Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BORDER WAR PREVIEW: Jayhawks Desperate to Win vs Missouri Tigers - Can Tre White Step-Up for Kansas?

Starting point is 00:00:00 KU needs a little border war revenge. They lost last year. They lost in football. Would Darren Peterson even be back for it? We're going to preview and break down KU's game against Missouri at the T-Mobile Center. 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 here?

Starting point is 00:00:30 Johnson, thanks for making Lockdown Jayhawks, your first listen every day. And thank you for making the Lockdown Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network. On today's episode of Lockdown Jayhawks, we're previewing Kansas against Missouri in the border war, this time at the T-Mobile Center. We're going to get into a Missouri-scouting report, players to watch matchups of the game.

Starting point is 00:00:50 What does it look like for KU with or without Darren Peterson? All that and more on today's episode, which is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanduel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. So KU takes on Missouri, a little Sunday game, not your normal Saturday game for these two teams. And for Kansas, it obviously is there an opportunity to try to bounce back

Starting point is 00:01:14 from losing in the Yukon game. And when you think about it now, like, good thing they came back and beat Tennessee. Otherwise, they'd be sitting at five and four right now coming into this game. But, you know, you lose this game and you're sitting at six and four. through 10 games, albeit without Peterson, that's not great for your resume. That's not great for, you know, what you want to do by year's end. So it's an opportunity to try to get back on your winning ways there.

Starting point is 00:01:39 But beyond it all, like this is the rivalry. This is your biggest rival. This is a game you want to win to get bragging rights for 365. And Kansas won the first couple games of this series. They blew out Missouri at home since they, you know, restarted the series after Missouri left. then they were able to blow out Missouri in Columbia. That was certainly a fun one. Then Kansas wins kind of an ugly game at home.

Starting point is 00:02:03 And then last year, Missouri just kind of dominates Kansas. Kansas has kind of a late comeback, Missouri finished strong. And now you need to get that back if you're Kansas, right? So, I don't know. It's just kind of a situation where you're trying to bounce back in two ways, right? Both in the rivalry and overall on the season. But if we are looking at this from a standpoint of like trying to build your resume for March, this is another resume opportunity.

Starting point is 00:02:31 Like Missouri is a team that I guess depending where they're going to finish, this will either be a quad one or a quad two opportunity for Kansas. Being on neutral court increases the opportunity for this to be a quad one game. And again, that depends on how Missouri does this year. It depends on all those things. But this is an opportunity for another kind of marquee win for Kansas in the noncon, even if you're playing without Darren Peterson. Now, maybe Darren Peterson will be back.

Starting point is 00:02:56 I think Bill Self's set to talk to the media on Friday. This is, you know, coming out on Friday morning. So by the time you listen to this, maybe Bill Self will have already spoken and we'll get an update one way or another on Darren Peterson. And if something comes down, we'll, you know, talk about it here on the show, at least briefly or bring up an update or something like that. But when you look at this game, it almost doesn't matter if he does or doesn't play. Like, it does matter in terms of, you know, how it affects.

Starting point is 00:03:22 Kansas, how it affects your opportunity to win or, you know, to do everything you want to accomplish this season. But from a standpoint of you need to win this game, that does not change if Peterson is in the lineup or not, right? You can at least like in the Duke game and in the Yukon game. And again, like, I don't feel overly comfortable ever conceding a game in Allen Fieldhouse, but you can at least view both of those games as like you can understand they're the less talented team they lost. And in this game, even without Peterson, I'm not so sure Kansas is the less talented team, so to speak.

Starting point is 00:04:04 You know, maybe the talent level is close between these two. Maybe it is a wash. I don't know. But it's not a game where, like Duke or Yukon, you were the lesser talented team. So even without Peterson, if he doesn't play, and again, ideally he is playing in this one, then you still need to win this game. You need to win this game to bounce back.

Starting point is 00:04:25 You need to win this game to avoid a losing streak to your rival. You need to win this game to keep a record afloat. You need to win this game for your resume. A lot of reasons that Kansas needs to have a desperate approach in this game. And I do find it interesting too with Peterson. Like if he does get announced, I don't know, it's going to be a sellout, right? Team Mobile Center, Kansas, Missouri, I'd imagine it'll be a sellout. But then again, it's a Sunday day game.

Starting point is 00:04:50 right when football's on is that can impact things at all the chiefs are at night so i'm sure there's some people that are going to be you know pulling double duty and uh going to the double header basically be funny if you get kansas and missouri fans and then they they carpooled the the chiefs game afterwards and tailgate together but um i wonder if we like if if we heard say on friday or or saturday like oh darren peterson is going to play would you all the sudden see like even more k u fans decide to show up to the game would you see a because i don't know is it going to be a 50 50 split is it going to be 64 do you one way or another who knows if they announced darren peterson whatever that number is of the fan split i feel like would go up in k u's favor if they announce

Starting point is 00:05:35 him with enough time for fans to you know buy tickets and stuff but they might not be able to announce it it's not like you can just announce him and then okay we're hoping he actually plays here so we didn't lie about it. No, like they're going to announce whatever actually kind of ends up being here, right? So it will be big into this game. Like Peterson clearly is somebody that could really help Kansas in a game like this and would help Kansas in any game, right? But after how, I don't know, it felt like all the signs. It felt like the scuttle butt was leading up to Peterson returning in the Yukon game. And it didn't end up happening. We heard from Bill Self in the post game about the that he's 90, 95% and that he's trying to get him to 100%.

Starting point is 00:06:17 And that certainly, I think, rubbed fans the wrong way. I think I even saw like Frank Mason posted on social media about it. And like, you know, you would have had to cart me off Allen Fieldhouse to not play there. It is one of those things, though, where it's like, I see it both ways, right? It is one of those things where it's like, it is frustrating when you know how much money the kid is making and you're not getting any games out of it. And if this does end up being something that he doesn't play again for Kansas, then yes, that is really crappy. But if this really is just being as slow as possible and try not to do it, like this is one of those injuries where it's not just, hey, it's just about

Starting point is 00:06:58 how much you can manage the pain, how much you can handle the pain and play with it. It is an injury that if it gets reagravated, you're back to step one. You're back to step zero, basically, where you now have to redo these four weeks off or whatever in the middle of Big 12 play. And so that same point, I do understand being a little bit cautious. I think the struggle for me and for many fans is the unknown. It's the, like I think fans would get more on board. If you just straight up said, hey, Peterson's out for the month of December, but we're expecting to have him back in January.

Starting point is 00:07:37 And that would sound like not great. that he would have to miss another month. But I think people could get on board a little bit more with the idea of like, okay, I know when it's out. I know the timeline's here. Cool. He's going to be fully healthy and then that'll be the expectation for him to be back. And instead, right now, what we're getting is, oh, his day to day.

Starting point is 00:07:55 He could play the next game. Get to the next game. He's not playing. And that almost frustrates people a little bit more. You know, it's like if I come home from work every day. My wife's like, hey, when are you going to do the laundry? And I'm like, I'll get around to it. at some point here, you know, shortly, soon.

Starting point is 00:08:13 And then it doesn't get done that day. And it's like, the next day, it's like, oh, I thought you were going to do laundry. And it was like, well, I was saying soon. I didn't say today. They'll get done soon. And then it keeps going. And then by the end of the week, I haven't done the laundry, she's going to be pretty pissed as opposed to if I would have just told her, hey, you know what?

Starting point is 00:08:27 I'm like super busy this week. I'm not going to have time to do the laundry until Sunday or whatever. Should have been like, oh, okay, that's fine. Like, we'll make it work. So I feel like that's kind of the situation here. I don't know what's going to end up happening here. Hopefully we see him back. I don't know that I'm expecting it, though.

Starting point is 00:08:42 All right, let's get to our Missouri scouting report matchups of the game. So much more, this is locked on Jayhawks. And today's episode of LOJ is brought to you by FandualSports book. You can bet on the Kansas Missouri game over at Fandualt, plus NFL Sundays. It's going to be an NFL Sunday during the KU Missouri game. If you're going to the game, you got to get your bets in before you cross over. But NFL Sundays move fast, and one big play, and suddenly everything feels different. That's what makes live betting,

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Starting point is 00:09:45 So if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanduel.com and place your live NFL bets all season long. Fan duel, the game moves fast, so can you. Thanks for joining us on Locked on Jayhawks and making us your first listen every day. Don't forget you can check out Locked on College Basketball for your second listen every day as well. Okay, Missouri Scouting Report. one on the season. Dennis Gates is still the head coach. I think overall he's done a very solid job for them, right? They get a top five seed in the tournament last year. They win a tournament

Starting point is 00:10:18 game in his first year, had the one really bad year in between. But he's done a solid job overall. Now, this year with the eight and one record, not necessarily the who's who. They've only beaten one team who's even in the top 200 on Ken Palm. That would be Minnesota, who's not even in the top 100 on Ken Palm. It is a lot of teams outside the top 300. They have one of the literal worst schedules so far that they played. Now, I remember having this same conversation last year when Kansas played Missouri that at the time last year, Missouri had one of the worst schedules played to that point. They played a lot of cupcakes. Didn't matter. Missouri still beat Kansas. So, you know, just because they played an easy schedule doesn't mean they're a bad team. It just

Starting point is 00:11:00 means that it's harder to try to figure out exactly what they're great at and just how good they are because, again, they're 362nd in the country right now in strength of schedule on Ken Palm. Now, they did smash Minnesota, to their credit. They did just lose their first game. It was to Notre Dame. And that's where it becomes interesting, so that's a common opponent. We just saw Kansas handle Notre Dame win by double figures. Notre Dame beat Missouri 76 to 61.

Starting point is 00:11:25 That was a road game for Missouri, but still, that should show you that on paper, this is a game Kansas needs to win. they did also play a future common opponent for Kansas. They played Kansas State in an exhibition game, and they won that one, 100 to 91. So that was certainly an entertaining up and down game when they played K State. But overall, on both Ken Palm and Bart Torvik, they're a top 40 team that's just outside the top 30. They have kind of a top 25 offense and a sub 60 defense on both. And then it's a team with just kind of a bunch of size at the three through five paired with

Starting point is 00:11:58 some interesting guards at the one and two. When we look at the three strengths for Missouri, the first would be size. They have a 7 foot 245 pound center in Sean Phillips. They have two 6 foot 11 backups and they have a 7 foot 5 freshman behind them. So they have a litany of bays they can throw at you. Kind of like Tennessee a little bit there, not quite as good as the Tennessee bigs, I would say, but they do have a lot of size they can throw at you. Then they have a bunch of 6 foot 9 to 6 foot 11 guys who can play the 4.

Starting point is 00:12:26 Lengthy Mark Mitchell, who's like 6 9 with a long wingspan, plays the 4 a lot for them. They'll use Jacob Cruz, who's like six foot eight at the three a lot. Even Mitchell will play a little bit of three. So they have some big lineups out there. Plus, Bo Teng, who's a former highly recruited guy, he's a six-six wing who plays the two and three. So like overall, this leads their top 10 nationally in average height. And you can see why. Another strength for them so far has been shooting efficiency.

Starting point is 00:12:52 Now, I'm interested to see where this winds up for Missouri when the season comes to the end. because if you read some preview, I don't know, articles and stuff for them coming into the year, one of the big questions for Missouri on paper was going to be how were they going to be as a shooting team? But so far they've answered those questions. They're shooting 38% from three, has come on lower volume. They're not taking a ton of them. They're also not shooting well on free throws. But they're top 30 nationally in adjusted effective field goal percentage, which part of that is, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:23 they are a team that is going to get easy buckets in transition, off steals, off pressing, and that's going to lead to a high percentage when you're getting wide open layups and dunks off of that. But still, they've shot the ball well, and they have been an efficient shooting team so far. Again, how real is that? We'll probably find out a little more in this Kansas game, but it is at least on paper something you have to take seriously.

Starting point is 00:13:44 And then scoring in transition for Missouri is another strength. They are averaging almost 16 fast break points per game. They're in the 91st percentile nationally in fast break points per game. And one of the things that makes them deadly, it's the turnovers they force. They are 91st percentile as well in points off turnovers per game, which is fueled by being in the 90th percentile in steel rate. So it's a team that forces turnovers, scores off turnovers. They score in transition.

Starting point is 00:14:13 They can play fast. Definitely that's the way that, you know, they can kind of hit a quick run on you and kind of force a quick onslaught. You have to be in control in this game. Three weaknesses for Missouri. one would be defense. They're not ranked in the top 60 on either Ken Palm or Bart Torvick on defensive efficiency. CBB Analytics ranks them outside the top 90 nationally in adjusted defensive rating. So they've not been great there.

Starting point is 00:14:40 They're just 171st nationally in adjusted effective fuel goal percentage defense. So those are all numbers that aren't necessarily the best. They give up 91 to K State in the exhibition. They give up 84 points to Simo. Notre Dame was at 1.1 points per. possession, which, you know, KU out of comparison held them to point nine, which doesn't sound like that big of the difference, point two, but over 100 possessions, that's 20 extra points. And all that said, they're doing a good job of limiting teams from shooting at the

Starting point is 00:15:09 rim, which will be interesting because if Kansas doesn't have Peterson, you know, that's going to make it tougher for the KU offense. But overall, this has not been a great defense for Mazu. Another weakness is turning the ball over too much offensively. They are 191st nationally in adjusted turnover percentage offense. They are just in the 37th percentile overall in turnover rate while also being in just the 39th percentile in assist rate. So not as great of a passing team, which kind of makes sense.

Starting point is 00:15:37 If you're playing a bunch of bigs, if you're playing some bigger lineups, probably going to have more turnovers forcing it inside, probably not going to have as much ball handling out there, and those things would make sense. Kansas has been not the best at forcing turnovers, though. So are they going to be able to take advantage of that? It'll be a big question.

Starting point is 00:15:52 And then potentially rebounding. I say potentially because, again, you look at the overall numbers for Missouri and they actually look okay. But in their games against powerful opponents, Minnesota and Notre Dame, which is just a two-game sample size. But they had just a second percentile offensive rebound rate and a 40th percentile defensive rebound rate. So a very bad offense rebound rate and a below average defensive rebound rate. And both of those numbers were a bit better in the K-state exhibition, but wasn't to strengthen that one either. So I do wonder if against better teams, bigger teams, even though they have all this size, how good are they at rebounding again? Is that something KU can take advantage of?

Starting point is 00:16:28 Because we haven't seen KU be the most consistent rebounding team in the world. You just saw that as they gave up a bunch of offense rebounds to Yukon in the second half. Our players to watch will start with Kansas and Flory Badunga, 15.2 points per game, 8.8 rebounds, 2.6 blocks per game for Floree. He is in the 94th percentile for block rate right now. but he's just gone 9 of 24 shooting the ball over the last two games. And what's interesting is one of those games was against Tennessee, which had a bunch of bigs to throw at him. And Missouri is another one of those teams.

Starting point is 00:17:00 Dainee, especially if Peterson is out, Flory has to give you 15 plus points for Kansas offensively, who is a more limited offense. And going up against Sean Phillips, who 7 foot 2.45 has good weight on him. He's actually a guy KU recruited this offseason. Florey in a way, like Phillips is a fine player, Flory needs to eat his lunch for KU to be successful.

Starting point is 00:17:22 But given some of his struggles recently, offensively, you don't know if that's going to happen or not. The next player to watch for KU is Trey White. White is at 13.7 points per game, 6.4 rebounds, two assists, 53, 42, 85. Those are his shooting splits. But he only attempted three field goals against Yukon. Now, he did get to the free throw line a decent amount.

Starting point is 00:17:43 But KU needs the aggressive best version. of Trey wet again, if Darren Peterson's out, White is one of your guys you are counting on to score from the perimeter. And he's going to have a tough matchup, right? If he's at the four and you're playing Mark Mitchell, who's really lengthy and a great defender, that's tough for you, right? If you're playing Cruz at the three or somebody else and Cruz scores 14 a game, so that's a different type of matchup, but they need White to be a score, assuming that Peterson is still out. And, you know, again, and the same way you need 14-15 plus points from Florey, you probably need 14-15 plus points from Trey White

Starting point is 00:18:18 if Peterson can't go again. Then for Missouri, we're going to go with Mark Mitchell. Former Bishop Meage product was all SEC third team last year. So for this year, 18.6 rebounds, three assists over stock per game on 61% from the floor. Just one of 10 from three, so not a huge threat throughout there, but he's a menace at the rim. He's a menace in the paint. He's shooting 82% at the rim this year, and he's an excellent defender.

Starting point is 00:18:42 they can literally play him three through five. And then Anthony Robinson is somebody who kind of took over the game last year for Missouri at the guard spot, 10 points, three assists, two and a half steals per game. He was all SEC defense a year ago. He's also shooting well from three, 39% from three. So he becomes interesting there, but he had five steals against Kansas last year. I mean, you think of the game last year, Missouri was able to really clown KU by getting turnovers and getting those transition opportunities.

Starting point is 00:19:09 Robinson was a huge reason why. counsel. It's not been a huge turnover guy throughout his career, but it's different when you're facing a guy like Anthony Robinson. So he's got to be on his peas and cues with ball handling of this one. All right. Let's finish up here with keys to the game for KU to come away with a rivalry win. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Aura Frames. The holidays are officially here, which means gift hunting season is on. And if you want something meaningful, personal and guaranteed to get a reaction, Ora Frames is the gift that delivers every time. It's not just, just something you wrap. It's a way to share memories because ORA isn't your average picture frame. You can preload the frame with photos before gifting it. So when they pull, when they plug it in, the memories are already there. No apps to figure out, no setup or headaches. It's just instant smiles. Grandparents really like it too, especially if you can show them how to set it up and then you're just sending them

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Starting point is 00:20:45 KU basketball content as well. All right, keys to the game for KU against Missouri. One is make some threes. Missouri is ranking outside the top 340 right now in terms of preventing three point shots from the opponent by volume, meaning they're giving up a lot of three point attempts. They are about nationally average and three point percentage defense, but you're going to get some looks. And we've seen some games where KU has put up some stinkers shooting the in the T-Mobile center, but you got to shoot them, you got to hit them with confidence, which is not the easiest thing to do for this team. I'd also say the biggest one is avoiding turning the ball over.

Starting point is 00:21:21 I think that's the biggest key to the game overall. Like looping in the biggest key defensively, it might be KU not turning the ball over offensively because Missouri is such a deadly team at forcing turnovers, scoring off turnovers, scoring in the fast break, scoring in transition. If you can limit the turnovers, not only do you get more shots up for an offensive, that needs to get up as many shots as possible, but you also prevent Missouri from getting their easy runouts where they really thrive.

Starting point is 00:21:49 That's going to really be the big key of this game. Can you keep your turnovers down? You're going to have some of them, but once you get up to 16, 17, 19, 20 turnovers, that's where it's a really big problem. And then I would also say lock in on Cruz from Deep. So in the lost in Notre Dame, Cruz had 22 points. He was five of 10 from three.

Starting point is 00:22:09 the rest of Missouri was one of 11 from three combined. If you can lock in on Cruz and prevent him from having a big game shooting for Missouri, you know, does it take some of the rest of the team out of the game? Our player match up here is Melvin Counsel versus Anthony Robinson. I think for counsel, his biggest, I don't know, contribution in this one is going to be defending Robinson, right, preventing a 39% three-point shooter from going off and also ball handling, like avoiding those turnovers, right? Can you have a one or zero turnover game in this one?

Starting point is 00:22:39 I think those are going to be keys. And can Robinson take over the game again like he did last year when these two teams met in Columbia? Plus, what can you get? You know, we've seen counsel have some inefficient shooting games, but he's been kind of forced to take a lot of these shots with Peterson out. Probably going to be more of the same in this one. So can he have one of his more efficient games this go around? I think that'll be kind of interesting here.

Starting point is 00:23:02 All right, a hawk to soar in this one. We're going to go with Trey White for a hawk to so. So Jalen Harrelson for Notre Dame had 13 points. He was 5 of 7 shooting at the kind of 3-4 position. Only played 22 minutes and had 13 points. For Minnesota, Cade Tyson had 17 points. Then for Kansas State, Nate Johnson, who's like a 6-3 guard who plays some at the 3 had 14 points. All of those guys play minutes of the 3.

Starting point is 00:23:28 And they all had good games as powerful opponents against Missouri. So I think White might have some opportunities. I also just tend to believe that good players will bounce back when they have. games that aren't as great. And I think Trey White didn't have a game that was as great up to as what we had seen. And so I'm expecting him to bounce back because I do think he is a good player. I don't know for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find her 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 to recap whatever happens between the Jayhawks and the Tigers.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BORDER WAR PREVIEW: Jayhawks Desperate to Win vs Missouri Tigers - Can Tre White Step-Up for Kansas?

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