Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Can Kansas Jayhawks Darryn Peterson Overcome Big 12 Road Woes At West Virginia Mountaineers

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks face a pivotal road test at West Virginia: Can Bill Self's squad overcome their Big 12 road struggles and rediscover their defensive identity? With Darryn Peterson reportedly good to go, the pressure mounts to avoid a disastrous 1–3 conference start ahead of a daunting Iowa State matchup.Derek Johnson previews Kansas vs. West Virginia, spotlighting key storylines like Peterson’s health, potential lineup shifts, and which Jayhawks must step up in Morgantown. The scouting report breaks down Honor Huff’s elite three-point shooting, Brennan Laureant’s two-way impact, and West Virginia’s slow-tempo, stingy defense. Critical questions surface: Will Kansas exploit WVU’s rim protection weakness? Can Melvin Council and Elmarko Jackson build on recent performances? Get essential analysis on matchups, KU’s keys to victory inside, and which Hawk is poised for a breakout. Don’t miss this must-listen guide to the Jayhawks’ Big 12 gauntlet.Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rocket MoneyLet Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at http://RocketMoney.com/LOCKEDONGametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.RugietIf you’ve been thinking about taking the next step, now’s the time.Head to https://Rugiet.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGEto get 15% off your order for a limited time.Rugiet Ready. Feel present. Feel confident. Feel ready.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

KU has really struggled in Big 12 road games over the past couple years. That was no different in their opener. Can they change it playing at West Virginia a place they've historically struggled in? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Hey, how's it going? Derek Johnson here with Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day.

And thank you the everydayers catching each and every episode of the show. Thank you also for making locked on the number one sports podcast network. On this episode of the show, we are previewing Kansas at West Virginia. Sounds like Darren Peterson, good to go. We're going to get into the storylines of the game, the importance of the game for KU. We're into the

West Virginia scouting report, players to watch for both teams, keys to the game for Kansas, Hawks the Soar, and so much more. Before we get into any of that, today's episodes brought to you by Fanduals Sportsbook. The College Football Playoff is here. Fanul's the best place to get into the action all playoff long. So visit

Fanduil.com to get your college football playoff profit boosts every game day. Kansas takes on West Virginia, a little Saturday action for KU. And, you know, this is one where, I mean, shoot, if you would have lost that TCU game, this would have become, I mean, you couldn't afford to start 0 and 3 with Iowa State coming to the building with the very nice game. But even then, like, I think that makes this an even more important game. Think about this. If you lose this game on the road, you are now sitting at one and two in Big 12 play.

You're sitting at 11 and 5 on the season, and your next game is at home against Iowa State in which you would be an underdog. And then all of a sudden you could potentially be one and three in Big 12 play and 11 and 6 on the season. I know those are just numbers, but like that sounds very not good. So go win this dang game. And part of it too is like we've seen KU really struggle on the road the last couple of seasons. They got a nice win on the road at NC State. They lost in a close one at UCF. now go win this one on the road against West Virginia,

who is not quite as good, at least based on some of the analytics sites, than either of those teams, but it's still a good enough team to beat you in this setting. And the big question to me is, can you carry over Tuesday's momentum from the end of that game into this one, right? And can you have it start a streak for you? Can that be the defining moment for this KU basketball season

that turned things in the positive for KU? And again, it's not going to be easy. KU has historically struggled in Morgantown. So overall, KU's 21 and 8 in the season series. They're 11 and 1 at home, but they're just 5 and 7 in Morgantown. And KU's actually lost the last two matchups overall with West Virginia. Last year was actually the home one. That's the only home loss they had.

62 to 61 when Javon Small was really good for West Virginia. KU made a comeback and then the rest is history. But they lose 62 to 61. The game before that they played in Morgantown in the 2024. season for Big 12 playing. They lost 91.85. They could not stop West Virginia. I think that one becomes apparent because what have we seen from KU these first two games in Big 12 play? And this is something I kind of want to see. Like not only can you find a way to win this game, can you turn the defense back on? Because defense is supposed to be this team's identity. And when they're at their

best, they're playing good defense. But the first two Big 12 games, they have not been playing good defense. TCU torched them. UCF torched them. And I'll be curious, like, what adjustments does Bill Self make because that could be part of it too, right? Like you look at the turnaround from playing a Saturday game on the road to playing a Tuesday night game at home. How much game planning and practice time did Bill Self have between UCF and TCU? Right. You're probably coming back Saturday night, probably have an off day on Sunday.

You practice on Monday, maybe you have a walk through Tuesday morning. There's not a lot of time to, you know, if Bill Self's like, hey, I didn't like how we played defensively against UCF, let's change what we want to do defensively or let's make this tweak. didn't have enough time to do something. Now you're looking at, okay, maybe you had the off day, Wednesday, but you probably practice Thursday and Friday, or maybe you did practice Wednesday or walked through a short practice,

something. Had a couple extra days of practice. Now you get a walk through on Saturday being on the road. Maybe this is a situation where you've had more time between these next games that does Kegu adjust what they're doing defensively? Do they switch a little bit less? Does certain guys play a little bit more than others? I want to see the defense come out and win.

in KU this game on the road. Now, interestingly, before KU lost those two straight games, they had actually amassed a six-game winning streak against West Virginia, including winning a couple straight in Morgantown, 76 to 62 in 2023, and then 71 to 58 in 2022. But there's been some other tough losses in Morgantown, 91 to 79 in 2021. That was not a very good West Virginia team.

In 2019, I don't remember that being a very good West Virginia team either. They lost 65 to 64. And then, of course, you go back to Frank Mason never won in Morgantown, which kind of made that a 2018 edition in January 15th, when Kansas won 71-66 with DeMante Graham, kind of a comeback there. I mean, that one's certainly fun for KU. But there's been some really good games in this series between these two schools. And I feel like this one's going to be another good one.

If Kansas wins, they're probably going to have to win a close one on the road. Now, it does sound like Darren Peterson's going to be good to go. Obviously, the classic, hey, barring any last minute setback. But from what Bill Self was talking to the media, about coming into this game. He's at, you know, full speed, feeling good, paraphrasing there, but, you know, sounds like again, he's going to be good to go. And the immediate response, obviously, to that is, but is he going to finish the game for KU? Right. Can Bilself continue to preserve his minutes in the first half? I mean, you know,

is that something where he's going to be able to do that on the road in a tough environment? And then I think the other question here is, do we see any lineup changes, right, coming into this game? Do we see, you know, whether it's an actual starting lineup change, whether it's somebody coming off the bench first, or, you know, whether it's somebody getting more minutes and somebody getting less minutes than in previous games. Do we see any changes? Because Bryson Tiller, outside of those Davidson and Towson games, has struggled a little bit of late, right? And Marco Jackson just had a really good defensive game last game. Jemar and McDowell made some key plays. we've seen outside of the Davidson game,

Cole Rosario has been struggling lately. Jaden Dawson has kind of fallen off the rotation. Do we see any changes? Do we see any players get more or less minutes? Do we see any players take advantage of maybe more opportunity or start to lose opportunity but then play well and get it back? I think all of those are going to be interesting storylines and questions coming into this one for KU as they try to take down West Virginia on the road before a big one upcoming at home against Iowa State

right after that. Let's get into the West Virginia scouting report. Their strengths and weaknesses, players to watch, Kansas Keys to the Game, all that and more. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Rougiette. Let's talk about something that most men don't bring up, but absolutely should. Stress from work, money, life. It doesn't switch off at night. When it shows up at the worst possible time, Ruggiat Ready is designed to help you take back control. Ruggiat Ready is a next generation prescription treatment created to support both the brain and the body. So you can feel present. confident and ready when the moment matters. Ruggiet ready combines three clinically proven ingredients in one mint that dissolves under your tongue,

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Thanks you for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks, making us your first listen every day. Don't forget to you can check out our Everydayer Club where you can get the ad-free version of Locked-on Jayhawks, compatible with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and every other major podcast app. Plus, you get an invite to the members only locked on Everydayer Club Discord server, which includes a group chat just for listeners of this show. If you want to ask me direct questions or, I don't know, maybe we'll start doing mailbags or something like that. If you want to just chat it up with our transfer portal people or in the Big 12 chat or one of these other chats. You can check that out with the

everydayer club. All right. So West Virginia comes into this at 10 and 5 on the season. They're one in one in Big 12 play, just like KU. They fell to Iowa state names by 21, though they were missing one of their key players. And then they beat Cincinnati earlier this week and what's a rivalry game there by two

points. So Ken Palm has them just outside the top 70. Torvick is a little more bullish on them. He has them in the 50s. And then I was looking at another site that had them like at 50s. Both sites with Torvik and Ken Palm have them outside the top 90 on offense, but inside the top 60 on defense, including 40th on Bart Torvik defensively.

So a little bit similar in terms of the profile with where the offense is compared to the defense where TCU was, but in the TCU game, it was more of the TCU offense that hurt KU. Four strengths for West Virginia. The first one is Ebola constrictoring games. They will squeeze the life out of you by playing to a slow. tempo, maybe making you frustrated and making you play to their style tempo and half-court attack. So they're 360th nationally in tempo rating. If you use adjusted tempo, they are in the first percentile.

They are the slowest team in college basketball, basically. And so it helps other teams or helps them prevent other teams from scoring and transition. They're only given up 7.8 fast break points per game. That's a very low number. like Kansas is in the 60-something percentile in scoring fast break points per game. They're at 11 and a half per game. So it's, you know, a good size, lower than that. And what that all leads to is West Virginia getting set on defense, getting in the

half court, and they're in the 96th percentile right now in just unadjusted D rating. So you take out the schedule and everything, 96 percentile in defensive rating, they're able to get you in the half court, they're able to play good half court defense, right? And then interestingly enough, they actually are good at scoring off turnoff. overs despite the slower tempo. They also get to the free throw line. They're in the 77th percentile in free throw attempt rate. They don't make them at a great clip, which is odd, but they still pressure you there

and can get you in foul trouble. They're also a really good three-point shooting team. They're over 36 percent from three. It is a lot on one guy, but overall, they're in the 81st percentile nationally from three-point range. And they take a good amount. They're in the 70th percentile for three-point attempt rate. They take a lot.

They make a lot. That makes them dangerous. defensive rebounding is also a skill for West Virginia, 92nd percentile nationally in defensive rebound rate. So they clean the defensive glass. That's part of being a good defensive team. It's not just about did you make the stop. It's about did you grab the rebound?

Because you don't end the defensive possession until you grab the defensive rebound. Otherwise, they're getting another possession or another shot. And it's just increased their chance of it going up. Interestingly enough, though, if you look at just West Virginia's game, games against Quad 1 and Quad 2 opponents. The defensive rebound rate drops a little bit. It's still fine, but the offensive rebounding rate goes way up.

So I guess either way you look at it, they're good at one end of the court rebounding, but that certainly has been a strength for them so far. Four weaknesses for West Virginia, they are a bit of a shorter team. Now, this one's kind of similar to TCU. TCU is a bit of a shorter team, but the difference here is TCU didn't play short. They have really good athletes who play bigger than their side. like David Punch is leading the big 12 in blocks per game and he's like six seven. Louis listed at six seven.

I don't know. Watching that game, I'm just like, are we sure he's six seven? He looks like he's maybe he's closer to six eight, six nine, but nonetheless. A bit of a shorter team. And I think some of that shows in their inability to score inside. They are only in the 32nd percentile in paint points per game. And if you just look at the quad one and two games, so again, the game is against better opponents for West Virginia. West Virginia is only in the 25th percentile.

So the bottom quartet of college basketball in points in the paint per game. They're turning it over too much, too, in the bigger games against quad one and quad two opponents. West Virginia is in the 34th percentile for turnover rate, and they're in the 35th percentile for assist to turnover rate, which ranks them outside the top 200 nationally in both categories in that setting. Now, defending at the rim, another weakness here. Again, if you look at the overall numbers, West Virginia is fine at defending at the rim, but if you're just looking at the quad one and two games, which this is, teams are shooting 68% at the rim against West Virginia. That is much better than the national average of 62.4% by a pretty decent margin there.

So maybe Kay, you can get the ball inside and score inside. Players to watch for both teams that start with West Virginia, Honor Huff. He's going for a team high 17.1 points per game. He also gets 1.4 steals per game, but he shoots the crap out of the ball. He reminds me a little bit of like AJ Abrams inside. some way, but 41% from three on insanely high volume. Think about this for a second. So he has taken 145 three point attempts.

So he's taken like 9, 10 a game and he's shooting 41%. That is incredible. The next most attempts on West Virginia is Trajan Eagle Staff, the transfer from North Dakota, South Dakota. I think KU toiled with him for a little bit there. But Eagle Staff has 73, three-point attempts. and he is like a, you know, chucker. He'll let it fly.

Honor Huff is taking double the amount of threes. The next closest, after those two, two players for West Virginia are tied with 25 each. So, like, they have some other decent three-point shooters. And Eagle staff can get really hot in a hurry. But the reason they are such a good and high-volume three-point shooting team is mostly just one guy because he is that freaking good from three in Honor Huff. And he's coming off a 24-point outing.

It's his fifth game of the season with 24 points, exactly 24 points. That's his season high. He's done it five times. I don't know why he keeps settling on that number. But yeah, he's a very good shooter. Brennan Lorient is another player to watch. He is a 6 foot 9 four man going for 10.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 1.6 blocks per game. So he fills up the stat sheet.

52% from the field, 36 from 3 on about 2-3s per game, 73% at the line. So he missed the Iowa State game. But he came back against Cincinnati. actually struggled against the Bearcats. Two points, one of five shooting, three rebounds in over 20 minutes. But just a few games before that, he was pretty dominant against Ohio State, 18 points, seven rebounds, four assists, four blocks, and a steel. Again, he can fill up the stat sheet and he becomes an interesting player,

the 6-9-4 man with, how is KU going to play? Is KU going to continue playing two bigs with Tiller who's struggled, or is KU going to switch it up and go Trey White at the four? And how does that work against Lorient? You'll get the KU players to watch. We're going to start with Melvin Council. 13.7 points per game for counsel, 5.1 assists, 4.3 rebounds. So Jasper Floyd is a good defender from West Virginia.

I'll be curious to see if he takes counsel. But I'm not just curious about, you know, what does counsel provide on the defensive end and being the leader and an engine of this team. But can we finally see counsel start to make an offensive impact, a scoring impact when Peterson is on the floor? That's something I'll be very curious about. Can you start to take steps in the right direction there? The other guy we're going to go with here is actually El Marco Jackson.

And I don't know, El Marco could play 12 minutes, right? But El Marco, I just want to see if you can back up what he did last game. And here's the thing. El Marco only scored two points last game. But he stayed in the game and made a big impact with his defense. He had five steals. He was really good on the defensive end of the floor. Can you put El Marco on Honor Huff?

You know, is that something where he can take him and try to make him his life a little bit more difficult. Because if he can do that, El Marco could score again two points in 25 minutes, but if you make Honor Huff less efficient than he normally is, and maybe you get a couple of steals, maybe have a couple of rebounds, a couple assists, you can still make a positive impact on this game. And then beyond that, it's just the question of like, are we going to see a rise in playing time for El Marco after the last game, you know, can you take advantage of it? If he gets an opportunity for himself, can he take advantage or, you know, is it going to be

going back down to where it was before? So I'm very curious to see what his role is, basically, in this game. All right. Let's finish up with KU keys to the game, play your matchup, Hawks the Sore, all that next on Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by Fandual. The college football playoff is here. And Fandul's given all new customers even more ways to get in on the action every single game day of the playoffs. Because right now, every college football playoff game day,

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coming. Like right now the LSU over under for wins is nine and a half. Seems kind of high with everything in flux with Lane Kiffin right now. But you can bet on that yourself and apply your profit boost for even bigger win-ins. FanDuel is the best place to get in on the action all playoff long. So visit FanDuel.com to get your college football playoff profit boosts every game day with FanDuel. Thanks you have for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks. KU takes on West Virginia. Keys to the game for KU. Let's start here for the KU offense. Score the ball inside. So West Virginia has been a good. defense. And it's not always easy to get it there. But if you can get those shots inside,

again, West Virginia is 68% at the rim. They just do a pretty good job of preventing you from getting shots at the rim. It's just if you can work the ball enough and get it there, you have a chance against a team who's not as big. But again, you got to work it there to get it there. And here's the thing. West Virginia has allowed teams to shoot 50% or higher on two-point shots four times this year. The record's 0 and 4 in those games. And all four have been 50, 3% or higher from 2-point range. Flip it the other way, West Virginia's 10-1 when they hold teams

under 50% on 2-point shots. And the only game they lost was because Xavier shot 16 of 25 from 3-point range. That is absurd. So score the ball inside and do it efficiently, which means, you know, what can floor if you're right? So KU defense, their key to the game,

we're going to say defending the high low. West Virginia's team that will use that high low, like you think of Brennan-Lorient being a 6-9-4, playing the four for them. Like they'll run some of this high-low action and then work things off. It work actions off of it with Honor Huff. West Virginia is in the 90th percentile in frequency of using high-low actions. So it's a very high-percentile.

They're also in the 89th percentile for scoring efficiency on high lows. They do them a lot. They score on them a lot. Okay. You, for Bill Self for so many years, there's a high-low team. Does that help him some way have familiarity with it? That'll be interesting. The other thing I wanted to mention with the defense is just stick on your man.

I know that is a very obvious thing you could say about every game. Like stick on your man and you're going to do okay. But it becomes like like the on ball. There's certain games where on ball defense versus off ball defense becomes more important or off ball compared to on ball, right? If you have a team who's really good at cutting or a team who is really good off ball shooting, like it becomes really important to stay disciplined and stay on your guy and not get caught ball watching. It's not that you can afford to ball watch in a certain way, but like the on ball defense,

I think is going to be even more important for KU than the off ball defense. West Virginia is in the 77th percentile in dribble jumpers frequency. What does that tell you? They try to, they try to ISO you at times. They try to have their guard just beat you. I mean, when you have Honor Huff shooting 41% on the game, it makes sense, right? So you've got to be able to take your man one-on-one is what this tells me. And for Kansas who's been a switching team, what exactly does that mean, right?

Is that something where West Virginia is going to run a ball screen and then KU's going to switch it and they're going to just splash a dribble jumper in their face. Like, that's going to be very interesting how KU defends this, and can you stick with your man? Our player matchup here, Darren Peterson against Honor Huff. I don't even know if they'll be guarding each other. Sometimes Peterson's the one for KU, but he's bigger so he can be guarded by the imposing teams two or three.

Honor Huff is technically the teams two, but it's like shorter than the point guards. I don't know how it's all going to work with guarding each other, but just in terms of like pure sharpshooting, scoring guards, these are two of the better ones in not just the conference, but the entire country. you have, you know, which sharp shooting guard can get hotter, which one can be more efficient from three, and which one can make a bigger defensive impact in this game. I think that's going to be outstanding seeing what both players can do. I mean, there's a good chance that both players go for 20 plus, right?

Who knows me? You know, this is where Andrew Wiggins had the 40, was it 41 point game in Morgantown? Obviously, they lost, so you hope that that doesn't happen. But I feel like we've been on the precipice of Darren Peterson having a 40-point game. It's only, that's the only time it's happened with Bill South. He's had some other games where it's been like mid to high 30s. But Wiggins is the only one with 40 plus under Bill Self. It's obviously part of it is the staying healthy and being able to finish out the game for him to get there.

But like he had 32 and T, like if he can have that fully healthy game and give KU a game where he plays 32, 34 minutes, you know, with being fully healthy and not having to deal with the cramp stuff, he will have a 40 point game for KU. Why not this one? Who knows? But our other Hawks the Soor, so wings, I've noticed, this is just two Big 12 games, so small sample size, but wings who can shoot have scored well against West Virginia and Big 12 play. Jalen Celestine for Cincinnati, who was a wing from Baylor who really hurt KU last year. He's now at Cincinnati. He had, I think like 15 points off the bench.

And then at Milan-Momchilovich, who he's just been unbelievable offensively in shooting the ball this year in general. But he had 20-something points for Iowa State, and he's kind of a shooting wing. So maybe that's where Trey White comes into town for KU. The thing is, Trey White has had those tough road shootings, but it's under 30% from three on the road. Maybe it changes here, but, you know, maybe that would add up to Trey White. It also, you know, feels like if you're looking at West Virginia's defense, the shots they give up. Midrange and the floater game in the paint, those are both shots that Melvin Council hasn't shot super efficiently, but he has shot a good amount of. So maybe this is a game where like those are clear.

shots that he shot a lot of in the past and his career and that he practices, maybe the percentages can go up this game. Maybe he's somebody to watch there, right? But let's not get too crazy with it. As long as he stays healthy, stays on the floor, we'll make Darren Peterson our hawk to sort really creative here. All right. That'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks.

You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. See you for a postcast episode for whatever happens between the Jayhawks and the Mountaineers.