Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Better Offense, Worse Defense? Takeaways from NO KJ Adams in 84-74 Win vs Kansas State Wildcats

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, is Kansas a better or worse team without KJ Adams? 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. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making your first listen every day. Thank you to the everydayers catching each and every show. Apologies for not having a KU K-State recap. Dealing with some stomach bug, but you can find us here anywhere

Starting point is 00:00:34 you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. And we're going to get into on today's episode, takeaways from no KJ Adams in the KU basketball game against Kansas State. Pros and cons of what it looked like for KU. We're also going to get into a little bit more on the longer term. Belsoff said that he's not going to play against TCU, what that means for that matchup as well.

Starting point is 00:00:51 And I wanted to touch a little bit on Zeke Mayo and how much of a baller he's been for KU to this point of the season. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. From the first whistle to the final drive, FanDuel makes the NFL playoffs even more exciting. Right now, new customers can bet $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win your first bet. Just visit FanDuel.com to get started today. So Kansas takes down Kansas State.

Starting point is 00:01:14 No KJ Adams. It was a game that Kansas started, you know, as good as they've really started all year, up 14-0. And then, you know, from there, I thought Kansas State actually played a pretty good game the rest of the way to only lose by 10. Kansas is winning 84-74 in the end. And obviously the big storyline coming into this one for KU was that KJ Adams wasn't going to play. And what was that going to mean for Kansas for a player that has been very divisive,

Starting point is 00:01:39 a player that has been very polarizing for KU fans, a player that has been, you could argue, the best defender on KU, but also has led to certain issues with the spacing that some people would say, oh, I like KJ when he plays, but I'd like him to play less minutes. Others are more extreme with it, right? So it's been very polarizing in that sense. And I think we saw a little bit of pros and cons from both. Now, I will say, I'm going'm going i mean of course we are like we're going to learn more the more games that this goes on without kj adams just they're not going to have in the tcu game um we'll see what it goes from there right if you end up with a four or five game sample size of games without kj adams that will be

Starting point is 00:02:18 a much better judgment of where they are better where they are worse like you know overall what does this mean? Overall, should this mean he's playing last minute? Those sort of things. I think there'll be better takeaways for that once we get more games into it. But let's start putting the pieces of the puzzle together because this will be one of those first pieces. And the first piece, I think, is very simple. The offense looked better.

Starting point is 00:02:40 The defense looked worse. Okay? So let's get into some pros and cons of KU not having KJ in this game and that first pro is overall the offense yes it did look better for KU you look at on the season points per possession so you know factoring out tempo and that sort of thing like not just straight points right they scored 99 points against UCF, but in the UCF game, there was more opportunities in terms of possessions.

Starting point is 00:03:10 They played 77 possessions in the UCF game to score 99 points. In the Kansas State game, it was 64 possessions to score 84 points, which is kind of a lower tempo game, but they still put up 84 points. By points per possession, that was Kansas' best game of the season they shot 55 percent from

Starting point is 00:03:27 the floor which is great they shot 38 percent from three which is great and if you look at it the points per possession if we said points per 100 possessions Kansas had 131 points per 100 possessions against Kansas State that just edged out the Furman game, which was 130, and the UCF game, which was 128, for the most for Kansas this season. So it's, again, tough to extract how much is just a one-game sample size. I also think it is important to remember, like as much as I'm bringing this stuff up, it is important to know who you went up against. Right now, Kansas State ranks 111th in the country in defensive efficiency.

Starting point is 00:04:06 And so far this season, Kansas State is allowing teams to shoot 49% on twos, 36% on threes. They have not been a good defense so far this season. So that is important to know, too, that it's possible if KJ Adams was in the game, KU still would have had a good offensive game. But it was their best of the season. So it's easy to look to that and say one of the big pros of not having him was there was more spacing there were more offensive geared offensive minded players in the game at different points of time you did still play floyd badunga a good amount of minutes though and that wouldn't necessarily apply there but still

Starting point is 00:04:38 um that was a good start for them on the offensive end without kj and i think the the biggest areas you saw that that in space, it felt like there was more space for Hunter, which again, like I said, is a little weird because how much more space was there really if you're playing Floyd, but don't get out there for such big minutes. I don't know. Maybe there wasn't that much more, but maybe it's the threat of Flory as an offensive rebounder or as a dunk target. Like KJ gets dunks too, but I feel like with Flory, it's a different level with the athleticism. But with Hunter, I mean, 25 points, 12 of 19, and he didn't have to shoot a single three against Kansas State. And that one right there is the one that kind of pulls me and is like, oh,

Starting point is 00:05:15 he didn't have to stretch out if he didn't have to. You know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe I'm overlooking it. Maybe he just decided not to take one or didn't get the look he wanted to. But did you know this was just the second time in Big 12 games that Hunter Dickinson has shot better than 45% in a game? 45% is not like a high watermark for centers. Like you want your center shooting about 50%. And that's just the second time in a Big 12 game. So like I think having the extra spacing certainly helped him.

Starting point is 00:05:41 But then again, again, in the back of my head, I'm like, but they were playing flory. How much more spacing was there, you know? so i think that's difficult to kind of wrap your head around i think you'd probably say the same for dewan harris like were there more space in the lanes for dewan harris is that a big reason why he had 15 points on six of nine because it felt like a lot of his shots were the shots around the rim and layups and maybe he had more space to operate out there and maybe all of those things contributed to why they had such a good offensive performance in addition to obviously z mayo um just you know being an unbelievable shooter and and score for for ku um it also led to i think another good pro

Starting point is 00:06:17 for this one was was more playing time for others we saw florida end up with 25 minutes which uh you know for a young center you're going to progress along. Those minutes, I think, are so valuable. He ended up with a solid game, six points, nine rebounds. He had a block, two assists, did flurry. But it was good to see him out there and everything, and I think that lineup continues to look good when Badunga is next to Hunter. You got to see AJ Storr for 17 minutes, which doesn't sound like a lot, but that's

Starting point is 00:06:47 actually his highest total in Big 12 games. He had seven points in the 17 minutes. I thought he looked pretty good overall in those 17 minutes. I thought he did a pretty good job. The difficulty of Coleman Hawkins was that for Flory, maybe he was more experienced than him, whereas with Storr, he was a little bit bigger than him. but I thought store did a good job, like containing him in terms of his mobility. Um, but yeah, so you saw at least, uh, you know, more minutes than you're used to for store by not having KJ. And then you did at least get to see like a, another, you know, handful of minutes for keys pass more who, uh, at least got a shot out there though.

Starting point is 00:07:22 It wasn't really able to capitalize, I guess I would say. Now, as far as the cons for not having KJ Adams out there, I don't know that you really did. And this is kind of piggybacking off that last one. Like there was some more opportunities for guys like Flory and AJ Storr. I don't know that there were as many other opportunities or as many minutes to go around for those other players as we thought there were going to be, right? Initially, you look on paper and it's KJ's playing 28, 29 minutes per game. It would be okay. This is going to go to AJ Storr and Rylan Griffin and these guys.

Starting point is 00:07:50 And what we mostly ended up just seeing was it just mostly went to the other starters. Like Flory got a big amount of minutes boost, right? He went up to 25. But this was just a game where DeJuan played 36. Zeke played 36. Hunter played 34. Shaquille Moore played 31. So it's not even that you saw

Starting point is 00:08:06 a lot of kj's minutes go to the backups and the bill self was using this as hey this is my opportunity to give a bigger runway for you know aj store rylan griffin it was just like oh i'm just going to continue to give it to the guys i trust and and just add on to their minutes even more um and so yes aj store did have his conference high for minutes but for the season he's averaging 17 minutes per game so that is season average the rylan griffin one is the big head scratcher here right 12 minutes zero shots recorded for rylan griffin i the the hopeful part of my mind is that this was just about okay k state's playing a lot of these two big lineups where colman hawkins is in at the four and if you're playing rylan griffin a lot of times in this lineup, he would be in as the four. You know, I don't know if you

Starting point is 00:08:48 want him guarding that. Whereas a lot of other teams are playing more six, six, six, seven wings at the four, and that's more doable for Ryland Griffin. So my hope is that it was just viewed as a bad matchup and that moving forward, you're going to see Ryland Griffin. I think Ryland Griffin should be playing 20 and 25 minutes a game. I think he really opens up the floor spacing wise, three point shooting. So that was the certainly biggest head scratch with that. And then the other part of it is like, oh, if you said, oh, Rylan Griffin was actually down to 12 minutes and store is going to be at 17, which is like whatever. You would have been like, oh, did David quite get a lot of the minutes?

Starting point is 00:09:18 And there's like, no, he only played three. So ironically, no, KJ Adams mostly led to Bill Self giving more minutes to just the other starters and not those extra guys. We'll see if that continues. But that would be a con if that does continue, because I think this is an opportunity to give those guys a little bit more leeway. And then the last one I would say here is just like, I don't know that I view this as a con, but it's definitely not a pro. Like, I don't think you can come away from that game and be like, oh, Kansas just definitively looked better in that game than their other games. Like you could say, again, their offense looked better. And again, stats would show that was the case. But I could also point to the fact that Kansas State, again,

Starting point is 00:09:56 has not been good defensively this year. Kansas State in Big 12 only games is 15th of 16 teams in points allowed or in defensive efficiency efficiency so like again i the offense looked good i thought it did but you can point to that and then we're going to learn more in these upcoming games because of that right um you could also say that the ku defense was not good and the stats would back that up this was ku's worst defensive game by points allowed per possession. K-State shot 46%. They owed only five turnovers. And so even though this was KU's number one most efficient offensive game of the season, it was their worst defensive efficient game of the season. They gave up 115.5 points per 100 possessions. The next closest was North Carolina. That was 115. Creighton was 108. Duke

Starting point is 00:10:43 was 106, and so on down the list. So I say all this to say the offense looked better, but the defense looked worse. And it almost feels like to me that it's just it's like you're pulling one end of the thread and then another thread is coming out. So maybe there's a happy medium here of maybe the idea is, hey, if you play KJ less, your offense will boost up, but you'll still have once he comes back that defensive guy he can go out there just for less minutes than he's playing now i don't know that that's how bill self will see it but we will wait and see on that um but i

Starting point is 00:11:13 want to get into a little bit about this this tcu game and kind of moving forward because i think there's some interesting stuff there uh because the question is is ultimately going to be you know how can you blend this enough when kj is back and mix the defense with the offense? And again, it is just one game sample size. But right now it kind of feels like you're in this weird standstill of do you want to be an offensive team or defensive team? Can you find a way to like be in the middle ground of a little bit of both? This episode of the show is brought to you by PrizePix, the place to get real money sports action.

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Starting point is 00:13:04 Okay, so Bill Self in the postgame after the K-State game said that KJ Adams is not going to be available against TCU. And when we first talked about this, I wasn't really expecting him to play in this game. I feel like with the week-to-week, with the separated shoulder, to me, that seems like he's going to be out. And he kind of went more in detail to himself and made it seem like that would be the case.

Starting point is 00:13:23 It could be five games without KJ Adams. And I think that makes sense when you look at the tcu game and then you look at houston next like you're not going to have a guy who has a separated shoulder to play like one of the most physical teams in the country who plays good defense and stuff and i think that creates what to me becomes the most interesting dynamic here so when you look at tcu on the season this is a team who just won at Baylor on Sunday night. They're sitting at 10 and 7 on the season. They haven't been particularly good on offense, but they have been good on defense.

Starting point is 00:13:50 They're a top 30 team in the country on the defensive end of the court. So from the standpoint of KU's offense looked as good as it had all season long against K-State, but the defense looked as worse than it had all season long against K-State, which maybe that was just K-State was having a good game, even though they weren't shooting threes well um you could point to this upcoming matchup with tcu and say okay if the offense looks good again now against tcu without kj then it's easier to be like no the offense is just better you know with without him with with this other lineup um and the proof is that they did well against TCU,

Starting point is 00:14:26 as opposed to saying, oh, of course they did well against a KSA team that's been bad on defense. You know what I mean? And it's the same thing with Houston, except to another level upcoming over the weekend. Houston is the number one defense in defensive efficiency on Kenpom. So, like, if your offense looks decent in these next two games against top 30 defenses, won the number one defense in the country,

Starting point is 00:14:43 then all of a sudden you're in a situation where you're going to come away from this saying yeah they are better on that end of the court but you still have to figure out the defensive end you have to figure out overall and it'll be interesting as well for the tcu game because that's team who typically you know good athleticism crashes the glass gets the free throw line under jamie dixon and you have to worry about foul trouble with flory so like that's somewhere else that you could miss kj in this game just having another body who can absorb fouls and and keep flory from being worry about foul trouble with Flory. So that's somewhere else that you could miss KJ in this game. Just having another body who can absorb fouls and keep Flory from being in the foul trouble, which he got four of them against Kansas State. And to that notion, I do think the reaction with KJ being out versus TCU,

Starting point is 00:15:15 I will be interested to see what Bill Self's starting lineup is. Because this is something we talked about before the K-State game. We said, would they really start Flory? I think that would be Bill Self's preferred lineup with Flory next to Hunter. But would it make sense to start them when you don't, right? Zach Clements is injured right now. You don't have another, if KJ and Zach are both injured, you don't have another, you know, scholarship big man on the roster.

Starting point is 00:15:38 Would you risk having a freshman who struggled avoiding fouls with Flory next to Hunter in the starting lineup? And the answer was yes, against Kansas State. But I wonder how much of that was matchup dependent. Again, they're playing two big men. Coleman Hawkins, who's 6'10", is basically their four man, right? And then you got David Gasson as their five man. I do wonder with TCU, who has more at the wing.

Starting point is 00:15:57 It's like 6'7", 6'8". You know, more traditional four men, three men types. I wonder if this matchup they would say okay because of that we're gonna have flory come off the bench and we're gonna mostly play with um you know wings at the four position or if they don't i wonder if it gets taken out of bill stuff's hand like there's a very real possibility where they do start flory next honor and flory gets in foul trouble or hunter gets in foul trouble and then you have to basically play one center the rest of the way and then you're basically stuck with playing, you know,

Starting point is 00:16:26 AJ store Ryland Griffin at the four position or, or Ricky's pass more at the four position. And then there's not really another choice for bill self because you start running out of options there. So I think that'll be very interesting to monitor and very interesting to track against the TCU team who really crashes the glass, like I said, and that can lead to, you know, over the backs or fouls or whatever it is. I think that rebounded Baylor 41 to 25. And this year they haven't gotten to the line as, as to, you know, over the backs or fouls or whatever it is. I think they out-rebounded Baylor 41 to 25.

Starting point is 00:16:45 And this year they haven't gotten to the line as much. But again, traditionally with Jamie Dixon, like that's been something that they've done at a very high rate. And so I think it'll be very fun on Wednesday night to see what some of these lineups and rotations end up being for KU. If they build off what they did on Saturday, if it's completely different and what the offense and defense looks like with or without KJ, if it can kind of back up what we saw against Kansas State, or if it was more about the opponent on both ends of the floor and upcoming from here.

Starting point is 00:17:12 All right, we're going to finish up. I want to talk a little bit about Zeke Mayo, who has been unbelievable in home games for KU and really all season long for the Jayhawks. So we're going to talk about his performance against Kansas State and what he's doing so far this season. This is Locked on Jayhawks. And today's episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel. From the first whistle to the final drive,

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Starting point is 00:18:25 or on our YouTube page. So Zeke Mayo has been awesome this year. Had another big game in the Kansas State performance with over 20 points. Had a great start to the game where he's just hitting threes left and right. And that was something we brought up before the game that he's played well at home and he was going to be the local kid who maybe he's grown up with more personal experiences of Kansas State fans that he cares more about the rivalry than player Y or whatever, right? But he ends up having a big game.

Starting point is 00:18:59 And now on the season, in games that he's playing in Allen Fieldhouse, right now, of course, they want to get the numbers up on the the road too I think he's down to 10 points per game on the road but he's up to 17.7 points per game at home and to put into perspective how good he has been this season the specifically if we want to talk about these Allen Fieldhouse games he in home games for KU 17.7 points per game 4.8 rebounds per game, three assists per game. He is shooting 51% from the floor. He's shooting 42 and a half percent from three. He's shooting 88% of the free throw line. He's already had six games with 20 or more points. All of them have come at home this season. Devontae Graham senior season when he was an All-American. Now, obviously he had a bunch of

Starting point is 00:19:38 assist numbers too, but if we just want to look at the scoring and shooting perspective, Devontae Graham averaged 17.3 points per game his final season at Kansas on 40.6% from three. And obviously, Devontae Graham was a great player for KU that is probably going to get his jersey hanging in the rafters at Allen Fieldhouse. That basically means, okay, 17.3 points versus 17.7. 41% from three versus 43% from three if we round up that basically means that in in just the games in outfield that's the home games kansas basically has devontae grant on their team like that's basically the the equivalent of what you're talking about here just known games right now um but that is a lethal pairing when you're when you're pairing that with hunter dickinson who is so good on the block in the post and scoring down low that's a

Starting point is 00:20:23 really fun duo and really exciting when they both get going and those two-man actions on the offensive end of the court. I go back to the offseason. I know a lot of people, I thought this was kind of dumb when it happened, but I understood why it was happening. People were scarred. People were hurt. You brought in Nick Timberlake the year before, had big numbers at a at a non power five

Starting point is 00:20:45 university uh and you saw this guy who was putting up points and scoring and shooting at a high rate and some people who hadn't really seen zeke mayo play um just saw the same thing like oh guy from a lower level conference who can be a good shooter but that didn't work with timber like we sure it's gonna work with mayo when in reality it couldn't be further from the truth about how different their games were about how much zeke impacted winning at his previous stop um about how the different variety and abilities of zeke to get those shots off and how he did play in some high level games in the non-con and you know in ncaa tournaments and stuff um i always thought it was done that those were ever compared to begin with but i think now it's a good reminder that you don't always have to get your best transfer from

Starting point is 00:21:31 other power schools. And then maybe this will be a good thing for Bill Self too, because you get spurned a few times too many, then you're not going to want to go back to that. Well, and it is funny, I don't know, maybe not funny. We're not laughing about it, right? But it is a little bit ironic that among all the transfers that Bill Self brought in shakil more has been been really good here for for ku these past couple weeks but um the guy who was hit the most and has cleared the bar the most has been zeke mayo and the guys who have been you know not quite lived up to the expectations of what you were going to get from them in the offseason have been the guys coming from other power schools and so i think it is a good reminder you don't always have to go for like one over the other.

Starting point is 00:22:06 Just keep that in mind for future ads, right? When we get to this next offseason and we're talking about portal targets, we're talking about portal additions, it doesn't always have to be from this school or from this winning team or doing this or that. There's a lot of different ways that you can do it. There's a lot of ways to skin a cat, so to speak. And Zeke Mammoth had an awesome year for KU. It's been a lot of fun to watch. I thought I'd leave it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks, you can find our show anywhere you get your

Starting point is 00:22:27 podcast, including our YouTube page. We'll see you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Better Offense, Worse Defense? Takeaways from NO KJ Adams in 84-74 Win vs Kansas State Wildcats

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