Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Can the Kansas Jayhawks Build Momentum: KU vs Arizona State Sun Devils - the Remy Martin Bowl

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's the Remy Martin Bowl. How does Kansas find a way to beat Arizona State and start building some momentum? We preview the game on today's 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. What's going on? Derek Johnson here at D. Johnson Radio on Twitter. You can find the show, Locked On Jayhawks, anywhere you get your podcasts,

Starting point is 00:00:31 including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Thank you to Everdare for catching each and every show. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. We are going to be breaking down a preview of Kansas versus Arizona State, the Remy Martin Bowl, and we're going to get into headlines for the game, Arizona State scouting report, matchups to watch, and players to watch on today's episode of the show, which is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

Starting point is 00:00:55 From big upsets to game-winning drives, the NFL playoffs are better with FanDuel. New customers can bet $5 and get $200 in bonus bets guaranteed win or lose. Just visit FanDuel.com to get started today. So Kansas takes on Arizona State. Wednesday night action, 7 o'clock Central Time in Allen Fieldhouse. And I mentioned this is the Remy Martin Bowl. Well, that's the last time that these two teams met in Allen Fieldhouse. It was when Remy Martin came in, and at that point, I think Remy might have been a freshman, and obviously it was like Trey Holder

Starting point is 00:01:29 and a couple of the other guards. It was a really good guard team from Arizona State. They started the season so hot, and then they kind of finished slow, but made the NCAA tournament, and they won at Kansas, and that was the 2018 Kansas team that ended up making the Final Four, but lost, I think, three times at home that season.

Starting point is 00:01:42 Then you look at the other part of the home-and-home, which was your most recent meeting. It was the game in Tempe, and that was the team with Dedrick Lawson where they kind of let it go late. They didn't have a great close to the game, and Arizona State did have a good close to the game, and Kansas lost on the road. So as part of that most recent home-and-home,

Starting point is 00:01:58 when you did play about half a decade ago, they won both of those. Now, I believe for the overall series, Arizona State is up 6-5 in the overall series on KU's website. The most recent Kansas win, which was the most recent matchup before that home-and-home, would have been the 2003 NCAA tournament, in which Kansas obviously wound up making it all the way to the national title game when Nick Collison and Kirk Heinrich and the bunch.

Starting point is 00:02:24 So if you beat Arizona State, clearly you're going to at least the Final Four. That's what past history would tell us. But if you lose to Arizona State like you did in 2018 at home, then you're also going to the Final Four. So Kansas is golden. They're just playing Arizona State. Everything is good. Don't worry about anything else. But in the real, this is a big game for Kansas to try to build some momentum.

Starting point is 00:02:42 You come off a really strong performance at UCF. It's one thing to win at UCF. You're expected to do so, albeit for Kansas, they had really been struggling on the road coming into that over this season and last year. So you don't take that for granted. But it's one thing to win on the road. It's another to win by 51 points.

Starting point is 00:03:02 And it's another to look dominant. And for Kansas, a team that has struggled in some of these recent games you know it was important to go out like that but how do you capitalize on that momentum because it's one thing if you're having to step forward and then you take another step back and then it's just like erased what you did can you capitalize on that momentum especially with a big road trip upcoming at cincinnati and at iowa state in your next two games so build some momentum can you keep playing pissed off so to speak like that's something that bill self said uh after they beat ucf he said

Starting point is 00:03:37 that's a team that played angry played pissed off like can you continue to do that each and every game if you can all right if you can bring that energy level up then then i think this team has enough talent to make some stuff happen but they're not you're i don't know that any team is but certainly you're not talented enough to if you're going to play lethargic to overcome uh early holes in some of these games like you've had against missouri and against west virginia um then the other headline coming into this one is going to be returning late after the snow and ice storm, because that can hurt it all. Or could it help?

Starting point is 00:04:10 Could it help if you were all huddled up in a hotel together for an extra day? Could it help with team bonding from the chemistry perspective of the game? So we'll wait and see on that one as they get ready for Arizona State. Now the scouting report here, Arizona State is 10-3 on the season. They're 1-1 in the Big 12. A lot of top 100 wins so far to this point in the year. Grand Canyon, I believe that was without Tyon Grant Foster at the time, but still a top 100 win.

Starting point is 00:04:33 Santa Clara, who's low-key like a really good WCC school this year. New Mexico, who was a tournament team last year, and we'll see how it goes this year, but I think very well could be a tournament team again this year. St. Mary's, you know, typically is a tournament team. And then most recently, they got their first Big 12 win beating Colorado 81 to 61. Now, when you look at it, though, as many top 100 wins as they are,

Starting point is 00:04:56 there's not many, like, you know, super, I guess if you were viewing it from the net perspective, like quad one wins. Like the St. Mary's win, they're ranked 45th on Ken Palm, but everybody else is between 50 and 100. So quality wins. But when you're playing Kansas, you would have to have that elite win. And that's what they're going to be going for in this one.

Starting point is 00:05:15 Now, the best opponents that Arizona State has played, they had a 20 point loss to BYU on the road. BYU is a solid team, top 40 ish team, but again, not viewed as like a top 15 team or anything like that. Florida certainly is viewed as a top 10, 15 team in the country, and they lost by 17 to them. And then they had an eight-point loss to a top 10 Gonzaga team. If you want to count the exhibition game that certainly popped some people's eyeballs, they lost by like infinity points to duke uh but i probably shouldn't count that because i don't want to count ku's exhibition game either where they got

Starting point is 00:05:48 blown out by arkansas so let's not count theirs we don't have to worry about counting kus either uh overall this is a team that is ranked top 60 on ken palm they're just outside the top 60 on bark torvik they're ranked top 55 in the net rankings um they come in barely inside the top 100 offensively and then ken palm gives them a top 35 defense so this is a quality opponent but it's also you might not fully know what these teams are till you get in the thick of conference play and we just saw you know kansas lose to west virginia who was ranked around here at home but west virginia since then they get that win they blow out oklahoma state like west virginia looks like they are going to be better

Starting point is 00:06:23 than that ranking was. You look at the personnel for Arizona State. They've got a former local kid, Blue Valley Northwest player in Alston Mason, who began his career at Oklahoma, went to Missouri State, had a good year last year, transferred to Arizona State. He's one of four players for the Sun Devils, averaging between 11 and 14 points per game. He's at 11 points, 34% from three. He can shoot it from deep, three and a 14 points per game. He's at 11 points, 34% from three. He can shoot it from deep, three and a half assists per game.

Starting point is 00:06:47 Then they have another multi-time transfer in Adam Miller, who's 6'3", 9.6 points per game, a score team 48% from three as the two guard. They've got a six foot five freshman in, I don't know how to pronounce it, Joson Sanon. I don't know if that's the right way to pronounce that. He plays two in the three. He's had a great first year so far,

Starting point is 00:07:04 13 and a half points per game, tied for the team lead on 48% from three. So you see that between Sanon and Miller, that's 108 three-pointers attempted at a 48% clip. So you've got to get out on shooters in this game for Kansas, specifically those two. Then there's B.J. Freeman. He's a 6'6 wing. He was actually on the Kansas portal radar this past offseason. He's a 6'9 big man who's averaging 9.4 points, 8.2 rebounds per game with one and a half steals over three blocks per game, and he's shooting 52% from the floor. Now, he is shooting really low from three-point percentage,

Starting point is 00:07:58 but he can shoot them. He has been just an absolute stud so far. He's, I would say, pretty interchangeable whether they play him at the four or five same goes for their other four or five man in bashir jihad i think you would maybe technically count acquaintance more as the four whereas jihad maybe you'd count more as the five but again they feel pretty interchangeable to me and jihad is six foot nine 240 pounds he leads the team at 13.5 points per game to go along with five and a half rebounds per game and he's shooting 39 from three which is allows those kind of two big men to play together in addition to the defense in addition to acquaintances athleticism um now one thing to keep in mind with jihad he has a very high turnover number so we'll see if kansas can take advantage of that in this game uh they do

Starting point is 00:08:40 have one seven footer who rotates and he plays close to 13 minutes per game sean phillips uh gives them some size solid rebounder but he'll just be in as kind of a body to defend hunter dickinson for for here and there throughout the game what i think is interesting here is they're basically playing two bigs right if you look at both quaintance and jihad that's two six foot nine kind of big men who you're playing but both bigs can at least shoot it a little bit, more so certainly in the case of Jihad and are athletic, more so in the case of Quaintance. And they surround it with guards who really let it fly. So I think it's going to be very interesting to see how that does against what Kansas wants to do.

Starting point is 00:09:15 Now, when you look at what they do well, Arizona State gets to the free throw line at a very solid rate. They're an excellent 3.2 shooting team. They're shooting 37.6%. That is top 40 nationally, and that comes on pretty high volume. On the defensive end, they're really good at avoiding sending you to the free throw line. They block a ton of shots, which leads to an above average two-point defense. And so far, they're holding opponents under 30% from three. But with volume allowed, that might be a little bit lucky. I don't know. We'll wait and see how that stuff

Starting point is 00:09:43 balances out over the course of the season. where they've struggled so far this season arizona state does turn the ball over at a below average national rate they're a bad offensive rebounding team so uh you know they're not a great possession team i guess you would say they get the ball stolen a lot they get it blocked from them a lot um that leads to not being one of the better two point offenses you're going to see right they really rely on being able to shoot threes well. The good news is they do shoot threes well. And then defensively, they don't really get steals on that end either. So again, they're not really winning the possession game, but they still can't hurt you because

Starting point is 00:10:14 they've got an ultimate stud on the inside and a young freshman in Jayden Quings, and they've got a bunch of three-point shooters on the outside. And that is what would certainly scare me the most coming into this matchup. All right, let's get into the matchups of the game that could decide it. Players to watch, this is Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode of the show is brought to you by Rocket Money. Did Rocket Money help you find any subscriptions you forgot about or that you were paying for twice?

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Starting point is 00:11:52 Locked on College Basketball. We got Locked on B-12 going on for your second listen every day as well. We will have a KU Arizona State recap after the game occurs, so stick around for that one too. And then later this week, we'll get you a preview of Kansas against Cincinnati going on the road for the Jayhawks. Looking to win two straight on the road, dare I say. Okay, matchups of the game for this one. Kansas, Arizona State, number one scoring inside for KU.

Starting point is 00:12:19 So among the four teams who have had an effective field goal percentage of 55% or higher against Arizona State this year, and for what it's worth, everyone else has been at 51 or below. So it's been like a big jump to what most teams have done against Arizona State and then to what those top four have done. Arizona State's only one in three, right? And it makes sense if you're giving up easier baskets or the other team shooting well like you're probably going to lose more of those games but all three of their losses have come that way and even the one win where you're sitting okay what was the one win in the one in three it was a four point victory barely one game over a bad cal poly team so if you can score efficiently you're probably going to win this game and i think what adds the intrigue here is those three teams who beat them that had effective field goal percentages of 55% or higher, collectively, those three teams that beat them were 28 of 86 from three-point range. So that's 32.6%. So this was not something where Arizona State lost those games

Starting point is 00:13:20 because the other teams were just shooting bonkers from three or something. That's why the effective field goal percentage was super high. It wasn't. All those teams shot average-ish from three. The reason they shot well overall was two-point offense, of which all three of those losses shot at least 59.5% or better on two-point shots. So if you can score on the inside against Arizona State, you can win the game. Obviously, easier said than done

Starting point is 00:13:45 because you have a team who has a guy who averages over three blocks per game in jane acquaintance right uh overall arizona state 93rd percentile nationally in block rate right so it's easier said than done but kansas does this well their 90th nationally or 90th percentile nationally excuse me uh in at the rim percentage right kansas one of the best teams in the country and finishing at the rim and that's something where if they get the opportunities they will but the problem is what happens if arizona state stacks the paint what is that going to do to the ku game plan what if they they take the guy off kj adams like we saw with with the creighton game like we saw with the missouri game like we saw with the west virginia game and they say no we're

Starting point is 00:14:23 just going to pack the paint and you're not going to be allowed to do that right um i think it'll be interesting and arizona state does give up a lot of floaters and push shots and short mid-range shots and we've seen kansas take a good amount of those so maybe that is cycling into something that uh would be bad for ku because those typically end up being you know lower lower efficiency shots so to speak um but maybe that just means it comes down to how well the one harrison kj adams are hitting those shots because they're the ones who take i i would say a majority of those and if the game is coming down to that happening i don't know how comfortable ku fans would feel but we have seen them be able to have games or you know they have made them all so uh it'll be interesting but then again in big 12 Big 12 games, Arizona State did allow Colorado and BYU

Starting point is 00:15:06 to shoot a combined 33 of 46. That's 72% at the rim. But again, if they just sag off KJ, then it's more complicated than just that. Either way, Kansas has to win by getting easy buckets. I think that's the avenue to both something that Kansas wants to do, something that has led to Arizona State losses, and we'll see how they go about it in this game plan based on how Arizona State defends up.

Starting point is 00:15:29 Number two, beat Arizona State down the floor. Arizona State has not been a good transition defensive team so far. So far this season, Arizona State is giving up over 11 transition points per game. In fact, they rank in just the 10th percentile nationally. What that means? 90% of college basketball. There's like a billion teams in college basketball. 90% of college basketball is giving up less percentage of points they allow coming via transition than Arizona State. That's great news for KU, who is a good transition team. 84th percentile nationally for KU and almost 13 transition points per game.

Starting point is 00:16:03 And I think interesting numbers here. I was taking a look like who is getting the transition points per game. And I think interesting numbers here. I was taking a look like, who is getting the transition points for KU? Well, there's two players tied for the lead on Kansas in transition two-point attempts. That'd be DeJuan Harris and A.J. Storpe. Both of them have attempted 18 transition twos. DeJuan Harris is 15 of 18 on transition twos,

Starting point is 00:16:23 which I think speaks more to, like DeJuan will take the open layup, but he's not going to force it. He'll pass off, give somebody a good option, or he'll run the offense, right? With AJ Storr, it makes sense. He has a lot of twos because to me, that is what I view as the best part of his game,

Starting point is 00:16:38 that he can be this downhill attacking scoring wing, and that works well in transition. He's 11 of 18 in transition. So that's a good number two, like over 60%. attacking scoring wing and that works well in transition he's 11 of 18 in transition so uh that's a good number two like over 60 percent um in terms of transition threes the leader for ku is zeke mayo he's attempted 14 of them which everybody else on kansas combined has attempted 16 of them and nine of those are from rylan griffin but basically that means zeke mayo is taking like all of your transition threes or basically a coin flip whether it's him or

Starting point is 00:17:03 somebody else and he's made them at 36 so uh that's a solid number so maybe keep an eye on those guys in this game all right number three for our matchups here is guarding the three-point line there is literally one area that's it one area on the heat map when you're talking about at the rim in the paint mid-range corner threes and above the break threes of those five only one area on the heat map that arizona state shoots shots at more than a national average amount and that is the above the break threes they take a top 20 rate nationally um quarter threes at the rim mid-range in the paint all of those are below the 50th percentile nationally and the amount of of basically their shots they're getting up from there which means they are heavily reliant on above the break three. So can you guard them if you're KU? Can you prevent those

Starting point is 00:17:49 shots from going in at an efficient level? Can you keep them to low 30% on three-point shots, specifically from those above the break threes? And what I think is interesting here, going back to last game, Floyd Badunga was so good against UCF and even the game before in the second half against West Virginia, Floyd Badunga's ability on the defensive end of the court. Are you able to, by having Flory in there, having his defense where he has shown the ability to guard guards and he can fly around there with a reckless abandon and he has all this length and athleticism.

Starting point is 00:18:17 In a weird way, it's almost counterintuitive. You would think playing a two-big lineup, a two-center lineup with Flory and Hunter lineup with flory and hunter or flory and kj would be bad for guarding three-point defenses but by playing an extra center and flory i feel like it helps their three-point defense because it is this guy who can run around and chase guards and can you know make you think twice if you're shooting a three like oh no this six nine dude who runs super fast is coming at me to try to block this shot or at the very least if you have flory on the, it gives those guards on the outside for KU

Starting point is 00:18:48 a peace of mind that, hey, if I let this guy get behind me, I got Flory back there to wipe it away. And now I can really contain this guy from shooting the three because I'm more content with him driving past me, right? So I think that'll be interesting in how that affects that in all this. But interestingly enough, Kansas gives up above the break threes at a rate about 5% lower than the national average. It's a good chunk. So the hard hedges that they've been doing, if you've noticed, KU has been doing a lot of stuff where they run a high ball screen, they have Hunter Dickinson run out, and they're basically doubling the ball handler off the ball screen with these hard hedges. And that a lot of times takes away some of those above the break threes at least off that

Starting point is 00:19:28 initial ball screen because um it's not just situation where the defender is going under the screen and that player is going to shoot the three now they can still get above the break threes off the pass or from the wings and the slot area and that sort of thing but um i find that very interesting because it's, you've seen Kansas give up some easy layups. Like you think the West Virginia game because of the way they've defended that, but does it help with above the break threes? And does it help in a matchup like this?

Starting point is 00:19:53 I think we're going to certainly find out that. All right, let's finish up here. Who are the players to watch for Kansas, Arizona state? This is locked on Jay Hawks. All right. So Kansas takes on Arizona state, trying to win their second straight big 12 game

Starting point is 00:20:07 our player matchup of the game we're gonna go with hunter dickinson versus kind of cheated here quaintance slash jihad the two big men for arizona state i'm not entirely certain who they're going to have guard hunter right you could say with with jihad maybe he's uh you know just from a strength perspective like maybe it makes more sense but quaintance is a better shot blocker and he's this stud freshman like maybe you have him on him i'll be very interested to see who they have match up with him individually and then you have the crocs and all this what we kind of talked about earlier like is arizona state you know gonna take a page from some of the teams who have given kansas trouble and just say we're not going to guard

Starting point is 00:20:41 kj adams unless he's within five feet of the paint and we're going to use that extra defender as a shot blocker to help double hunter digginson to block shots from other players driving into the paint and if that's the role they're asking to do then it makes more sense for quaintance to be that guy because then queens who is their best shot blocker can just be roaming on the inside causing havoc for the ku offense so it'll be very interesting to me how that plays into it all. But on its own, you know, you could argue that Quaintance is Arizona State's best player. I know he's not leading them in scoring, but he is in rebounding, is in blocked shots. He's just a very dynamic player.

Starting point is 00:21:16 And Hunter Digginson is such a productive player for KU. So I think that should be just fun kind of having them around each other on the inside. At the same point in time, Hunter does have, you know, like a five-inch advantage on these guys, and can he just bury them in the post? And then on the other end, you know, Quain's athleticism or Jihad's ability to shoot threes at near a 40% clip, are those going to cause Hunter Dickinson

Starting point is 00:21:37 all sorts of troubles on the defensive end of the floor? So I think this is going to be a very interesting game, but also one that I think it does make sense to use even more of the Flory Hunter big men lineups based on how Arizona State is playing. And I hope we get to see a lot of that in this game for KU, which by the way, sounds like Shaquille Moore will be starting for the second straight game.

Starting point is 00:21:56 So we'll see if that helps with KU's three-point defense as well. High on the go-off meter for KU, we're going to go with Zeke Mayo. We went with Zeke last game against UCF and it didn't work out. He went three of 10 for seven points. Like everybody went off for KU, but it go with Zeke Mayo he went with Zeke last game he gets UCF and it didn't work out he went three of ten for seven points like everybody went off for KU but it wasn't really his shooting game and and that was kind of the beauty of Zeke Mayo though that he still found a way to be like you know what there's these other players going off like I don't need to go off like I'm just gonna end up with seven assists or something like that instead and uh he still had a good game out of it but I think in this one Arizona State's bigs are really impactful on the

Starting point is 00:22:24 defensive end of the court um it's not that i think their guards are necessarily like bad defenders but i don't think they're they're elite defenders necessarily and when you look at some of the high scores of teams they've most recently played like for instance against byu richie saunders who's like a 6-5 guard wing type he had 30 points against them and you look at it in in it's been some times where kind of the wing two three guard types are scoring good totals against arizona state well now you look at mayo and basically in this lineup with dewan harris and shaquille moore as i knock my microphone out um it's basically he's the three in that lineup if you view it from that standpoint on offense and plus adding to it the Mayo did have a down shooting game.

Starting point is 00:23:07 So I just always feel like when you have a good shooter, if they have a down shooting game, I feel like they're going to come back and bounce back in that way. And he has been awesome at home. The home road splits for Zeke Mayo are very apparent. Right now in Allen Fieldhouse, Zeke Mayo is shooting 38% from three. On the road, Zeke Mayo is only shooting 27% from three. At home, Zeke Mayo is averaging 16.4 points per game. On the road, Zeke Mayo is averaging eight and a half points per game.

Starting point is 00:23:31 Well, guess what? This game's at home, so I think Zeke Mayo goes off. Plus, we talked earlier, transition opportunities. Zeke Mayo takes the most transition threes on KU, an area they should be able to score. So I'm going to say big game for Zeke for a lot of different reasons there. That'll do it for this episode of the show, though,

Starting point is 00:23:46 with Locked on Jayhawks. Make sure you're subscribed anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. And we will be back for a Kansas-Arizona State recap. Also get you ready for the weekend with Kansas-Cincinnati later in the week. So make sure you're subscribed anywhere you get your podcasts right here with LOJ. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Can the Kansas Jayhawks Build Momentum: KU vs Arizona State Sun Devils - the Remy Martin Bowl

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