Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BREAKDOWN: Kansas Jayhawks' Norm Roberts Gives Updates on Bill Self, Kevin McCullar and Gradey Dick

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Breaking down the comments from Kansas Jayhawks coach Norm Roberts updating the status of head coach Bill Self, wing Kevin McCullar and freshman Gradey Dick headed into the first round of the NCAA Tournament for KU against Howard on Thursday in Des Moines, IA.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. I told you as part of the preview, I would update you on the status of, I guess, everyone, Bill Self, Kevin McCuller, I guess Grady Dick now as well. So let's get into that on this little bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk,

Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be giving you an update. This is a bonus episode. We had the preview come out earlier today here on your Wednesday. This is just to update you and add some more information as we head into the tournament on Bill Self, Kevin McCuller. And I guess we heard a little bit about Grady Dick and what the impact of all of that is going to be.

Before we get into it, though, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks, on our bonus episode, is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. The midway point of the NBA season is here, and now is the perfect time to download FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Because new customers get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's bonus bets back if your first bet doesn't win. Just download the FanDuel Sportsbook app.

It's safe, secure, and super easy to use. They can commit on everything from money line to point scores, three-pointers drained. I'm in for KU, KJ Adams over 10.5 points. You can get that and plenty of other bets on FanDuel. And you can even combine a couple that you like with their same-game parlays, which can give you a bigger payout. So you like KJ over 10.5,

you like DeJuan under 10.5, you like Jalen over 19.5. You put them together, boom, all of a sudden you got a real big payout there. So don't miss the chance to get your no-sweat first bet up to $1,000 in bonus bets when you go to fanduel.com. That's fanduel.com. To learn more, make fanduel.com slash locked on to learn more.

Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Alright, so we heard from Norm Roberts at the MediaVale today. We also heard from Jalen Wilson and DeJuan Harris over in Des Moines. So I guess first

things first would be the Bill Self stuff. I guess first of all, there you go. Norm Roberts was the one who met with the media today. Yesterday, the team arrived by bus in Des Moines and Bill Self was not on the bus. He was driving up separately away from the team. So Norm Roberts ended up meeting with the media afterwards. Originally earlier this week, the idea was that Bill Self was going to be at the media veil today it ended up being Norm Roberts so you kind of add these things together that probably doesn't bode well toward him coaching tomorrow but what if it's just they're getting him as as many little extra rest points as they possibly can to make sure he is good to go for tomorrow either way

here is Norm Roberts at the dais in Des Moines discussing the kind of status of Bill Self. He's doing well. The day was at practice. Today was at practice. Last night and all of our meetings, he's doing well. He's getting better all the time. We're hopeful. And everything is day-to-day with him.

But if you ask our guys, he got after him pretty good today. So he was doing really well so basically he said he is day to day um if you ask our guys he was getting after him in practice the other day that he was pretty normal there so kind of not fully committal and that is literally the definition kind of here of being day to day so literally we we don't know the status of bill self for thursday's game i would imagine if he you know he wasn't at the open practice either i believe um which would lead you to believe in my eyes that he's probably not going to coach tomorrow but again what if they're just getting

him all the extra rest they can that he is good to go for thursday i'm kind of thinking he's just playing kind of a backseat role he's helping with the scouting report he's helping behind the scenes with some of the different stuff but my guess is norm roberts is going to be the guy for the first round of the ncaa tournament that's not something i've been told that is just my guess but again it is day-to-day and that could seemingly change it at any moment here. So that would be the issue. And if Bill Self is not coaching on Thursday, kind of have a hard time believing like just two extra days would be the case. You really got to make sure you can get out of this weekend now without possibly Bill Self, which could be a little bit scary there. We also got to hear the update on kevin mcculler which i saw

michael swain of 24-7 sports actually it looked like talk to kevin mcculler who said his back is feeling great it's feeling 100 all that sort of stuff but here's norm roberts talking about kevin mcculler and also grady dick who i guess uh kind of has an injured back as well both guys practiced full speed today and and had great bounce to them, so they're both doing well. Okay, so he said that both of them practiced at full speed and that both of them are feeling good. So that's a good sign there

that KU should have their full allotment of starters. The only worry you have to have here, I guess, is how healthy is Kevin? Like, is it something where he's going to play through a little bit of pain now, but he's feeling a lot better? Or is it something where he's feeling 100%, but it can get tweaked at any instance, and all of a sudden he's back to kind of square one of where he was last week?

That's the big question there. But as far as his status for Thursday, sounds like he's going to play. Sounds like he's going to start. Sounds like he should be good to go from here on, as is with kind of the case of Grady Dick. Now, as far as the impact of all of these, let's discuss that after a quick time out on our audio side with Locked on Jayhawks. So the impact of these with Kevin and Grady. I mean, the Grady one just kind of, I don't know, came out of the blue.

But that's important that, you know, he's going to be healthy because you need him to hit threes because you haven't been shooting threes well and he's the one guy to do that with kevin we saw how like okay kansas with kevin even against texas in the regular season finale got kind of diced up but that one they were hitting tough shots they're hitting contested shots at the rim they were hitting a bunch of threes they were just kind of on fire the game that you played in the big 12 tournament you were giving up so many wide open layups guys running free on cuts guys wide open from three point range to where you saw the defensive impact of kevin not being there having him back he he organizes the defense dewan might be your best individual one-on-one defender but kevin is your best overall defender in my opinion because of

the versatility he can guard different guys up and down the lineup he is a really good team defender and coming over and help defense if somebody messes up he usually sees it and reads it well and helps kind of cover up a mistake uh he's good at just nabbing the ball away whether it's a block or a steal so having him back is so crucial especially against a team that shoots so many threes like howard does but it's more crucial for a possible second round meeting with an Arkansas team that has a lot of athletic wings or an Illinois team that has some athletic wings like Matthew Meyer and Terrence Shannon, a guy that he used to play with at Texas Tech.

So certainly that has a huge impact that he is back. It also gives you another possible score. I know we don't think of Kevin as great offensive player, but he still gets you 10 or 11 points per game. And for a team that doesn't get bench scoring, where Bobby Pettiford comes in and maybe scores two points, Joe Yesfu comes in and maybe scores you like two or four points, Ernest Uday comes in and maybe gets like one lob dunk,

you need those 10 or 11 points very badly from Kevin. So that is a huge impact that he's back. As far as the impact of Bill Self, if he can not coach, you trust Norm Roberts to put KU into a good position. They were 6-0 up until the Texas game with him as an interim head coach. And in a lot of those games,

like the Iowa State and West Virginia game, they looked really good with Norm Roberts even as the head coach. They even beat Duke earlier in the season. So he's proved his mettle at a high level of play against good opponents. Think about that. West Virginia, that's the equivalent of a second-round matchup because they're an 8 or a 9 seed.

I think they're a 9 seed, right? Iowa State, that's the equivalent of a, I don't know, second-round or even further matchup as their 6 seed. Duke, that's like a sweet 16 matchup. They're a 5 seed, right? Norm Roberts proved his mettle in every game. So you should be okay there. And the fact that this is a little different than the Big 12 tournament where Bill Self

is actually around the program to help motivate guys, to help talk to guys, to help with the scouting report, to help with the possible behind-the-scenes stuff and practice, that's an improvement from the Big 12 tournament. So you should be helped out there. I don't think it's going to be a diabolical negative impact.

But obviously, if you can't have Bill Self, the best coach in college basketball, even as great of a job as Norm Roberts is doing and has done, that's obviously a big loss for you. And you'd expect it to hurt you a little bit more in that short turnaround. But hypothetically, if we want to play a little spin zone into the positive side of things, we know that, you know, when you give Bill Self the full week of preparation, he's like, the record is outstanding. Most of the losses for Bill Self have come in the second game in that little three-day span, whether it's the second round or the Elite Eight. And so when you have Bill Self, if he's not coaching in this first game, does that mean that Bill Self has more time to prepare with time off

for that second game where it could actually help ku i i guess there's a positive spin you could have with it but obviously that would be a big loss for for them not to have him specifically if he can't be back for the second round game which at this point like i said if i am if i'm making an educated guess i'm kind of under the assumption he's not going to be coaching based on all the stuff that's happened so far but But that, like I said, emphasize on the word guess, because I think we're all kind of waiting to see what happens here. And because it is a personal health situation, it is such a different world than, you know, something else that could be going on, like a player being like, oh, I rolled my ankle. Right. So it does make it a little bit more difficult to figure out. All right. Next time we talk to you, it'll be recapping the first round game.

That'll either come out to you like Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, one of the two. We'll try to get it out to you as soon as we possibly can with Locked on Jayhawks. You can also hear me Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk, but not Thursday and Friday because we'll be airing Westwood 1 coverage. So we'll see you next time with Locked on Jayhawks. Have a good one.

Happy tournament.