Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - DARRYN'S DOMINANT DEBUT: Peterson & Flory Bidunga Lead Kansas Jayhawks to 43-Point Win vs Green Bay

Starting point is 00:00:00 How about that dynamic duo of Floria Bedunga and Darren Peterson? They're pretty good, right? Kansas dominates Green Bay 91 to 54. 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? This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And thank you to the everyday airs catching each and every episode of the show.

Starting point is 00:00:32 We are free and available anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of LOJ, we are breaking down, recapping KU's 94 to 51 victory over Green Bay. It was, I don't know, just a refreshing win for KU. I know it's just Green Bay. I know it's not a game that we're going to be, you know, remembering from years from now or maybe even in a couple months from now. But it's just, I don't know, it just, it felt different.

Starting point is 00:01:01 And again, maybe this is, this is just hope goggles combined with new season goggles and you always hype up the new thing, especially when it's going well. It just, it feels different than the last couple of years. And I don't know if that's a Darren Peterson thing. I don't know if that's just like the team, the athleticism, that it just looks more pleasant on the defensive end or just them playing together. I don't know what it is, but it's just kind of that hope. And obviously, everything you could have wanted from what we.

Starting point is 00:01:28 think is going to be a dynamic duo of Darren Peterson and Flory Bedunga came to fruition in this game. Obviously, in the first exhibition game against Louisville, Flory got in foul trouble. He was good when he was out there, but he got in foul trouble. And then in the second exhibition game, he struggled a bit against Fort Hay State. Um, wasn't his cleanest game. And obviously in a game we were playing a D2 school and you're the biggest dude on the court, like you're expected to do very well. Um, now you look at this game and, and he comes around and, you know, and maybe it's just easy to be like, hey, he just didn't have a great game against team who actually was the best defense in D2 last year. And so floor, he goes for 23 points in this game on 9 of 11 from the

Starting point is 00:02:07 floor. The free throw shooting mean 5 of 6, like that's a big, if that's something that can continue, obviously not 5 to 6 every night, but if he's consistently even going 4 for 6, if he's in 2 or 3 free throws, that's huge for KU, 6 rebounds in 25 minutes. He dominated on the inside for KU. And that's what you want to see moving forward. he still is a younger player. You know, we saw last year as a freshman, there were some inconsistencies. There's probably going to be moments of inconsistencies this year, but can you tighten it up a little more to where the inconsistencies are a little less often?

Starting point is 00:02:39 But it was a great game for him. He had 44 combined points from Peterson and Bedunga and just 47 combined minutes. If this is a closer game, obviously Peterson had the cramping stuff, which we'll get to later, or he plays more like it ends up being even more between the two of them. I mean, they had like 34 points at halftime, more than Green Bay had. as a team. And so, again, not every game is going to be this easy, but the duo that you want to lead this team to the promised land that you need to do that with Peterson and Bedunga, it showed up in every possible way that you could imagine here in this one. And that is obviously

Starting point is 00:03:17 a positive for KU. And I know we say this, like, we've said this every game with Darren Peterson specifically, that it's just like, we come in and we're like, yeah, Darren Peterson's really good. wow, did you see what he did in the first half against Louisville? Wow, did you see what he did in this? I mean, the first half of this one and for the game, you know, in just 22 minutes of play, putting up 21 points on 7 of 11 from the floor. And it's, it's this almost the same comment. And it's very generic and it's very vague.

Starting point is 00:03:42 But it's just like, it's so, it's so fun to watch and it's so like awe-inspiring that, like, I think we're all just kind of dumbfounded by it in the most pleasant possible way for Darren Peterson, that yes, it is still the thing that we're going to leave the show off with, and it's just fun to talk about, right? Now, outside of that dynamic duo, I think some of the biggest positives of the game, the lack of turnovers, I mean, Kansas is only at three turnovers. Like, that is killer anytime you can do that, especially early in the season where you're going to have some of those issues. Now, will that carry over to the North Carolina game, that kind of remains we've seen? Obviously, I'm not expecting three versus North Carolina, but just

Starting point is 00:04:20 in terms of, like, low turnover numbers game to game. Can you keep that going? Because if you can, like that's the thing with this team they have not shown to be a great three-point shooting team to this point in season albeit they shot 37 percent today so that's actually you know a number that i would take each and every game right a bit of a slow start but um overall in the aggregate between both exhibition games between late night and fog between this one it hasn't been the best star from three for k u and based on the offseason additions we weren't expecting a great three-point shooting team again can they just be average i think that'll be enough but point being if you're not going to be a great three-point shooting team can you make up for another way by valuing the possession of the basketball, i.e. not turning it over, getting extra offense rebounds, forcing extra turnovers. And so that would be a good sign if you could do that. I think some of the other biggest positives in this one, Bryce and Tiller hitting that corner three. I know it's just one play ends up with seven points, five rebounds, good production there in 16 minutes. Now, if we're going to biggest negatives just to intertwine something, the defense, Bryson Tiller wasn't always the best, and that did not make Bill self happy.

Starting point is 00:05:22 But going back to the idea that if you want to play some two, two big lineups with Bryson Tiller and Florida Bidunga. If the defense isn't there, it's going to take away from it. But if the shooting is there, it's going to add to it. So it's like, it's this little pendulum where it's like, where is that going to go? But if you do want to play those lineups, Tiller's shooting ability to space the floor is going to be critical. So that was huge that he hit that three, I thought.

Starting point is 00:05:44 Speaking of made threes, Cole Rosario finally made a three, just two for seven in this game, six points. He goes one of six from three. But I think just seeing that first one go in, I would not be surprised if you get a game upcoming soon where, because again, Cole Rosario is a street shooter. Now, the weird thing is a lot of times a streak shooters, it's like, okay, you know, you had a couple shots that maybe weren't great, but one's going to be like halfway in, halfway out, and it pops out or whatever. You know, with Rosario, they've been like bad misses. So I don't know if it's nerves or what,

Starting point is 00:06:13 but he has been a bit of a streak shooter in his career. It would not surprise me if, and maybe that's the one that gets the ball rolling for confidence. If you get a four for five game upcoming in one of the next couple games, you know, from Colrosario or a three of five game or something where he hit some big threes throughout. But I'll say this. If the shot starts falling at a reasonable rate for Col Rosario, everything else is there for a package made ideal role player to play off of, you know, Peterson and Bedunga here. Because you're getting the guy who had five rebounds. You're getting a guy who's getting new extra possessions, crashing the offensive glass and getting new hustle plays who's diving on the floor. You're getting the guy who

Starting point is 00:06:49 move the ball. He had three assists in this one for KU. If the shots start falling, I'm not even saying 40%, right? If it's just a more consistent thing, then we've seen in some of these games that it doesn't look at as ugly as it is from the three-point shooting perspective. Like the other parts of his game have been there. And I think that's kind of exciting that it's like the process is good. The results just haven't always been there. Now, eventually you do need the results to match the process.

Starting point is 00:07:14 Still early portion of the season, though. And also part of that is going to be dependent on, you know, like if Jane and Dawson starts just banging a bunch of threes off the bench, than like maybe it does put more pressure on you and hit them. But right now that's not happening either. So eventually you're going to need them to start hitting those, maybe as soon as Friday. But I like the other stuff that is there.

Starting point is 00:07:33 And he did make that three. So hopefully that is the buildup of confidence there. Biggest negatives for KU in this one, obviously when Darren Peterson had to go to the trainer, get checked on like his calf. Apparently it was just cramping. And Bill Self, I think, said in post game afterwards, something to the tune of if it was a closer game,

Starting point is 00:07:49 like he would have ended up, you know, He could have come back in, but, you know, no point risking it, to score the way it is and some of the recent issues. And obviously the big game against North Carolina coming up. So positive in that it's nothing too serious. Negative, though, that again, this is an issue that's coming up again? And you're like, is this going to be something that's going to hurt you in a big game where he has to sit for key minutes late?

Starting point is 00:08:12 Like, that would suck for KU and for Darren Peterson if that ends up kind of being the case. I thought from an other negative perspective, like the fact you only forced eight turnovers, that was not great. That said, what Kansas did off the turnovers was elite. This is crazy. They only forced eight turnovers, but they led 17 to 2 in points off turnovers. If that doesn't tell you what this team can be in transition, I don't know what else will. So this game's going to be deadly when they forced turnovers, but knowing how good they were off forcing or scoring off of forced turnovers, I want to see them force even more. They're also up 24 to 2 in fast break points. Pretty incredible there. But yeah, I think they have

Starting point is 00:08:48 the personnel to do it. I want to see this. team forcing more turnovers than just eight that you get in this one, although six of the eight are steals. So theoretically, like six isn't a bad steel number. You can usually expect a little bit more of unforced turnovers from the other team than just the two. But still, that's something you want to kind of, you know, get to there. The other big negative from this one was just, it just feels like with, it just hasn't been going around for Jaden Dawson either in a world where, you know, Rosario has left the door at least a little bit open here going back to that. Like Dawson has hasn't been able to take advantage.

Starting point is 00:09:22 And then the other one is kind of that like it just feels like on Marco Jackson's still not really comfortable. I don't know what it is. It's just not really the feel for the game. Zero points, two turnovers, two assists, two rebounds on 0 of 1 and 17 minutes. That just felt like more of something we would see from a freshman year. And you were hoping for kind of big improvement here. Again, this is still just one game, but in a game where you're overmatching the opponent and

Starting point is 00:09:46 he should have been way more athletic than everybody who's facing, it just didn't really get that feeling. from this one. So those are the things I'm kind of monitoring here. But, you know, bottom line here, it's, it's probably too early to have any, like, definitive takes on things. But, you know, every game does matter to figuring out the story of the season. And playing well in game one, that could lead to more minutes in game two, which eventually play well in game two. All of a sudden, you're playing more in game 30, you know, and it adds up. And it's every piece of the puzzle. And KU straight up dominated like you'd hope today, right? It's not, it doesn't guarantee KU's a great

Starting point is 00:10:20 team because they dominated Green Bay, but at least they didn't struggle with Green Bay to where we'd be having questions, right? That's the best thing out of all this. And you saw some strong individual performances. Darren Peterson's show continue to go on. But now that big test coming up on Friday with North Carolina. All right, let's get to our moments, stats, awards, and game balls next. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of LOJ is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. The NBA is back and there's no better place to get in on the action than with Fandual, the official sports betting partner of the NBA.

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Starting point is 00:11:50 I think at the very onset, so Kansas scores the first bucket, Green Bay hits three. So you're down three to two. This was the only time of the game you were trailing when it was three to two. And just this moment, it's got to be like soul crushing if you're Green Bay, you're a big underdog. You're like, hey, we got a little confidence. We have three to lead. And then Darren Peterson hits this. like 25-foot-3s, a few feet behind the three-point line from straight on, makes it five to

Starting point is 00:12:17 three. And then you get a stop. Peterson gets, I think there might have been a possession in between, but Peterson gets a rebound off the stop and throws it up ahead high to Flory, who felt like he got 13 feet up in the air and threw down a dunk. And it made it seven to three. That was just a really cool sequence with that dynamic duo and just grabbing that early momentum and just being like, no, we're going to dominate this game. And that is the Darren Peterson effect right there. The other fun play of the game, and this is one that I view as a fun play of the game, too, because it's one that, you know, is probably going to carry over to other games. Darren Peterson is going to be your go-to guy for, you know, late shot clock and end of half,

Starting point is 00:12:55 end of game situations to get shot to, duh. And we saw that at the end of the first half in this one. And it was just like a, it wasn't some, you know, mastermind designed play or it wasn't some like, oh my gosh, like how did they get Darren Peterson that open? It was just Darren Peterson being a dude and getting to the high post kind of elbow area and hitting a fadeaway jumper making it look so silky smooth and easy and that's what you saw a lot of on his highlights of his high school game.

Starting point is 00:13:20 The footwork, the creation, the ability to hit those shots specifically really stood out to me when he committed to Kansas and it was just so silky smooth and that was just a fun one that I think is going to be really repeatable

Starting point is 00:13:33 and one that we see throughout the year in similar situations for KU. And then I mean honestly, like the moment where anytime the walk on comes in and hits a shot. Like, it's always fun for the crowd. It's fun for everybody there, right, who stay until the very end. And while they're Evers getting in there, like, they're working hard in practice too and getting to can that three. Like, that was a cool moment of the game as well for KU. Our stats of the game in this one, I mean, we've talked a little bit briefly about KU's

Starting point is 00:13:59 defense overall, just in terms of, I mean, this isn't going to be to be all end all. You're playing a team who's overmatched here, but you held them to 29% from the floor. They were eight of 31 from 3, 26%. And again, that's 17 to 2 points off turnover. He also led 9 to 7 in offensive rebounds, despite the fact that they missed 40 shots and you only missed 25. So actually a good rebounding game there too. But yeah, I mean, holding them 29% while you shoot 57%. If you're doubling up the fuel goal percentage, that is pretty incredible. So that would be a good stat of the game you could point to. The turnover is being only at three. But to me, it is the points off turnovers one. The 17 to 2. Again, the fact that you only forced eight turnovers but scored 18 points.

Starting point is 00:14:39 The fact, you led 24 to 2 in fast break points if we want to lump those together shows how dynamic and how ridiculously good of a transition team this can be. Now, a team like North Carolina is going to be more athletic than Green Bay is obviously and be able to match you a little bit more there. So it'll be a better test when you play like the North Carolinas of the world, when you play the Arizona's of the world, teams who do like to thrive in transition. But at the very least, I think Kansas is going to be one of those upper echel on 90th percentile plus teams kind of in transition this year. And I think we saw a little of that in this game. Are our awards of the game, my interesting, my intriguing of the game is the Jamari McDowell minutes. So, Jamari McDowell winds up playing 11 minutes in this game.

Starting point is 00:15:23 He was a plus six. He was solid. He hit a three. He had a couple of rebounds. He had a couple assists. He had no turnovers. He had a steal. Like, he was solid.

Starting point is 00:15:30 You know, solid role player minutes, right? 11 minutes. And he was playing pretty big minutes in the two exhibition games. But, you know, you kind of easily shrug him off because it's like, Okay, it's the exhibition games. Like, how much does it mean? Maybe looking back, do we view that a little bit more as like, okay, not that he was going to play like the 20 minutes or whatever he's playing in the exhibition games?

Starting point is 00:15:50 But if he's playing that much, does it at least tell you he's maybe closer to being the rotation than we would have thought? Because otherwise, maybe he's only playing 10 minutes in the exhibition games. And then he's not playing in the season opener. But instead, he's playing 11 minutes. And he also came in before Jaden Dawson. Now, Dawson got a majority of the minutes in the second half, where he now got more of the minutes in the first half. And so there is an element of that where it's, is it Bill Self sending a message to Jaden Dawson?

Starting point is 00:16:12 Is it a practice thing where McDowell's been more consistent? Maybe it is sending a message, but it's possible it's both. It's possible that McDowell has outperformed Dawson. And so Self is sending a message to try to get in Dawson's head, but also being like at the same point in time, McDowell has been better. So I'm going to play him first. And maybe we've been a little dismissive of the fact that, you know, maybe McDowell could be your possible like eighth or ninth man in the rotation.

Starting point is 00:16:35 Maybe he could beat out Jaden Dawson in the end here. I mean, it seems like he's ahead of him right now. Again, my money would still be on Jaden Dawson eventually figuring out. But like, we've seen it in the past, right? We saw it with a bunch of transfers last year, too. We saw it the year before we're trans. We've seen it so often. There was Nick Timberlake or A.J. Store, Rylan Griffin.

Starting point is 00:16:53 Sometimes these transfers just don't click with Bill Self. Sometimes it doesn't work out as well as you expected it to. And again, I'm not saying that's going to happen with Jaden Dawson. We're so early in the season. But I'm saying at least be open. to the idea that maybe Jamarie McDowell does have a shot to beat him out for a kind of spot in the rotation. And I find that interesting.

Starting point is 00:17:14 Our Devon Dotson Fast Award for fastest player of the game goes to Melvin Council. Some of the, going back to the transition play, he had a good game, 10 points, five, rebounds, four assists, but some of the times when he gets in the open floor in transition and you see the blur that is Melvin Council, you see the speedster and how fat, it's not just how fast he is at his top year. What I'm really impressed with is how fast he gets to his fast, how quickly he gets to his top year. Man, it is so fun to watch out in the open court. And I think you saw that and going back to the transition play being really good. And then our last award here is the I fibbed award. And that would go to Bill Self, who in the post game after the, I think it was the Fort Hay

Starting point is 00:18:00 State game, not the, not the Louisville game. After the Fort Hay State game, he was asked about the two big lineup of Paul Mbighia and Flory Bedunga and he was just like I just wanted to get guys minutes I don't know that we'll play that at all this year well we saw it in this game with florrie next to Paul Mbia so he's already one game into the season and we already saw it a little bit didn't see a ton of it necessarily um Paul Mbia was out there for eight minutes of the game he had four rebounds he just continues to be a very large human out there for uh KU but yeah I thought that was uh kind of funny uh in how quickly that one ended up not being true All right, let's get out some game balls, Kansas, dominating Green Bay.

Starting point is 00:18:35 This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of LOJ is brought to you by GameTime. College Basketball is officially back with our first game of the season here, but also college football's ongoing right now. We got NBA ongoing. We got NHL ongoing. Everything seems to be going on right now except for baseball that just ended and booed Dodgers. But anyway, point being, you can get tickets to all these different events

Starting point is 00:19:02 over on game time, even if you, you know, just want to lighten up the mood and maybe go to a concert or a comedy event, you can do that too. And if you want to go see, I don't know, maybe you're, maybe you're going to be traveling out to the Kansas North Carolina game. You can get those tickets on game time. And the beauty of game time, you can see the view of your tickets, your seats from the game time. So if you've never been to North Carolina Stadium and you're going out to the trip and you're like, shoot, I hope these are good tickets. You can pull it up on game time and see what that view looks like. Steak the guesswork out of buying college basketball or college football tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code

Starting point is 00:19:36 Locked on College for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply again, promo code Locked on College, L-O-C-E-D-O-N-C-O-L-L-E-G-E for $20 off. Swipe, tap, Ticket Go. Download Game Time today. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page and obviously on later this week. We're going to be talking more KU North Carolina with a preview. We'll have KU Arizona preview coming up later. We'll have some keys to the game for KU versus Arizona. We're going to have a crossover episode talking more KU, North Carolina, and I'll have postcasts for all of the weekend's action with KU against Arizona and KU against

Starting point is 00:20:17 North Carolina in basketball. So make sure you subscribe to the show. Please hit the like if you could. That certainly helps us on our end of things. All right, game balls for this one. By the way, shout out to the KU soccer team, blanked West Virginia in the two seven matchup. K was the 7 seed. They won 4-0 over West Virginia. Really good non-con, kind of an up-and-down conference season for KU. I don't know enough on it to be completely honest, but I feel like with everything they've done, they should be an NCAA tournament team again. But anyway, who knows? Maybe they can win the big tournament again like they did last year. So anyway, game balls for KU at men's basketball here. Let's start with the offensive game ball for KU. And I mean, the obvious answer is

Starting point is 00:20:56 Darren Peterson. Twenty-one points in 22 minutes is ridiculous, especially with what he's doing. He's the center of the offense. He's the gravity to everything. So that's probably the right answer. But just because I feel like we're going to be going with Darren Peterson a lot, maybe every game, like all season long. And because of the fact that, you know, he did have to go out with the injury. And because of the fact you had such a big size advantage and you scored, you know, points in the paint, you led 38 to 16. Let's just throw a little change up here to this one. We'll give it to Flory Badung. Got 23 points. He did have more points than Darren. Also, nine of 11 from the floor, but, you know, the big man typically does better in terms of the field goal percentage.

Starting point is 00:21:35 And he had an offensive rebound in there, so that adds into it. And he had one assist to zero turnovers, which for Florey, after having some turnovers last game, like, that was nice to see. So we'll give Floury Bordunger the offensive MVP, but I don't know, whatever. If you want to give it to Darren, like, I'm not going to have calm with that at all. Maybe I'm just overthinking it. Our defensive MVP for this one, I mean, should I, do we go with Flore again? He had three blocks. Like, he certainly was impacting things on the interior for KU.

Starting point is 00:22:06 Just to give somebody different, this is going to be funny, we're going to give, we should probably have switched these. We should probably have given the offensive player, offensive game ball to Darren Peterson and the defense of one to Flory. We're going to give the offensive one to Florida. We're going to give the defensive one to Darren Peterson. So there was that early moment in the game, Darren Peterson turns the ball over. And he just immediately is like, no, give me the ball back.

Starting point is 00:22:24 He steals the pack and he goes out. He had another steal later. He led KU with two steals. But it was just like the, the two steals. that he had, it just felt like he just did it so easily. Like, it felt like, it felt like I was playing basketball with my like seven-year-old nephew. And I, I was like, okay, like, I had enough fun. Like, I'm going to go steal the ball from you.

Starting point is 00:22:42 And it's like, well, that wasn't fair. And that's just what it felt like with Darren Peterson when he got those two steals. So he was just like, you know what, I'm going to go get a steal. And he did just that. So we're going to give Darren Peterson the defensive MVP here. I will say, if we're going back to, and here's the other thing, like, really the only player that did anything consistently offensively was Marcus Hall, who was 5 of 11. Is that a little bit worrisome for KU defensively in terms of, you know,

Starting point is 00:23:09 we continue to wonder like who's going to be their wing defenders, right? And I think that's a fair question. And that's not one that we've answered coming out of this game. So that'll certainly be interesting coming into the North Carolina game. And speaking of which, what's next at North Carolina? That's the Friday game for KU. Caleb Wilson is probably going to be a one-and-done freshman as well. He looked really good through the exhibition.

Starting point is 00:23:28 play. I have not seen how he did today for North Carolina, but him, Henry Vsar, who played Kansas last year a couple times as the starting center for Arizona. Seth Trimble had a really big game in Allen Fieldhouse for North Carolina last year. It's a good North Carolina team. I think there's going to be some similarities in terms of both these teams are blue bloods, have some really good freshmen and some other good players and are being slept on a little bit. It's going to be a tough game. It's going to be on the road and everything like that. but, you know, Kansas went on the road and won at Louisville in an exhibition. So can you do it again against another ACC opponent?

Starting point is 00:24:01 And then after that, it's a good opportunity to, you know, kind of mix things up again with the Texas A&M Corpus Christi game the following Tuesday. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We'll see you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - DARRYN'S DOMINANT DEBUT: Peterson & Flory Bidunga Lead Kansas Jayhawks to 43-Point Win vs Green Bay

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