Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BENCH BLUES: Can Jayhawks FIX Themselves - Best & Worst Lineups + Kansas Football Film Reviews

Starting point is 00:00:00 Which lineups are the key for KU finishing the season strong? Which other lineups need to be ditched before it's too late? We're going to get into some lineup numbers through Big 12 play for KU basketball on this episode of the show. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. How's it going, Derek Johnson, with another edition of Lockedon Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. Thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network.

Starting point is 00:00:38 On today's episode of the show, we're going to break down the best and worst lineups for KU basketball. What can tell us about not just the lineups, but the team and some individual players. Then we'll get into a little more KU football film reviews. We'll get on to the receiver position with Nick McMillan and to the linebacker position with Quincy Davis. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Mazda. We put that same drive into every detail.

Starting point is 00:01:01 Wins to find the moment, putting in the work that defines you. stay tuned for highlights in this week's moving the game forward. There's more to a Mazda because there's more to you. So I wanted to take a look at just Big 12 only play. I think that can be helpful because it gives a better trend than if you look at the full season for where things are at right now. It also is against, you know, you're playing teams that have better scouting reports on you because you might be playing them for a second time like Arizona and Iowa State

Starting point is 00:01:27 and upcoming with Kansas State or just teams that have played common opponents more often to where the scouting reports are going to be, you know, more valuable than maybe one of your early season games. I also just wanted to take a look at the 10 lineups that play that have played 20 minutes together or more in Big 12 play. So I have to have at least a bit of continuity. Don't just want, you know, things where it's, you know, I don't know, like this is the only lineup there and everything or, you know, you played for two minutes together.

Starting point is 00:01:58 And interestingly enough, the number one lineup right now for KU by net rating, which is the 97th percentile for net rating this season. And this one has played only 21 minutes together. So clearly one that, in my opinion, it's only played seven of the big 12 games for KU, one that maybe they should be playing a little bit more, is Melvin Council, Jamari McDowell, Darren Peterson, Flory Bedunga, and Bryson Tiller. And I can't help but think it's interesting that Trey White is not a part of that. And you think about Trey White has seemingly done better when Peter,

Starting point is 00:02:34 Peterson's not on the floor. Is there something to the idea that the Peterson and White are better players without the other, you know? And maybe McDowell fits in more from three. Then again, you're talking about one that's just 21 minutes played. Maybe it's a small sample size and you had just a few minutes here or there. Maybe the real top lineup for KU because this one is played, you know, you're looking at now, you know, basically three times the amounts of minutes of the number one lineup. if you're looking by net rating, not quite three times, but 50 minutes played is the lineup of

Starting point is 00:03:07 El Marco Jackson, Melvin Council, Jamari McDowell, Trey White, and Flory Bedunga. And I found that one was super interesting too because it felt like, especially, I mean, with El Marco and Jamari, they both struggled so much on the road. That one has a plus 45 net rating. Then you look at the third best lineup for KU. This one's still just 23 minutes. And also features El Marco with El Marco, Melvin Council, Tray White, Florida, Badoon, gun, Brexton, Tellers.

Starting point is 00:03:30 I don't know that we're learning anything yet, right? This feels like just kind of a cluster. But the next lineup, maybe you can learn the most. This is the most minutes played for KU lineup and Big 12 play, 167 minutes played. Melvin Council, Darren Peterson, Trey White, Floyd, Budunga, Bryson, Taylor. So this is your starting five. It's actually 13 net rating per 100 possessions. So, like, that's good.

Starting point is 00:03:51 It's 65th percentile. It's not great. And therein lies a problem for me for KU. The starting five for KU has been a positive. It has been a good thing. for Kansas. Now, when you take into account 65th percentile for that net rating is compared to other teams in their conference play. Obviously, there are conferences, like every conference is worse than the Big 12. So really, if you were to adjust that, it would be much more impressive

Starting point is 00:04:14 what KU is doing there. But I think it speaks to two things. One, if you're starting five is playing that well, why have you had so many ups and downs? And I think part of the answer is the lack of bench production, right, the lack of bench consistency. You have some games, mostly at home, where the bench, at least one person on the bench is able to, you know, make a strong performance for you. But you just don't have the quality of guys. And I say this all the time. Like, you don't need a deep bench in college basketball. In fact, if you look at past national champions, most of them are on the bottom half of bench minutes played. But what you do need is the guys who come off the bench have to be reliable. You can be fine with a seven-man rotation. You can be fine with a seven-man

Starting point is 00:04:56 rotation. Many teams are fine with an eight man rotation. But the sixth and seventh guy, they got to be nails. And I look, you know, you look back to the 2022 Kansas team that won the national championship, which was the last time KU's had even a decent bench. And what did you have off the bench? He had Mitch Lightfoot, who was a 60 year senior center who undersized, but would, knew where he needed to be, had a really efficient hook shot and could block some shots. You had a good bench big. You had Remy Martin. by the end of the season, one of the best bench scores at that point in the country. And then you had, if you needed an eighth guy like Jalen Coleman-Land's experienced player

Starting point is 00:05:35 could come in and hit a three. You don't need to have the best bench in the world, but the guys you bring off the bench have to be trusted for you. And right now that's the problem. Marco's had some good moments this year. He's had a lot of down moments as well. Jamari McDowell's had some really good moments this year as well. They've all been at home, you know?

Starting point is 00:05:51 So you look at this and you're not getting the bench production. And then because of that, the second part of this is, If you're not going to get that bench production, instead of those starters just being good, which they have been playing together, they're going to have to be elite. They're going to have to be great playing together to make up for what you're not getting there from the bench. And that is kind of an unfortunate part of this. Now, what if we look at the worst lineups for KU over Big 12 play? The worst lineup, this one played 31 minutes together so far, is a minus 28 in net rating, which is obviously very, very bad. that is El Marco Jackson, Melvin Council, Darren Peterson, Tray White, and Flory Bedunga.

Starting point is 00:06:29 And then the second worst, which is a minus 14.1 in 29 minutes is El Marco Jackson, Melvin Counsel, Jamari McDowell, Tray White, and Bryson Tiller. Which is interesting because you have the one lineup with all of those same guys except Flore's in there instead of Tiller and it's okay. So I guess you can read a couple things there. One, like the El Marco effect. And now El Marco is on some of the good lineups as well, but on the two worst lineups for KU. also he's on there. And then you have, I don't know, just kind of the flip of Flory to Tiller, but then the worst lineup does feature Flory.

Starting point is 00:07:03 So it's almost like everybody's involved in one of the bad ones. And I think that goes back again to the idea that the bench has been so bad. You mix any of them with the bench. It's just going to cause an explosion. Now, what if we look over the recent games for KU? What if we look over the last five games for KU? They have only played four lineups over the last five games that have played 10 or more minutes total together.

Starting point is 00:07:26 The most successful lineup over these last four games has been the lineup of El Marco Jackson, Melvin Council, Jamari McDowell, Trey White, and Florida Badunga. And again, that doesn't seem to make sense to me with what we're watching. But you're talking about 12 minutes played, so small sample size. This one is plus 31.6 net rating. That is a very good net rating. This one's 61 minutes played.

Starting point is 00:07:46 Melvin Counsel, Darren Peterson, Tray White, Florida, Bedunga, Bryson, Diller. That backs up the idea that the starters are doing enough right now, right? Actually, we talked a lot about KU's offense not being very good. Their O rating on the season is around. I haven't checked since their last game, but coming into the last game, it was like 113. So I'm assuming after the Arizona State game, it's probably around 11, 112. The O rating of those five starters together for KU is 122.

Starting point is 00:08:14 So like Kansas actually does have a decent offense when that's including the Arizona state game. Kansas has a decent offense when those five are on the floor. but then you flip that over, right? What if we look at this lineup? El Marco Jackson, Melvin Council, Darren Peterson, Florida, Bedunga. That is your same starting five,

Starting point is 00:08:29 except Trey White is out for El Marco Jackson. The O rating drops to 109. The net rating is minus 30 and a half. What if we look at this lineup? And that's over the last five games, to be clear. Melvin Council with Peterson, Trey White, and Bidunga. The only switch is you have McDowell in there instead of Tiller.

Starting point is 00:08:46 Well, that one has a 74.1 O rating over the last five games with minus 52.9. So I don't know. As we talk more about that, I get it. Like I've been on the train too, looking back to the last game, like, I didn't really have anybody that played well. And it doesn't feel like anybody is, and I still stand by this, is trending in the right direction, has an up arrow right now.

Starting point is 00:09:06 But looking more into it, there's even more fault to the bench than I've even been giving it credit for. And as we've talked about the offseason KU had, they had a more successful offseason this year than in past years. Trey White was still, even though he's been struggling. in a bit as of late, was still a steal for KU. Melvin Council was still a really good get for KU. There's no reason they should be having this many struggles unless the bench is a zero,

Starting point is 00:09:31 which in the road games it basically has. And then in the home games, it's like maybe one guy is giving you good contributions, but it's not really consistently multiple guys. And that's the frustrating part and something that I think teams are going to have to live with a little bit from the standpoint of now the way money is being spread around. You almost have to say, hey, if we're paying Darren Pee, Peterson this much money, it's going to limit what we can give out on the bench, which increases the importance of high school recruiting. It increases the importance of finding diamonds in the rough.

Starting point is 00:10:03 And I don't think that those have been things that KU has been great at, albeit they did it with Trey White and Melvin Council, but those are from the starter position. And the thing is, you would think the advantage for a team with more money and an opportunity like KU, you would think the advantage for school is to build a deeper team. But then you start thinking about it more at the transfer portal. It's like, okay, why go be the seventh man at Kansas when you can be the number two at some other power four school or at a mid-major or something like that? And so it becomes very difficult to build a bench. So I do understand that, but it's got to be better than what it is right now.

Starting point is 00:10:37 Because right now what we're seeing is KU has one of the worst benches in the conference and in the country. And that is what is kind of holding them back. One quick other stat I wanted to mention, which I found, I don't know, kind of interesting, not great. Over the last five games, KU was almost 13 points per 100 possessions worse with Darren Peterson on the floor. So I think what that speaks to is this. Obviously, Peterson has struggled shooting, and that has been his main contribution to the team, shooting the basketball. The fact that he has struggled so mightily has been a negative on the team, but also shows the margin for error. because KU has no bench,

Starting point is 00:11:14 they cannot overcome Darren Peterson's poor shooting. Again, we go back to like the 2022 team. O'Chagbashi had a bad shooting game. Oh, Remi Martin will pick them up. Oh, Christian Brown will pick them up. Oh, David McCormick can go for, you know, 17 and 10. You don't really have those other options on this team.

Starting point is 00:11:31 So that's kind of where we're at this point of time. All right, let's switch gears. Little KU football, some film review excited to get to the Nick McMillan one, really good receiver. And then Quincy Davis. I think somebody people are maybe sleeping on a little bit. We'll get to those next. This is Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:11:46 This episode is brought to you by Mazda, moving the game forward for those who show there's more to the score than what's on screen. I have to dig a little deeper to find my Mazda moment because of how things have Elfurkated the last couple years, but a couple games. But guess what? They play K-State this upcoming Saturday. And who could forget the Trey White dunk at the end of the game on K-State? I might rile them up a little bit more coming into this game.

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Starting point is 00:12:37 Discord server at Lockedon Podcasts.com slash every day. Let's get to a little KU football film review we're going to get to Nick McMillan. I only got to see one game of film on Nick McMillan, unfortunately, and it was early in the season before he had his hot streak. Now, the value of this one was it was against a powerful opponent as it came against Minnesota. So running through here, the positives, I would say, like, here's the thing. I was not expecting to see much because I had already like, when you look at the box scores, you're looking at the game logs and going, okay, like he had his big finish to the season over the back half, right? And so I looked at the raw stats and he has two catches for 20 yards. And I wasn't expecting to come away being like, oh, this was an

Starting point is 00:13:23 incredible game. I actually came away impressed. I came away very not impressed by the Buffalo quarterback situation, which we've talked about that before that you look at the quarterback stats for Buffalo this past year. They were really, really bad. And watching it on film, yeah, I backed that up, right. The offensive line got eaten up to by Minnesota and pass rush, which makes some sense. You're going to get the powerful opponent there. So that's going to limit the potential production you're going to be able to have as a receiver. It also felt like half of his routes, if not more, honestly, were either just like clearouts or just like run deep. So I don't know how much he was being schematically used in this early part of the season. And then as the season went on,

Starting point is 00:14:05 he seemed to get more comfort. He seemed to get more trust from his coaches, from his quarterback. and then he had that hot streak at the end of the year. But for instance, like he got open on a short hitch, but the ball goes to the other side. He got open on a deep ball, but the quarterback overthrows him by five yards. He got a step on the DB, and it was a tad underthrown. The defensive back made a nice play on the ball to knock it away on another deep ball, but he did have him by the step. And then he was able to get like a slight leg up on a double move deep ball,

Starting point is 00:14:37 but the ball went to the opposite side to a receiver that was even more open for a touchdown. So it's like the process was pretty good there. And again, like when I look at the quarterback play, the quarterback in that game went 12 of 20 for 107 yards. So two catches for 20 yards looks a lot better if your team's throwing for 300 yards or 200 yards than it is for 107, right? Now, among the catches that I saw, he ran a really strong like stop start move where he kind of zigged in, ran outside, basically a fake in.

Starting point is 00:15:07 out route, caught it, ran for a few extra yards. Good to see kind of the agility and the cutting ability there. He also had a comeback route on the sidelines where he made a really nice catch and got in bounds at the sideline, good spatial awareness and everything. So I thought he did pretty good too off of like jam coverage, press coverage from the other team. This wasn't a game that I'm, I walk away going that, yeah, Nick McMillan, like this game isn't the reason why I expect Nick McMillan to be receiver number one and have a chance to put up a pretty special season. season, but it was a game where, you know, I saw some of the flashes of what made sense for what was going to happen later in the season.

Starting point is 00:15:46 Now, some of the were a few routes where he didn't separate necessarily, which is obviously important to note for bigger, better athletes that he's going to be playing week in, week out, then he will get in the Mac. That's obviously a big thing there. But also good to counter that and saying he's another year coming off another year off of a year where he was injured, so maybe gets even more explosive this year. I didn't think the run blocking was very good from McMillan. Now, that's been something that KU's taught well in the past.

Starting point is 00:16:14 I don't think that it translated too well to the receiving core this past season, but in other years it has. So we'll see where it goes. There was a running back swing pass where he did a decent job blocking on. So, you know, there was a moment where it was like, okay, you have to block here because it's coming your way. And he did. So that is important at least.

Starting point is 00:16:33 And then in general, just couldn't get like too many, I don't know, takeaways or overarching thoughts just from this being the only game of film I got on him and it being kind of limited. But overall, if you look at his game logs, you look at his statistics, the Minnesota game was one of his worst games statistically, right? And so if this was one of his worst games statistically, and I could see some of the skills. And once Buffalo kind of opened things up more, once we get to Mac play later in the year, and he flips that switch, he was off and running. Like I feel really good about this edition for KU overall, and I didn't see anything in this game that makes me feel worse necessarily. Let's finish up with a film review on Quincy Davis, new linebacker edition from New Mexico State.

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Starting point is 00:19:35 Podcasts.com slash everydayer. All right. Another KU football film review. We have Quincy Davis. We actually got two games of film from the all 22 from Davis. We have his 2025 game against Middle Tennessee State and then his 2025 game against U-TEP. I would say some of the positives here for Davis who comes over with that really good

Starting point is 00:19:53 mistackle grade because it's really low. So in the Middle Tennessee State game, he had a really nice play kind of presenting himself in what would be the desired hole that the running back. wanted to go through that forced the running back to bounce it to the side and then get hit by a different teammate like that's a play where you're making the play for somebody else it's like getting a hockey assist in basketball he also had a really nice play when he subbed in as the mic in the fourth quarter in that middle Tennessee state game where he reads the run quick enough to like the center is is trying to block him but he's only able to kind of chip him because he reads it so

Starting point is 00:20:30 quick enough, which allows him to just be getting chipped to get by him, forced the running back to go outside to the left. He still chases him down and makes the tackle. Like that was, that was perfection. And the very next play, he did a good job reading through some like route traffic to cover the running back in the flats. The ball didn't go that way. But that was a really impressive sequence I thought for him. Then something that stood out in the Utep game, it was the first snap I saw him. He, it looked like kind of a sweep run play. And he did a really good job of absorbing the hit of the pulling tight end who was

Starting point is 00:21:07 trying to just kind of crack him and set the edge. And it forced the running back to turn around the other way. Now, unfortunately, the rest of the defense didn't defend it. And he ended up getting a big game. But like, he did his job well in that situation. He also had a fun snap. And I think I tweeted this one out, actually, where he gets like cut block. by the guard, but he's able to kind of shrug it off, get back up in the play and make the

Starting point is 00:21:29 tackle the running back. I thought in general, he fought pretty hard in this game and even had a play where he was like pretty sticky on a out route and he had good coverage and another play where he was guarding a tight end. So I liked what I saw. It's obviously again, even if you're talking two games here, limited film because you're talking about a rotational linebackers. There's still not a ton of snaps, but there were some really good highlights for him there, right? some of the negatives, again, one of them is just the snaps. He played just 18 snaps in the Middle Tennessee State game. That was the season finale for him.

Starting point is 00:22:04 So, like, I don't know if by that point in the season, he had been banged up and couldn't play as much because that was his least amount of snaps played since week three. He didn't play in the overtime period the week before. So, again, I don't know if he was like battling an injury or I don't know if by the end of the season he lost favor with the team. that would be something that I love to know just in terms of what to expect from him, right? There was a play where he got buried by a tight end on a block one-on-one play. And another one where he kind of got like completely washed out on a run that came his way, albeit to be fair, he was being double-teamed by tackle and tight ends. That's usually not going to work out for the linebacker.

Starting point is 00:22:45 He did have a play where he blitzed off the right edge, but he gave away the, like, it looked like he was trying to hide he was coming and then gave away the tell too early um and then one of the weirdest reps that i've seen he blitzed between the guard and the tackle he gets by the guard so you're like oh he's going to have a chance to get to the quarterback here but instead of going straight to the quarterback after getting by the guard he turns into the tackle and goes into his block from the side it was one of the weird like i don't know if like did he think there was a screen coming or what that was just a weird one where it was just like what was your thought process there and then in the utep game one week prior it was just 20 snaps kind of another lower

Starting point is 00:23:28 mark for him so if you're talking about somebody who's averaging 19 snaps a game and in those couple games it obviously wasn't always that low what does that translate to at higher level you know that's kind of a big question here right but overall i would say he doesn't like the big question for me is is what is the the level of recognition here right when you look at the blitz play when you look at the showing the tell. What is what is the feel for the game going to be right? I did like how he got downhill. I did like how he attacked the run. I think in general, he's someone who's going to benefit from KU having a bunch of senior linebackers in that he's not going to be rushed on the field this year, right? Because I think there's a lot of good traits here that KU can work with. But the fact they have

Starting point is 00:24:06 all these senior linebackers, whether it's Trey Lathen or Daveon Crouch or some of the other guys that they added, there's not pressure on him to hit the field and he also has older guys he can learn from. to where potentially as he's a junior, like, could he be somebody who impresses the coaching staff, you know, as the number two or the number three? And then they feel good about him being on the two deep or being a starter come 2027. I think that would be, you know, a good outcome here for Davis. All right. I don't know for this episode of Locke on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:24:37 You can find a show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We'll be back at you on Friday's episode to help preview Senior Day for KU. as they take on the Wildcats of K State. See you then on Lockdown Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BENCH BLUES: Can Jayhawks FIX Themselves - Best & Worst Lineups + Kansas Football Film Reviews

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