Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Dajuan Harris Leads the Kansas Jayhawks to Road Win in Lubbock Over Texas Tech and 2-0 Big 12 Start

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Dajuan Harris spearheaded the Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball victory against Texas Tech in Lubbock, ending the Red Raiders' 29 game home winning streak. What led to the win for KU and Bill Self, GOATs of the game like Harris and KJ Adams. Finishing things out with talk about Ky Thomas entering the transfer portal and what it means for Lance Leipold and Kansas Jayhawks Football in 2023.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.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.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas wins in Lubbock in a tight one, ending their 29-game home winning streak. We're going to break it down, discuss, and analyze what happened in the game and where we go from here. 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 on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 on KLWN Radio in Lawrence. Thanks for making Lockdown Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts.

And on today's edition of the show, we're going to be breaking down Kansas' win in Lubbock to start 2-0 in Big 12 play with a big-time win at Texas Tech. And it's kind of a game that, once again, a bit of a slow start, but fortunately for Kansas, this one didn't last nearly as long as the Oklahoma State one. You're down 13-5 early, then you bounce back. That was one of the best, really from that point on, I guess. That was one of the best, I guess, 16 minutes or so of play

that we've seen from Kansas this year to end the first half. And then in the second half, it felt like a game that you're kind of in control of. You're up like 6-8 for most of it. It felt like a game that you're kind of in control of. You're up like six to eight for most of it. It felt like a game that, I don't know, it almost felt like you should be up double digits. Texas Tech just keeps hitting some big threes. You hit a lot of threes yourself, too. But to kind of stay in it, they keep hitting shots. They won't let you get too far away.

You never really fully put them away. And then at the end, they start to strike, and it's like, uh-oh, here they come. And you end up finding a way to win I thought it was kind of similar to the Texas game last year in Austin but this time you found a way to win if you remember the game in Austin last year Kansas up I think it was seven points with like two minutes left and just kind of everything went wrong for them Texas banks in a three toward the end of the game. They end up winning and you felt like you let one slip away. Obviously Kansas ended up being just okay.

They split the big 12. They won the big 12 tournament and then they won the national title last year. So it would have been okay. But once you get up to that point and you're up by seven or eight points with two, two and a half, three minutes to go,

it's, it's a lot harder to deal with that loss than if texas tech would have just you know been a back and forth game or a tie game or tech would have been up three most of the game and then they would have won because coming into the game if you would have lost in lubbock wouldn't have been a big deal they had 29 straight home wins mark adams had never lost at home texas tech is a pretty good team wouldn't have been a huge deal if you lost on the road you know wouldn't have been a skies is falling guess what Kansas last year second game of the season lost in Lubbock ended up winning the title but this just gives you such a I don't know kind of a leg

up almost to speak so Baylor lost their opener it was a road game um in on Saturday and the first game is a big 12 play you view baylor and texas as being the biggest competition for you in the big 12 at least as of now we never really know because this could all be really muddled together texas last night though loses at home to kansas state now maybe kansas maybe that means kansas state is one of the better teams in the big 12 and maybe they're one of your your biggest contenders i don't know what that means but that's a nice leg up because texas lost a home game whereas you found a way to win on the road in Lubbock. And that's going to be a place where a lot of other teams are going to lose this year. Again, they had won 29 straight at home.

So that's a big leg up that you're going to have up on your competition and big 12 play. And this is a tough week. We talked about how, you go one and one this week in Lubbock, in Morgantown, I don't know that you're throwing a party, but I think you're content with it. You're content with it. Two tough plays play against two good opponents, both of them places that like in the case of Morgantown, that you've really struggled on the road.

So now you feel like you're playing with a cherry on top, because if you lose this game, then you'd be heading into Morgantown going, we have to win this game. We can't be one and two. We can't lose another road game now of course you'd love to win the west virginia game and at that point if you start three and own big 12 play with two road wins against tough opponents then you're going to be really going wow i love the start that we've had here but at the very least it gives you margin for error that if you do lose it's like okay this

isn't the worst thing in the world now if i would have would have told you Texas Tech was going to go 10 of 21 from three in that game and would have a 10 of 12 free throw night where you would only go two of four, I think you'd be very nervous about the result of this one, how it would have worked out. Fortunately, though, Kansas has in their two games shot absolutely lights out from three point range and who would have thought dewan harris would have been the biggest reason why in last night's game five for five from three jaylen was was getting it going from three in the first half he hit three of them grady dick hits one but overall really struggles from three on the night um it was it was mostly dewan harris just knocking down threes for you bob Bobby Pettiford hit a three, which was nice.

He went one of two. And we still don't, I don't know, have a great idea of how good of a shooter he is because he's only attempted three threes on the year. Last year, he only attempted a couple, but it was nice to see him knock one down. I think DeJuan, we know this. We've seen it in other games. If you're not somebody who pays attention to Kansas you might just think oh he's only attempting this amount of threes and he's only shooting you know

low 30 percent he's not that good of a shooter and he has kind of a funky shot but if you follow Kansas you know that DeJuan Harris yes for you know he's not going to be somebody who's shooting threes off of screens or he's not going to be someone off the bounce who's just going to pull it if a guy goes under a screen but when he gets a set shot if you leave him open he's had other games where he has shown an affinity to go three of four maybe we haven't seen five of five but it hasn't been something that's been completely like unassumed that he can't shoot at all. So given the right situation, which he had against Texas Tech

because of their defense and because they basically said, okay, we're going to leave you a little bit open, he took advantage of it. And it just feels like with DeJuan, whenever you need that specific game, you need a facilitator, you need him to score for a stretch, like in the Indiana game where he had six straight points or against utah where it's a close game and he has 14 points you need him to just be a ball hawk defensively and lead the point of attack defense like in the

title game just whatever you need him to do to win that's what he does and that is why he is a winner he's he's kind of like he's he's an amoeba of winning. He morphs to whatever you need him to do that specific game. And certainly those preseason questions about how good of a shooting team could this be? They seem so distanced now. Part of that has been Grady Dick has looked like a legit lottery pick, and any time you have a freshman coming in, you're like, okay, we think this guy could be good, but we don't totally know.

Like, for instance, MJ Rice has struggled to gain footing. If that would have happened to Grady Dick, I don't know where this team's shooting would be because it's not just what he provides as a shooter. It's that he opens up the floor and the spacing for other shooters on Kansas as well. But Jalen has improved. Kevin's been very hit or miss with that. DeJuan obviously has improved much in that regard. So they've gotten more than enough three-point shooting.

If they can continue this, they're going to be just fine in that regard. So they've gotten more than enough three-point shooting. If they can continue this, they're going to be just fine in that regard. But the biggest thing Kansas did in this one, they did a great job of not having a big turnover game. 12 turnovers isn't like a, oh my gosh, can you believe they only had 12 turnovers number? But it's a solid number. Like if you get 12 a game, I think Kansas can live with that especially in a game against texas tech who is one of the best teams in the country coming in and forcing turnovers and forcing steals and you combine that with a big three-point shooting night you combine that with a big offensive rebounding night i mean grady gets a few of those offensive rebounds and stick backs kj had some big rebounds, including some big tap outs for you. Those probably won you the game on the margins. And that's what kind of added up to the victory,

despite the fact that, you know, Jalen Wilson did struggle in the second half after having a really good first half or that Kevin McCuller had an inconsistent night and got in foul trouble. You were able to survive some of those things because of winning on the margins in that way. You didn't turn the ball over a ton. You were able to get offensive rebounds. Those lead to extra possessions. You were hitting your threes, and that allowed you to survive Texas Tech, hitting all their threes, and Pop Isaac just making everything in sight,

which, by the way, that guy is going to be like a 20-point-per-game score, like all Big 12, all-American player in like a year or two. I just, I feel like that's going to be the natural progression there, but you found a way to win. You found a way to get through. And for anybody complaining about the refs and everything, um, they were just letting them play the whole way through. And there were calls on both like KJ Adams, not getting the foul call when a guy is holding

his leg or KJ Adams, getting uh the or not KJ um the the dunk at the end you know not getting a foul I guess that was KJ not getting a foul call on Daniel Baccio that probably could have been a foul like sure there maybe could have been a foul on uh Jalen Wilson holding Baccio on the previous offense possession there's missed calls every way it I just I have a hard time I don't like playing the ref game in any way either way because it's just like there's so many other opportunities to win the game there's going to be missed calls over the course of a game kind of evens out like they were just letting them play all night tech ended up with a lot more free throws like it worked out it's just okay all

right in just a second we're going to get on to our goats good and bad of game we're going to finish the show with a little bit of KU football, some big news, Kai Thomas transferring out of the program. This episode on J-Hawk brought to you by BetOnline. BetOnline.net is your number one source for sports betting information, stats, news, and analysis. Get the latest odds and trends for every professional and amateur league out there, from pro football to college bowl season to basketball and analysis. Get the latest odds and trends for every professional and amateur league out there, from pro football to college bowl season to basketball and soccer. They've got it all at

betonline.net. If you love sports podcasts, you can find those at BetOnline as well. They're the fastest and easiest way to get your betting information. Head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more. You'll be able to get Kansas against West Virginia when that line comes out closer to the weekend you can bet on the national title game TCU getting 13 points Kansas City Chiefs giving up seven and a half right now against the Raiders on Saturday bet online where the game starts a game good goat KJ Adams back-to-back games for him where he was just unbelievable for you in doing a bunch of little things, but also on offense. 14 points, he had five rebounds, four of them offensively. Again, there are some concerns with can KJ be a good enough defensive rebounder, but if everybody else is stepping up and getting defensive rebounds, then you're fine. And Texas Tech didn't have like a ton of offensive rebounds.

So it was just fine. And I will say, I do think something that I was noticing in that game, like KJ only ends up with one defensive rebound for the game, which is certainly a low number when you think of your centers. I do think that KJ, and this is where the height thing comes into play. I do think that KJ does a really good job boxing guys out. I mean, he's strong, he's physical, he does the little things well. And I think a lot of times he'll box out the other center well, but maybe because he's not tall enough, he can't win that jump for it. And I think that a lot of times he does at least open up for another Kansas player if they win their box out to get the rebound

because he's boxing out the center who might be the biggest threat to get the offensive rebound for the other team so I I do think that as as much as we have hampered and talked about his defensive rebounding numbers not being great he does help your other guys defensive bounce if that kind of makes sense but uh they're doing more than enough on on the defensive rebounds of late that it hasn't mattered and offensive reb, he had some huge ones. He also had two assists. His passing is really good. The one pass he made on the cut, too, I think it was Grady Dick.

Very tight window. Had to kind of lob it over a guy's head as he was cutting in on an angle from kind of the slot. You don't see that from other centers. Just a fantastic game for him. Also a block and a steal. He's been one of KU's three best players, maybe higher through their two Big 12 games.

I know that's a small sample size, but it shows how good he's been so far to start Big 12 play. DeJuan Harris gets a good go of the game. 18 points, three assists, two steals. He goes six of seven from the floor. He goes five of five from three. Like I said, just whatever you need him to do to win, he does that need to be a little more aggressive okay let's do it and always important on the defensive side of the ball uh he was on davion harman a lot and i thought that harman had

i mean a game that was kind of forgotten like you don't look up at the stat sheet and be like man davion harman killed us so good job by deJuan in that game. And Harmon was coming in averaging 12 a game. Bobby Pettiford gets a good goat. He has been really good since coming back from an injury. So had the injury stuff that he suffered in the Tennessee game. Then he comes back for the Missouri game. And that one kind of discounted. It's your first game back.

But since that Missouri game, so what would that be? Indiana game on. He has been so much better. And I think early in the season, he was having at least a solid enough impact by keeping Kansas in the right spots and keeping them running their sets and being able to handle the ball. But you weren't seeing the stats. It would be two points, one rebound, one assist, one for two from the floor. And there's a little bit of empty calories there of late. You're seeing him have

that same impact of being able to keep Kansas calm and composed with having him on the floor as the point guard when DeJuan's out, but you're also seeing the stats pick up too. He had seven points, six assists, four rebounds, filling up the stat sheet, being able to really dish. You saw him be able to hit a three-point shot, which I think is really important for the long-term progression for his game. He was really good and helped you win a lot of minutes, especially when Kevin McCuller was out with foul trouble. First half, Jalen Wilson gets our last good goat. He had, in the first half alone, 13 points. He goes five of nine from the floor, 3 of 6 from 3.

He has 4 rebounds, 1 assist. Now, the second half was certainly a struggle for Jalen. Just 3 points, 1 of 7 from the floor, 2 rebounds is all he got in the second half. But in that first half, to help you come back from the 8-point deficit, to help you get that lead and look as good as you did in that first half, Jalen Wilson was kind of the key culprit to doing that, and then some other guys kind of took you to the finish line in the second half. The bad goats for Kansas, I think Kevin McCuller would be on here.

Seven points, just three of nine from the floor. I don't know if he was forcing it a little bit or if he was just off. Just two rebounds as well. Three assists, which was good, but certainly the scoring and the rebounding was a little lower than you'd expect for him 27 minutes of play from Kohler got in foul trouble too which certainly hurt your defense because as good as the offense was in the first half for Kansas there were some times where they were received defensively not having him out there

because the foul trouble was certainly not helpful in that regard so again i i don't know if it was the crowd was was getting to him um the the bleep you kevin chance which stay classy um were not i don't know something that i would imagine if i was a player for a school that your dad played football at and met your mom and your sister graduated from there and you gave whatever three or four good years there like probably would bug me a little bit but i don't know kevin's a d1 athlete so maybe it doesn't bother him i know he said in the post game it didn't but obviously what are you going to say you're not going to go out there and say you know in the post game yeah it really bothered me and and i you know it was kind of sad to hear even if it was.

So I don't know how much that affected it or if there was like maybe you're pressing because, you know, it could just be that that's what it was. You were pressing to try to show out in kind of your homecoming and it didn't work out for you. Or it could have just been you just happened to have a tough game against a team that plays really good defense right and you kind of got a hard whistle against you to open up the game and that puts you in the wrong mindset could be any of those things but either way tough game for kevin kohler i do expect him to bounce back i think he'll just be fine and uh i expect he'll have a big game on saturday against west virginia grady dick's

defense i want to put on here he he didn't shoot it well from three either at one of five, but I didn't want to put his full game on here because he ended up with 11 points despite tough shooting. He shot really well from two-point range. He had three offensive rebounds. He had eight total rebounds, and he also had three assists. So, like, the stats actually, he had a pretty good game, but defense was an adventure,

and it got him sitting for a handful of minutes in the first half at one point there were times where he just looked lost on switches or messed up a switch and a guy got wide open and I will say he's gotten a lot better overall on the defensive side of the ball throughout the season as it's gone on and it's not for a lack of trying he's not one of those guys which is like yeah he's just not really trying to fight through screens or he's not like trying to play hard defensively and he's just like no like he's he's trying he's just i think sometimes you get a little bit lost you're a freshman like it it happens to you and that happened in that game a good amount of time sometimes tech exploited it sometimes they maybe didn't see a guy who had

slipped to the basket that he was supposed to switch onto and he ended up wide open and they didn't get him the ball um so the defense was kind of an adventure for him but again because we've seen him improve so much at it and he is trying at it i expect it to get better and we've seen a lot of games are great he's actually held his own defensively so that's a positive sign but uh in that game it was a bit of a regression that texas tech was able to take advantage. Certainly a different style of offense. They run kind of that motion offense, and that can be different for freshmen to approach. All right, in just a second, we're going to finish off the show with some KU football news. Kai Thomas transferring out of the program with Locked

on Jayhawks. So Kai Thomas, your backup running back, he originally from the Topeka area, went to Topeka High School, goes to Minnesota, has a really good season in 2021 at Minnesota, capped off with a bowl game MVP in their win. I think it might have been the Cheez-It Bowl or maybe the Guaranteed Rate Bowl over West Virginia. Then he transfers and he wanted to come back home. He wanted to come into the area. That's what he said. Now there were some rumors and reports about some stuff with Kansas state and he ends up coming to Kansas. I don't know what he'll do now. He's entering the portal. Maybe he'll look at Kansas state. They lose a guy like Deuce Vaughn um or he would go somewhere else that's semi-local but former highly rated prospect comes in and didn't have the year that you would expect or hope for this year i think we all thought that devin neal and kai thomas would kind of be like splitting carries

and be the two guys but then what happened in the offseason was that daniel high shock came back from the injury and looked really good. And I think Kai Thomas had some injuries he had to deal with along the way. I think at times maybe struggled to adjust what the coaches were asking for him in the practice side of things, whereas maybe some of the other running backs were doing that a little bit more. And so once Hyshaw got that opportunity with Devin Neal, both those guys played so well that it wasn't going to be something for someone else. And then Hyshaw eventually gets injured halfway through the year, but that's when some of the injury stuff came into play for Kai Thomas that he couldn't really

get fully healthy and strike on that opportunity when he got more playing time. Then we heard about him headed into the bowl game over the course of those practices between the Liberty Bowl and the end of the season that he looked fresh again that that he was getting all these injuries and nicks kind of off of him and that he looked really explosive in practice and he was having some of his best practices and that led to more playing time in the bowl game he had a double digit carries he had two touchdowns in the game he had 46 total yards got a lot more playing time and so from that standpoint i kind of wondered like okay maybe because it wouldn't surprise you based on how the season went based on how good of a running back he could be and what he did the year before

prior to the bowl game happening if you would have said that he was going to transfer it wouldn't have been i think that big of a shock just in terms of what your expectations were for playing time and then what ended up happening. And then you think about next year and, hey, Devin Neal's going to be back as a junior and Daniel Hyshaw will be back from his injury for another season. And any other running backs that you have,

whether it's from the high school ranks or we'll see if Savion Morrison comes back. So it makes sense. But then after you saw his role in the bowl game, you wondered, okay, maybe they're starting to figure it out. Maybe he's starting to turn the corner and then this ends up happening. So good luck to Kai Thomas. You wish him well. We'll see where he ends up. But I think there's a lot of talent in Kai Thomas and I expect him to, if he finds the right destination to have a very successful rest of his college career.

As far as what this means for Kansas, like I said, Devin Neal and Daniel Hyshaw should be your guys next year. You want more depth. You hope Savion Morrison's back. He can still have multiple years too, and he can be kind of a different running back for you. Johnny Thompson, the running back you bring in, I think we think of with running backs,

like it's maybe a little easier to transition in as a freshman than it is maybe some other positions. Now there still are a lot of things you have to work on, like pass protection that a lot of guys maybe aren't just good at, but at least for a few carries a game, you expect that maybe he could be that guy. Maybe they look for the transfer portal for, for somebody else to come in and kind of replace the body that you lost there. But I think overall Kansas will be just fine at the running back position, but you never want to lose talented players.

And that's what happened with Kai Thomas. That's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We're going to have a KU football season kind of recap,

look ahead to 2023 on tomorrow's episode of the show. Then on Friday, we'll preview the KU West Virginia game. I'm Derek Johnson. You can find all our stuff

at D Johnson radio on Twitter. You can subscribe to us anywhere you get your podcasts or on YouTube. If you want to hit us up, hit me up on Twitter or in the comment section on YouTube with any questions or anything you want for the show to talk about. Have a good rest of your day. I'll see some of you on rock truck sports talk later today.