Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BAD LOSS WITH REPERCUSSIONS: Kansas Jayhawks Crushed by Cincinnati Bearcats at Home

Starting point is 00:00:00 Absolutely disgusting and pitiful performance for the KU offense and in general in a blowout home loss to a not very good Cincinnati team. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on, Derek Johnson here with another edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And thank you the everydayers catching each and every day. episode of the show. You can also find us on YouTube as well as anywhere you get your podcast. And thank you for making locked on the number one sports podcast network. On today's episode of the show, we recap KU's really bad loss and why it has huge repercussions to a negative degree against

Starting point is 00:00:51 Cincinnati. We'll get to what went down in the game, game awards. What's next for K. It doesn't get any easier for the Jayhawks. And this is one of the first times and few times this season where I've come into it. Like even some of the other losses this year, we've come into some of these games going, you know, like maybe this wasn't great or maybe that wasn't great, but it's fixable. Or like, this is a loss that was understandable. This is not one of those situations. This is a bad loss that has bad repercussions. We'll break that all down. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by five hour energy. Have your cake and drink it to. Birthday cake flavor is back. No fork needed. Vanilla eat key flavor. Caffinated kick and no sugar. It's party time. Order now at five hour energy

Starting point is 00:01:33 or on Amazon. KU falls to Houston, a double-digit home loss to a team that coming in your nine and a half point favorites against. It was, we talked about that we thought this would be an ugly game for KU. It certainly was for the KU offense, right? You're shooting in the low 20s from three. You have multiple ruts throughout the game where you couldn't score points. The offense in general was just kind of ugly at different points.

Starting point is 00:02:00 There wasn't enough ball movement. There was too much ISO ball for KU. you're held under 70 points. We thought all those things could happen. What I didn't really expect to happen, though, was on top of it being ugly for KU, it was that you would not be able to stop Cincinnati. This is an offense that coming into this game on Bart Torvick and Ken Palm

Starting point is 00:02:16 was outside of the top 150 in the country. And Cincinnati torched you for 84 points. They shot 39% from three. They shot 48% from the field. You could not stop Cincinnati, especially in the second half. I mean, in the second half, they put up 48 points. And that's kind of a common theme now. When we look at KU games that KU has lost, I guess outside of like, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:02:41 the games KU is lost to the really good opponents, Duke, Yukon, Iowa State, those have just, you've lost the game. The games that you have lost to lesser opponents, UCF, West Virginia, Cincinnati, the common thread to pull on there is your defense sucks in the second half. That's the common theme there. And that's a little worrisome because that's supposed to be KU's calling card. That's supposed to be KU's identity. That's supposed to be something that you always hear the cliche, well, defense travels

Starting point is 00:03:11 because the idea is supposed to be defense is consistent and that you can always be a good defensive team if that's what you're relying on. That has not been the case for this KU team. Their defense is inconsistent. When the defense is good, it's really good. When the defense is bad, it hasn't happened as much as when it's been good. But you see the second half like North Carolina, you see the second half against UCF and West Virginia and now Cincinnati, who, again, a bad offensive team just put up 48 in the second half on you. That is inexcusable.

Starting point is 00:03:36 And now the results of this, the repercussions are very real. The Big 12th title hopes are done for KU, right? Now you're two back in the lost column of Houston and Arizona. I'm sorry, but even if you do win out from here, which after losing this game, what is your confidence that they actually do win out? To me, that's the bigger part of it. Like, they're not going to win out from here. If you're losing this game, you're not going to win both games next week.

Starting point is 00:03:59 I'm sorry. But even if they did win out, you're not winning the Big 12th. You're two back in the loss column, right? So Big 12th title hopes are done to me. The battle for a top four seed in the Big 12th tournament is still on the table, but now it's back to being kind of a crapshoot. You had an opportunity to gain some ground with the Texas Tech injury to JT. Topin.

Starting point is 00:04:17 And now you're in a situation where it's like, well, it's not really a guarantee that you end up with a top four seed in the Big 12th tournament, which becomes important because you're trying to get that double by. And with the Darren Peterson situation, getting that, double by would be super helpful for KU, but now you have the same in the lost column as Texas Tech. So that's not great for KU. And also we saw earlier today, we'll get into this a little bit more later in the show too, but KU came in as a three seed.

Starting point is 00:04:44 They were the 10 overall on the NCAA tournament committee's early selection process or seating reveal, whatever you want to call it. Okay, so if you were a three seed and you just suffered a bad loss at home, does that mean KU is now a four seed, essentially, in the NCAA tournament? tournament and how much does that distance you from being a one or a two seed or there probably weren't going to be a one seed but but from being a two seed right does it eliminate you from having a chance of doing that and now you are kind of teetering between potentially being even a four seed in the NCAA tournament with as many good one seeds as

Starting point is 00:05:17 there are you really would like to avoid because you know getting to play one of those good one seeds a potential round later when they could have another potential chance to lose a game would be super beneficial to this team that obviously is far from a perfect product here, right? So just very bad all around from the game to the results of the game. And again, especially with what's staring down the barrel for you with what's upcoming for KU. There's no good news coming out of this game for KU, right? Just, yeah, very, very bad for the Jayhawks. So in the end, KU did not play well in Cincinnati did.

Starting point is 00:05:55 And that's what you end up with with the 16 point loss at home. This was basically the Utah game, except Cincinnati's a better opponent, and they got hot from three, and you probably would play it even worse than that one, right? It is clear you were looking ahead to next week with the Houston game and the Arizona game. I can't help but wonder if all the national headline stuff going on to, like, is that starting to wear on the team mentally? You know what I mean? I don't know with all the Darren Peterson stuff.

Starting point is 00:06:20 Is that finally starting to like wear on them? you know, and you hit this incredible hot streak. And now are you starting, you've lost two of three with a really tough schedule coming up here this next week. Is there a chance that we could be talking about, KU limping to the finish line here? You know, that is entirely in play with losing this game. And we kind of talked about in the preview to the game. We said how Cincinnati was not a good three-point shooting team. They came in shooting 32% from three.

Starting point is 00:06:45 So you don't expect them to hit 39% from three. But what we did say in the preview that was a little worrisome was that, Even though Cincinnati has not shot the ball well from three, they are a team that takes a lot of threes. They came into this one, one of the higher three point attempt rates in the conference. And so that was a little scary because over the course of the season, if you're taking a lot of shots that you don't shoot well, that's a bad thing. But in an individual game, in an individual one game sample size, which this was, if you're shooting a lot of threes and you get hot in that game, that becomes a problem because now you're hot and you're taking a lot of them. And that's what we saw in this game.

Starting point is 00:07:25 Cincinnati took 31 of them and they made 12 of them. And it's just tough to counter that if you're KU when you're only making four of 18 from three. It feels like the three-point shooting for KU is kind of falling off of late as well. And that obviously was a problem for KU. And, you know, Trey White had below average game for him. Melvin Council goes just three of 13 for seven points. Bryson Tiller only scored four for you. You're just not really getting anything.

Starting point is 00:07:51 And even for Peterson to put up the 17 points of which he had, like, it was really hard for Peterson to get to the 17. He took 17 shots to get there. And some of the makes that he had to get, like contested midrange and stuff, it was a very hard worked 17 points for him. Really the lone positive in this one to me for KU is Flory Bedunga continues to look like a pro at center. I mean, he had 18 points.

Starting point is 00:08:15 He goes eight of 10. He has 12. rebounds. Like he was really good for KU. But even then, you know, it didn't feel like he had his normal impact on the defensive end because of the size of Baba Miller and Mustafa Chom on, on their offensive end. And they were able to, you know, outplay KU's front line by a good amount. Like the KU frontline, when they're playing really well, KU, you know, is really successful and beats a lot of teams. Well, in this game, you got 22 points, 14 rebounds combined from your front line. You look at the Cincinnati front line and they got a combined 46 points and 15 rebounds from their front line.

Starting point is 00:08:50 So obviously that ended up being an advantage for Cincinnati. And then with some of the perimeter players for KU struggling and the Cincinnati perimeter players like Celestine giving you four threes and getting a couple threes from some of your other perimeter guys, like that just kind of ends up being the difference. And so I guess hats off the Cincinnati, this is a big win for them and one that they're going to hope they can grab some momentum here and start winning a couple other games. and maybe flirt their way back in to the NCAA tournament. But for KU, this is kind of a disastrous loss, if we're being completely honest.

Starting point is 00:09:22 Like, again, you continue to show some things that have been evident this season, but you've been able to overcome the offensive lulls was, again, a piece of this for KU. The defensive rebounding was, again, a problem for KU. Both of those things have been stuff that we've seen over the course of the season, but it hasn't always cost KU. And it cost them in this game. The lack of ball movement or continuity or, team chemistry when Darren Peterson is on the court with the rest of the team.

Starting point is 00:09:47 That continued to hurt them in this one, right? So it's just a lot of the similar things that we've kind of talked about. And so this is the worst loss of the year to me. At least the West Virginia and UCF games are on the road and they were earlier in the season before you theoretically figured things out. And I don't know. Can you have another player's only meeting point? But it just feels like this is the type of loss that changes a lot for KU.

Starting point is 00:10:10 Now, if you go out there and you win both games next week, sure. then we can kind of look at this and go, okay, well, that worked out for KU, right? But that's going to be really difficult to do. And now you're playing a Houston team on Monday, who, again, we'll get more into this later. But, you know, you just lost to a very physical, tough Cincinnati team. What does Houston do? So I don't love the vibes coming out of this game. We'll just put it that way.

Starting point is 00:10:34 Let's get to our stats of the game or to the game, All That X. This is Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by Five Hour Energy. and let's get to our five-hour energy flavor draft with 18 different flavors to choose from, including new options like confetti craze, fruity rainbow, or cotton candy, there's something for everyone. The board is set. Flavors are ready.

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Starting point is 00:12:22 Get the ad-free version of the show at Lockedon Podcasts.com slash Everydayer. You can also join the Discord channel. That's Lockedon Podcasts.com slash Everydayer. I could get to moments and plays of the game. Like, I don't know. It didn't really like at first half, there were a lot of fun dunks from Flory. You got the player Flory like dribbled behind his back, gives it to White, throws it back to him. He had the Melvin Council of the Flory.

Starting point is 00:12:44 I don't know. had extendo arms 40 plus inch vertical and I don't even know if it counts as a dunk kind of threw the ball in. You had the play that tied it at 49 where Flory taps it out to get an extra possession and then on Marco has a strong drive and kind of a hop step to lay up the top of like there just wasn't juice. There wasn't you know that offensive punch. There were some nice, you know, Darren Peterson made shots that were contested and tough makes. But again, they just never really got in the flow of things did KU like you never worked out to a big lead. Addie actually led KU for you know over 10 more minutes.

Starting point is 00:13:15 and a half minutes more than KU led in this game. So it just, there wasn't really that moment. There wasn't really that big run that KU had that we've been so accustomed to in so many other Billsall seasons and even this season for KU. And that just never really happened in this game. So tough to say with it. It felt like the moment the other way. I don't even know that it was one moment specifically.

Starting point is 00:13:35 It felt like every time KU got back to within, you know, one possession or something, Cincinnati immediately had an answer. You know, you get a two-point game, they hit a three. You get it to a four point game, they hit a three, or Chom make something on the block, you know, to extend it to six. It just felt like every time Cincinnati had an answer and you never really made them uncomfortable on the offensive end of the floor, right? Our stats of the game in this one, I mean, Cincinnati, again, a bad offensive team shooting 48% against you is, that's kind of a stat on its own. Like, Cincinnati came into this game, well, this is actually after the game included. Now, with the inclusion of this game, they're 234th in the country in effective field goal percentage on offense.

Starting point is 00:14:17 And you just let them shoot 48% against you. This was their fourth fifth, sixth best effective field goal percentage game of the season for Cincinnati. The only ones that were better, NJIT, who's ranked 317th, Tarleton State, who's ranked 211th, Western Carolina, who's 257th, Kansas State, who's not very good, and then UCF, who they just blew out at home. and UCF at times doesn't have the best defense in the world. If we're looking at their most efficient games, this is their fourth most points per possession of a game all season. Alabama State, 301st, and then K-State and UCF, the other two there. So I think just in general the defense,

Starting point is 00:14:54 and the 39% from three for Cincinnati, like that would kind of come to mind too. This was one of their better games from three, certainly, and it was pretty high volume as well. Those would stick out there. The points off turnovers, it was actually 10 to 10 in turnovers, but the live ball turnover is leading to easy buckets for Cincinnati. Huge difference there. Cincinnati led 15 to 3 in points off of turnovers.

Starting point is 00:15:17 This to me, though, is the one. Cincinnati gets 14 offensive rebounds. You've got 20 defensive rebounds. Like, okay, Cincinnati is a team under West Miller that they want to make offensive rebounding a thing. They're tough, but it just hasn't been a thing for them this year. Even after this game, Cincinnati's 177th in the country in office. So they're just an average offense rebound team.

Starting point is 00:15:41 And you still let them work you at it. In the second half, like for a while, they kept getting offensive rebounds, but they wouldn't make the shot. Then in the second half, they started making the shots off the offensive rebounds. And this ended up being their fourth best offensive rebound game of this season. They've won all the other ones. Actually, one of the other ones was against Iowa State, who they also upset earlier this year, right? So I don't know if that makes you feel better or worse, but that certainly comes to mind when

Starting point is 00:16:05 you're talking about that. And then the fast break points, less about the six. for Cincinnati, that's actually a good number to hold the team to. They held Kansas to three. It felt like KU played slow today. They played lethargic. Some of that, you give credit to Cincinnati for playing good transition defense. And that's part of the problem.

Starting point is 00:16:21 Kansas is not a very good half-court offense. They're a good transition offense. They're not a good half-court offense. So if you limit Kansas to half-court, which they did in this game, we saw what the offense looked like. So to me, that becomes actually the stat. It's KU only having three fast break points when they average like 12-13 per game. That is the stat.

Starting point is 00:16:39 of the game. Our word of the game, I don't know, we were, we were going to do something on Flory Dunks. We kind of went over some of those in the matchups. Just doesn't feel like the mood here. You know, I, this, this just, this is not a good game for KQ. Like, it just, they didn't play well, you know? Like, that's the thing. Like, again, like Cincinnati shot the ball well, Cincinnati did play well. But this is still a game that if Kansas plays well, they win, you know? This isn't like like i remember gosh was this like 10 years ago iowa state came in to allan field house it was a good iowa state team it wasn't one of their like i think that i don't know they might have got like six seed or something like they it wasn't one of their like hey we're like a top

Starting point is 00:17:20 four seed in the tournament it was a decent team i think they'd be like 23 pointers i want to say like burnet or something like that for iowa state when i'm like that's one of those where you kind of just have to be like well that sucks but they just like made every three and since that again shot well from three but still 12 made it's not 20 you know so i was disappointing for kids Let's just get to the news on where their seating is, what this means in regards to that, and then what's next for KU that becomes a lot more challenging for the Jayhawks after a home loss by 16 points. I'm Kleea Butler, host of Lockdown Women's Basketball. And this is Mazda's Women's Basketball snapshot, celebrating the work no highlight reel can ever capture.

Starting point is 00:18:02 It was a heavyweight showdown between number three South Carolina and number seven LSU, and the game cost rose to the occasion. South Carolina secured a hard fought 79 to 72 victory to stay atop the SEC standings using a balanced offensive attack to outlast the Tigers. Tessa Johnson led the way with 21 points while Raven Johnson added 19. Medina O'Cott dominated the paint with a double-double, finishing with 12 points and 17 rebounds while Joyce Edwards chipped in 10 points to round out the scoring. With the statement win, the Gingcocks now turned their attention to a road matchup at number 23 Alabama on Thursday.

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Starting point is 00:19:01 Don't forget and check out the Everydayer Club Lockedon Podcasts.com slash Everyday. There. KU loses the Cincinnati, 84 to 68. And right now KU outside the top 40 on Ken Palm and offense, they are now just 19th overall on Ken Palm. And this would be the third straight offense for Bill Self, not in the top 40. And the fourth straight, not inside the top 20. So, yeah, it's been a bit brutal on the offense event for KU. And that cost them today.

Starting point is 00:19:27 The defense lap down even this one. Do we want to give out game balls? I'll just do them really quick. Offensive game ball, Flore, he hit 18 on 8 of 10. defensive game ball, I don't know. Counsel probably actually had a good defensive game. Like, KU Bags actually struggled defensively in this one against the Cincinnati Bakes. But Day Day Thomas and Jizzle James were combined six of 21 from the floor for the two main guards for Cincinnati.

Starting point is 00:19:51 So I guess you give credit to counsel and some of the guard defense for KU. Okay. What is next for KU becomes the next question. And then we'll get into the NCAA tournament seating stuff. So the Jayhawks now are back home on Monday. against Houston. And as I mentioned earlier, that is a little scary considering like, what is Cincinnati as a team? In general, they're a physical basketball team that just came in on the road and punked you. And now you're playing Houston, who is the epitome of a physical

Starting point is 00:20:26 basketball team that wants to come on the road and punk you. So that's a little bit scary. It's also scary. Houston came in Allen Fieldhouse and one last year. Houston is top. 10 right now on Ken Palm and offensive and defensive efficiency. Now, Houston is playing Arizona at home on Saturday. So maybe the hope for KU would be, you know, is Houston going to have this emotional high from this game? And then all of a sudden they have a short turnaround. And for KU now you're going to be extra fired up coming into the game.

Starting point is 00:20:50 Like that would be the hope for KU, obviously, that they can try to win this game. But now the fact that you lost to Cincinnati, like you have to win one of the next two, right? You have to beat either Houston or Arizona and then you have to win the next two, the next week to make that loss feel like it was just an aberration. Because otherwise, if you lose both games to Houston and Cincinnati, now all of a sudden we're looking at it going, oh, man, KU's limping to the finish line. They're just 10 and 6 in Big 12 play.

Starting point is 00:21:16 So this Houston game becomes the biggest game of the season for KU, like quite honestly. After losing Cincinnati, it becomes the biggest game of the season. Can you bounce back? Can you show that that game was just like a, you just played a crap game? You just had your worst game of the season. Can you show that is the case? go beat a team like Houston at home. Can you do it with Darren Peterson?

Starting point is 00:21:37 Because the big wins for KU have come more so without Darren Peterson. So that does become a real question when you see a game like this where, again, I still think that the high ceiling, the high potential for KU is with Peterson in the lineup. But right now it is very clear they have not reached that potential with Peterson in the lineup. You know why? Because of all the time that he's missed, there still isn't the, like they might all like each other, but the on-court chemistry of playing with each other, the synergy just isn't

Starting point is 00:22:03 there right now. There's too much hero ball. There's too much one-on-one when they're on the offensive end of the floor. So I don't know. That becomes really difficult. And then you're at Arizona and then at Arizona State and versus K-State. If you guaranteed me three-in-one right now in that final four, I would take it and run to the bank. But if you lose to Houston, that's going to look like a wish to be able to get to three-in-one at that point in time.

Starting point is 00:22:22 So this is the biggest moment of the season since that early January stretch for KU. They were able to, you know, have the players-only meeting and then win eight straight games. So they responded well, that time. Can they find another response this time? Okay. So the NCAA tournament committee released their top 16 overall, so their top four seeds in each region. They put KU as a three seed in the east.

Starting point is 00:22:50 Duke would have been the one. Illinois would be the two, which I would find that interesting. If you ended up with an Illinois, Kansas Suite 16, you would get the matchup of two potential top five picks with Keaton Wogler and Darren Peterson. And on top of that, you would have the Wogler, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:23:05 You can't call it a revenge game, but like, you didn't offer him a scholarship and he's from Kansas. So he'd probably be a little extra motivated than that one. So that would be very interesting nonetheless. But pretty easy to say after losing it home to Cincinnati, that is not the same seed. Kansas would be if they were doing the same exercise tomorrow, right? So the question is, would you just drop a line or two to a lower three? Would you drop now to a four? And again, this all goes back in line with your upcoming games.

Starting point is 00:23:28 You have a chance to move back up, right? Houston, Arizona present great opportunities. You also have a chance to keep moving down. And this was tweeted out by Matt Norlander. It said the previous eight times there's been an in-season top 16 with a subsequent NCAA tournament. An average of 13 and a half teams that were in the top 16 in late February remained a one, two, three, or four seed in the selection Sunday. So that's a good sign that a majority are. But that also means two and a half teams per year dropping out.

Starting point is 00:23:55 And after KU just lost the Cincinnati at home, would they be one of the ones in danger of being one of those two and a half? So very interesting the season, and this is obviously the most down I've felt about a loss all season long for KU. But you got a chance with a quick turnaround on Monday to get that taste out of your mouth and try to move past this one, or it's going to be panic button time, I guess. All right, we'll get to those games. We'll get a KU Houston preview. We'll try to get that out Sunday night. And then we'll be back for a postcast late Monday night as well right here on Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:24:25 See you next time for another edition of the show.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BAD LOSS WITH REPERCUSSIONS: Kansas Jayhawks Crushed by Cincinnati Bearcats at Home

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