every episode. Tomorrow, we're going to have an episode getting back to Football Friday. And on that episode of Football Friday, we're going to get to Big 12 Media Day takeaways. So be on the lookout for that. And, of course, check out the rest of our Locked On podcast network

for plenty more coverage going on in the Big 12 and around the country. Our number three game of the KU basketball non-con for the 2024 to 2025 season, we're going at Creighton. This one will be tough. Creighton's a tough place to play. It's happening on Wednesday, December 4th for the Big 12 Big East Challenge. That'll be happening in Omaha. Creighton is 13th on Bart Torvik, 15th on ESPN, 21st on CBS. So pretty consensusly top 25 team, whether you view them in top 15, top 25, kind of depends the scope you want to look at them. On one hand, you have a team that went elite eight two years ago, sweet 16 last year, and

you bring back three of your top six scores and add a couple of good transfers. That's a good recipe for success. And especially when you have Ryan Kalkbrenner back, who is one of the better centers in the entire country and is certainly one of the best centers in terms of like rim protection and defense in the country. So like, that's a great place to start. But they also, of those, you know, three or top six scores, of the three that you lost,

two of them are Trey Alexander and Baylor Shireman. Baylor Shireman, late first round pick. Trey Alexander was a guy who was projected by a lot of people to be a second round pick pick ended up getting an undrafted free agent deal with the Denver Nuggets that is a lot of offense that is a lot of creation to lose off a team with Alexander and Shireman now the interesting thing is Greg McDermott their head coach always has like really good offenses these last couple years when they've had Kalkbrenner they've actually been in some respects like some years or some periods of time a better defensive than offensive team though but you trust Greg

McDermott to figure out the offense even without Alexander and Chyerman maybe it won't be as good as last year but will it still be good enough to be a really good team probably especially Kalkbrenner leading the defense and they did add a couple good transfer pickups like Jamiah Neal averaged 11 points per game at Arizona State so that's somebody to help with the offense they had pop isaacs who was an inefficient player last year for texas tech but had some really high level scoring outbursts so that'll be interesting with that matchup i feel like creighton could wind up being closer to maybe the one that ku played in 2022 they played him in the second round but if you remember no ryan kalkbrenner in that game so that'll be kind of an interesting twist on this.

Also, Creighton has the advantage of this being an Omaha. This will be a tough game, but I think it'll be a really fun game. Creighton does tend to like to get up and down a little bit more. You'll have that great center matchup with Hunter Dickinson and Ryan Kalkbrenner. Number two on the list here is Vers North Carolina. It's Friday, November 8th in Allen Fieldhouse. Second game of the season. Comes before the Champions Classic.

Roy Williams got to be there, right? Or I guess counter, is that going to be too hard for him to watch because it's kind of splitting allegiances, right? From that standpoint, maybe he won't want to go. But North Carolina is ranked sixth on Bart Torvik for the upcoming season. They're ranked 10th on ESPN and they're ranked fourth on CBS Sports. For my money, I think North Carolina is good enough to win a national title in this upcoming season.

They have R.J. Davis back, who he's one of the frontrunners to win National Player of the Year. Elliott Cadeau, who reclassified coming into last year, had a solid first year as a freshman. He could take a big leap this year. And then you added a possible one-and-done and a 6'5 guard in Ian Jackson. Like, North Carolina might have the best backcourt in the country next season. And that'll be a fun matchup on its own because if you have R.J. Davis

and Elliott Cadeau and Ian Jackson going up against DeJuan Harris and you're throwing out a ton of minutes for Shaquille Moore, that what you could argue is one of the best defensive backcourts in the country. That could be a lot of fun. They also added Belmont sharpshooter Cade Tyson on the wing. I think that'll be a fun matchup too like if you have Tyson versus Storr I think Storr can burn him athletically but I think Tyson could present a tough matchup for him on the other end of the court they do have some questions at the five spot at the center position but it feels like North Carolina like always figures out the

center position so I don't know how much that'll end up being a question when things are said and done but still North Carolina is one of the best teams in the country. Kansas is one of the best teams in the country. Happening now in Fieldhouse, that place is going to be rocking. That's going to be awesome. The only reason it wouldn't have been number one or didn't end up being number one is because you play Duke in the Vegas showdown. Now, you could argue the North Carolina game should still be ahead of this one.

By some places, you might think North Carolina is going to be better than Duke this season. I gave the Duke one the nod because I think Duke and North Carolina are probably going to be a coin flip. Who ends up being better? I think just like North Carolina, I think Duke is going to be good enough to win the national title this year. But the North Carolina one, you have the added magic of Allen Fieldhouse. The Duke one, you're playing it on a neutral court in las vegas duke is number two on bartorvik they're eighth on espn they're ninth on cbs but for me they're one of the three or four or five best teams in the country like i i think cooper flag is going to be one of those like zion williamson anthony davis level freshman um where he is like automatically a first team all-american

like i think he's going to be that good. And then you have a junior Tyrese Proctor coming back, sophomore Caleb Foster. You added some good transfers in an elite shooter and experienced forward, Mason Gillis. You added a 6'6 wing from Tulane, who put up 14 points on 38% from three in Cyon James. Syracuse transfer, who gives them experience averaging nine and seven a game. And then that doesn't even account for if a couple of their other freshmen you know end up living up to some of the hype con canoople I don't know if that's a proper way to pronounce it but I guess he like led the AAU circuit in in scoring or something like that six foot five wing and then you have a seven foot one mobile center and come on Malik who can you know handle the ball and shoot threes

a little bit there um the one thing about them is I don't know who their point guard is going to be, which can be a problem, obviously, especially in college basketball. Guards win you a lot of these big games and in the tournament. But their entire top 10 projected contributors on Bart Torvik, they're 6'5 or bigger. That's going to cause teams a lot of problems. And you add to just the matchup itself having um possibly cooper flag going up against your team and seeing how you respond like it's an opportunity to make some

nba money if you're like aj store if you're matched up with cooper flag or what happens if cooper flag is playing some small ball five against hunter dickinson what does that look like right so i i think that'll be a great game uh but this is a loaded non-con for KU and they're going to be filled with a ton of awesome games for fans to attend to, to watch and for proof that Kansas can be one of the best teams in the country. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Back tomorrow for a football Friday episode of the show,

talking to big 12 football media days. We'll see you next time with LOJ.