Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - DEDICATION: Paul Mbiya REJECTS Offers, CHOOSES Kansas Jayhawks + Melvin Council Transfer Update

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks basketball gets a major boost as Paul Mbiya announces his return, turning down bigger NIL offers to cement his status as a fan favorite. Is Mbiya the key to KU’s frontcourt stability, or will another transfer center steal the spotlight? Derek Johnson breaks down Mbiya’s impact, discusses Melvin Council’s transfer portal move and waiver hopes, and questions how KU’s roster could evolve with the latest portal activity. Johnson explores Bill Self’s strategy at the center position, highlights Keanu Dawes’ official signing, and tracks key transfer visits including Christian Reeves and Anton Bonke. Attention shifts to Tyran Stokes’ cryptic social media hints, potential late portal entries like Tounde Yessoufu, and looming roster shakeups from possible coaching changes. With Kansas targeting just one more center and the NBA Draft deadline looming, can the Jayhawks assemble a rotation ready for a championship push? Everydayer ClubIf 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! Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get two-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started — Play Your Game.   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.

Paul Mbia is back. Melvin Council has some news. Tyroks has some news. It is a loaded episode on what's going on the latest in the offseason for KU basketball. 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. And on today's episode of Lockdown, Jayhawks, we're going to be breaking down some of the latest transfer portal news.

We'll also get to some of the latest KU. off-season news and we're going to start right here with the news on Paul and Bia and then Melvin counsel. So if you missed it earlier, Paul Mbia announced that he would be coming back for another season of Kansas. Now, there was an announcement, whatever, a couple weeks ago that he was going to be entering the transfer portal, but it never actually happened. He never actually officially entered into the transfer portal. And then we heard a report, I think was Henry Greenstein from KUsports.com in the large journal world, talking about how his agent was basically saying like we're trying to get the best dollar figure for

Paul Mbia but his heart is he's a Kansas Jayhawk basically you know paraphrasing that so we get the announcement and there were some more reports of people reaching out to to the agent and that a decision hadn't been made yet and stuff we finally get the announcement he posted something on Instagram there was a video of him you know saying is coming back and posted by Dushan London on X who works for 24-7 sports and CBS. And he said that, you know, Paul and Beal will return for his sophomore season at Kansas. And the quote here, he said, I'm staying at the University of Kansas. This decision comes from the heart. Through every challenge, every doubt, and every moment of adversity, I've grown

stronger. I'm not running from anything. I'm embracing it. I want my coaches, my future teammates, and the fans to know that I believe in this journey. I believe in who I am becoming. I'm a special player, not because of what I do on the court, but because of what I stand for. No pressure can break me. No obstacle can stop me and no amount of money will ever define me or buy my values. You can't buy heart. You can't buy loyalty. You can't buy what's inside me. I know who I am and I know what I came here to do.

Rock Chalk forever. PMK 3-4. I mean, if that doesn't get you fired up, ready to run through a wall for Paul and Bia, I don't know what would. Hats off to this guy. I think the way of kind of viewing this is it seemed, and I'm sure Paul and Bia is still making a nice coin to be back at Kansas. Like he's still a basketball.

player of Kansas. He's going to live a good life. Like he's still making probably six figures. He's probably making a good amount of money, right? I feel like this is probably in direct correlation of the agency is probably sitting there going, man, we could probably get you a couple extra $100,000 or whatever it ends up being and you could potentially do this, this or that at this other school. And he's sitting there going, man, I got an opportunity in front of

me. Bryson Tiller, Florida Benunga left. I started to get playing time at the end of the season. I like being here. Like, can we point to that too? I like the coaches. I like being here. You know, I like Cole Rosario who's back. Can I just, you know, come back and do what I want to do and still make a good amount of money? Maybe I'm giving up some money. But if this works out for me, if this works out and I have the season I think I'm going to have now, I'm going to get a big payday out of it and be in a very, you know, fortunate situation. And if it doesn't work out, then I can transfer after that year because there'll still be a sophomore, you know? And hats off to him for

having that that, I guess, mentality as a younger basketball player. Like, I don't know, man, I already, everybody, here's the thing, Paul and Bia was already a fan favorite. People love Paulumbia. Love them this past season. How could you, like, is it going to be possible for anybody to be a bigger fan favorite this season than Paul Mbia than, you know, what has come through here? And I posted this on Twitter, you know, I don't know how much money potentially he's giving up

by staying at Kansas versus entering into the portal again. Could it be 50,000? Could it be 100,000, 200,000? Who knows? But I hope that we see a lot of Paul and Bia jerseys in the stands from a standpoint of like, this is a really beloved player, an athlete at Kansas. And it also in a way would be, you know, Polymia jerseys, shirzies, whatever it is, shirts, because that is a way to show your support, but also he would get a cut of that

in the NIL money that I hope he kind of, you know, ends up having that you would get more of it than if you were at, you know, some low major school where maybe they're going to pay you a little bit more and you're going to be, you know, play 30 minutes per game, but not that same opportunity. So I don't know how you couldn't be a bigger Paul Mbia fan. In terms of the impact of having him back, I mean, it's tough for me to look too much into the stats and be like, you know, this is what Paul Mbia did this season. He had, you know, this amount of points per game and this amount of blocks per game and this amount of you know what I mean and like again like I can do that I can I can I can look at some of the the rates and be like he was in the 77th percentile an offensive rebound

rate or he was in the 77th percentile defensive rebound rate and those are good and he was also in the 77th percentile that's really weird that it's the same in block rate and like oh those are all good things for him right um that he was in the 94th percent on two point percentage right I could point to all those and be like those are things to build off of I could also point on the idea that you know he was in the fifth percentile in fast breaks per game. Can he get up and down the court faster? He was in the third percentile on assist per 40 minutes. He was in, you know, he didn't have a single steal on the season, right? You can point to things that he can improve on, right? But it's hard to do that in such a small

sample size that he played. What I want to focus on is what we saw at the end of the season from Paul in Beah. What we saw in those final couple of games, what we saw from a guy who hadn't been playing in a while, hit hit the shelf, and clearly looked like a raw player earlier on in the season. And then by the time we saw him again was later in the NCAA tournament. And he was like good for Kansas. Like there was a moment in the Cal Baptist game where he was Keogh who's best player for like a brief stretch of time. You know, I'm not saying it ended that way, but like for the first half, a brief statured before, you know, Darren Peterson got going and stuff. Against Cal Baptist, he played 16 minutes.

He had eight points, three rebounds on four or five shooting and a block. Like if you extrapolate that out to 32 minutes, that's 16, six and two blocks on 80% shooting. Then in 13 minutes against St. who obviously, you know, that's going to be a better front line, what you're going up against. He held his own. He did have the four fouls and you have to, you know, be, that has to be something to be worked on, is avoiding foul trouble. But he had four point six rebounds in a block against a good St. John's front line,

didn't miss a shot in 13 minutes. So like in the NCAA tournament, this is a dude who was playing 15 minutes per game, averaging six, four and a half in a block per game, you know, there was enough there to make you feel like, okay, can he at least do that in the regular season next year? Give you 12, 15 minutes per game, be a good shot blocker rebounder and high percentage shot maker. And I think those are entirely possible. And then there's the element of what if he does improve? What if he does get even better? Because it is clear he got better from the beginning of the season to the end. What if he gets even more better over the course of the off season, right? Like, is there a world where Polymia could be

your starting center? I think right now it's pretty clear KU is playing money ball at the center position. They don't want to overspend at that position. And so, yeah, is there a world where KU brings in a transfer center from a low major? And Paul and Bia beats him out, absolutely. At the very least, even if Kansas brings in a center, you now feel like you have your two center rotation. Let's say you bring in a transfer center from a low major, they can give you 15, 20, 25 minutes per game. Paul and Bia can give you 10, 15, 20 minutes per game. And I feel totally comfortable about doing that from a dude who clearly has gotten better,

will probably continue to get better and has like a seven foot nine wingspan and is now just an absolute fan favorite. So I'm really happy Paul Mbias back. And now I feel like, you know, from Kansas perspective, you brought in a couple of transfers, Leroy Blyden and Kiannu Dawes. You have Colrosario and now Paul Mbia coming back. You have Taylin Kinney coming in as a freshman. I feel like that's probably, you know, five of their top eight in the rotation. I know it doesn't always work out that way. We would have thought Jane and Dawson was going to be in the rotation this this past year. We would have thought Colrosario and neither of those ended up being in it by season's end, but on paper, that should give you five of your eight, right? As long as things kind of go to

plan there. So, you know, impact on the rest of the roster moves in the off season. I think now if you're Kansas, you're looking to bring in one other center to say, hey, Mbia is going to be part of the center rotation. We need one other center to play with him. And then you have Adkins as the backup, and you have Keanu Dawes as a backup like emergency or if you want to play small option. And then you're good at the center position, right? So you really just need one addition there now, which is a nice thing to see. Maybe you make another edition of just a developmental big, just to have more size who's like in your number 11 through number 15 guys on the roster, right? And then the Melvin Council news, the council officially applied for his waiver to get another year,

working with some attorneys. He also entered the transfer portal. You might be thinking what's going on there. I thought this dude was, you know, crimson and blue to the very finish. Well, it's just to keep your options open because you don't know how long this situation is going to last. What if your appeal to the NCAA to get another year gets approved, but it doesn't get approved till like August, like NCAA is slow at this stuff a lot of times. And then all of a sudden, like we get to a certain point where, you know, I'm sure Bill Self, like he seemed to love Melvin Council. KU fans love Melvin Council.

I'm sure Bill Self would love to have him back. And if there's a decision on that, you know, next month, it's like, okay, that can work. because I actually think counsel and Blyden would be a good fit. And then maybe you could have Kenny come off the bench, take pressure off him as a freshman. But point being, if you're counsel and they don't make a decision until August, by then, KU would probably have their roster figured out by then. And so I'm sure from KU and Bill Sulfs for Schenck, he probably said, hey, you should do this to keep your options open. Because what if we get to a point in time where both of us have to make a decision to do something else,

and you want to leave your options open for that? So I feel like it's one of those situations where like if he did get approved, you know, in the next month or a couple weeks or whatever, I would expect him to be back at Kansas. But this at least just, you know, gives you more opportunities to do whatever kind of comes up based on what happens from here till then. Let's get to some of the latest for the KU off season. We heard some more on social media from Tyron Stokes. Visits abound for KU. Bill Self spoke on Kianu Daws. We'll get to all that next.

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That's locked on jhawks. dot supercast.com. Okay, so we heard a little bit more from Tyrant Stokes on social media here. It was in response to Cam Wilder, who is, I don't actually know who he is to be completely on a some dude on Twitter with the blue trick. I'm sure Cam Wilder is more famous than I am. I can guarantee you that. I am just an old man that doesn't know these things and he's probably somebody super

famous that somebody's going to be like, how do you not know Cam Wilder? I'm just washed at this point. So that's the answer there. But anyway, he posted something like. like just waiting to see where Tyron Stokes and Slim Jesus are going, which is in reference to this like Mika guy who's like European five-star prospect. We'll see what happens there. So anyway, Tyrant Stokes responds to him and goes a shush emoji with the, you know,

finger over the face and soon, exclamation mark, right? I love reading into emojis from 18-year-olds. That's always super fun for me. Anyway, so basically again, like backing up the idea of what was posted the other day. It sounds like, again, like just take the words from the emoji. Soon is the answer. Now, what is soon? Soon could be two weeks.

Soon could be a week. Soon could be tomorrow. Soon could be right now. I have no idea, right? That does make me feel like within a week. I don't know. But we've seen crazy twists and turns already. And the idea of soon of not actually saying a date does leave you kind of open to push things

around or somebody's like, if he doesn't commit by the end of this weekend, somebody would be like, I thought you said soon. And he's like, well, soon to me is next Friday. you know, so I don't know. But yeah, it does feel like that is kind of coming to a close here. Speaking of things coming to a close, Victoria's Miller, his visit sounds like he was coming to a close. Usually the visits are like two days for KU.

So I think he came in on Monday. That would mean he's leaving either Tuesday or Wednesday morning. We'll see how that one went. Again, I think Miller would be the perfect candidate to be like your sixth man. If your KU, be a good three-point shooter that can still play 20, 25 minutes per game as part of that guard rotation and still have a big imprint on the team. and kind of fit a specific role for KU. And then Christian Reeves visiting KU, his kind of overlapping a day with Miller,

but I think extending into Wednesday. So it sounds like, interestingly enough, with both Reeves and Anton Bonk who just visited KU, but Bonk has a bunch of visits set up. Michigan State and KU seem to be kind of in this battle to try to land one of those centers, or maybe both, who knows, what's going to happen with those schools. So we see what happens here. I do find it really interesting. I was doing kind of a comparison of Reeves v. Blanc, and they're very, very similar players.

So I don't know that that one matters as much. And now that we do have the knowledge that Paul and Bia is going to be back, it makes it a little easier because you do feel like, okay, Paulumbia, to me, is, you know, if you have two centers who are playing in the rotation consistently, I feel comfortable about Paul and Bia being one of those guys. We're also going to have a deep dive on tomorrow about Gabe Dines. I recorded that episode earlier before the Paulumbia news. So we made a couple of references about, you know, what happens if this or that and Paul Nbia insurance and stuff. But there is a visit schedule for that, I guess theoretically, okay, you could have Paul Nia and Gabe Dines and just have two ginormous centers all the way through. But we'll talk more about Dines on on that episode coming at you tomorrow. And then Bill Self also made some comments on Keanu Daz, the first edition for KUV, the portal from Utah, which obviously means he's officially signed and officially on board with Kansas.

And he said, I've had the chance to coach against Keanu the last two years. and he is a very versatile perimeter forward. At 6'4-9, he is extremely athletic, and his skill set is improving. He's a former man that can stretch the deep. You're very excited about his versatility. We think he can guard one through five and see him as being an immediate impact player for us.

Keanu has been very well coached, well-drilled, and has a unique feel for a player his size. And I think all of those are very pertinent. And yeah, he's a versatile athletic perimeter forward. He's, you know, improving skill set. He's gotten better each and every year. I like the feel comment, the unique feel for a player his size, right? He's a good passer.

He has the ability to, I don't know, you don't see guys who are like as rugged as he is in terms of getting rebound, all have good touch and feel with being passers too often. But as much as most of those are good things, I am a little bit worried by one of the lines in there. We think he can guard one through five. I don't agree with that. And I've kind of said before, like, we saw this past season, right? there were moments this season where the switching defense helped KU a lot and was good for them. There were also moments of the season where KU, by playing that switch-heavy defense,

it would lead to a bigger wing or a forward being guarded by O'Marco Jackson and Jemar McDowell or something in the post. And that didn't work for KU or Bryson Tiller being on a guard on the perimeter and being lost and giving up a three. It didn't always work super well for KU. And that was with the team that was more switchable because you had Florey at the five and Tiller at the four. Now if you're going into this year, and if you're going to get one of these big, you know, seven foot whatever centers or more lumbering pigs, you can't switch there. And here's the thing with Dawes. I love the Dawes edition. I think it's a great addition. He's an incredible rebounder. He'll bring something to the offensive game. Again, a good passer. I think he's a good positional defender. I do not view Dawes as being this like incredibly switchable, really good defender in open space. I don't think you want Dawes guarding a one or a two or something like that. Like maybe occasion where he's guarding a thing. To me, if KU is going to play a one through four switching defense, that is not a good thing for the defense. Now, all that being said, I care more about KU bringing in the offense because at the end of the day, even if KU is running the wrong scheme, Bill Self tends to have good enough defenses. But point being, I would prefer they don't do that, I guess, if that kind of makes sense.

All right, let's get to some of the latest portal news beyond just KU, maybe stuff that could connect to KU if we take a couple extra steps down the road. We'll get to that next. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel Sportsbook. The NBA playoffs are here where every possession matters. Every matchup is magnified and every game can swing a series. Right now, Fandual is giving new customers a great way to get in on the action. You can just go to Fandual and you bet $5. You get $250 in bonus bets if your first bet wins.

So obviously you can go on the NBA playoffs. You got the NHL playoffs right now. You can even get college basketball futures right now for the start of the season, right? You think Kansas is going to finish strong in the portal. You think they're going to have a good shot to maybe land a Tyron Stokes or one of these big portal players still available. We can get Kansas right now plus 2,500 to win the national championship. So you actually have pretty good odds there if you're interested in that, right? Let's see some other teams that are interesting kind of further down the board.

I don't know, Illinois plus 1,600, that feels like kind of good value there. They're bringing a lot back. That would be interesting one. Louisville has basically paid everyone. They're plus 2,200, although I don't know that I love the fit of their roster as much as they've spent on it. But, you know, point being that there's a lot of money there. This is a good one here. Texas and Tennessee both at 30 to 1.

So Vanderbilt 35 to 1. That's kind of an interesting one. I don't know. You can look for yourself over at Fandwell. But again, get in on the NBA playoffs as well. Head to Fandwell. Gohaw. To get started today.

Fandull play your game. Thanks for joining us on Lockdown Jayhawks and some other portal news that could potentially, you know, impact Kansas maybe down the road. We got a really big time late entry with Tunea Yesafu. A couple late entries as well that are kind of interesting that, you know, I might do deep dives on or at least kind of take a bigger look on. And maybe while I'm recording this, like, you know, or by the time this comes out,

there will be even more big entries. And I also think there's something about because the portal closes at midnight on Tuesday, I'd imagine that's midnight Eastern time. There's something about like, I think it's up to 24 or 48 hours or something by the time the portal closes that the paperwork could be like submitted or whatever. So theoretically,

we could not hear about somebody entering the portal to like 30. Thursday. But I would think most of that stuff will leak out because it wants it to get out. So who knows. Either way, Tunea Yes, Fu is a big one. This is like a 17, 18 point per game score for Baylor. Has a chance to be a one and done. He's in the draft process as well. You know, he's one of those guys where it's like he's kind of a fringe first rounder, early second rounder. Could he just get paid a ton of money to come back to college and prove his game and solidify being a first round pick? Like that is on the table now. So he becomes one where it's like, if Kansas can land Tyron Stokes, I don't know that it makes sense to bring in Tuny Yesafu, but let's say you don't land Tyron Stokes. Some of the options, you know, running dry a little bit more in terms of what you could go out and get to replace that production that you were hoping to get with Tyron Stokes, Tunea Yesifu would become one of those guys that you would just throw a bunch of money at and hope that you could land him if you don't land Stokes.

So that does become important that he is out there, right? Now, I think another interesting thing comes with some of these big decisions is going to be possible runoff options. What happens at Duke? Do we see any late entries here by the time these come out because of the news that John Blackwell is officially going to Duke? And again, they'd have to make quick decisions on this. But you look at it, they've got Darren Rippy coming in, who's McDonald's All-American at the Guard position. Caden Boozer is coming back to play the Guard position. I think Caleb Foster has another year for Duke.

They have a lot of guards. Does one of them say, you know what, I'm going to enter the portal last minute, and now you have another good player in the portal because Blackwell goes to Duke. I think that will be very interesting, especially given some of Blackwell's comments, talking about how he wants to have the ball in his hand a lot more than he had at Wisconsin and stuff. What does that mean for some of the Duke players, right? Now, the ultimate runoff would be what happens if there's any late coaching movement from some of these coaches?

Because even if the transfer portal is closed, if a coach leaves his position, if a coach leaves his job, those players get a extended window to enter the portal. I forget what the window is. I don't know if it's a week or a month or whatever it is. But point being, if a coach leaves their job, those players now have the option to enter the portal for a window from when the coach left his job to, you know, whenever that window is. What happens with any of these? Like maybe nothing happens, but Billy Donovan stepped down from the Chicago Bulls job, which who knows, maybe the UNC is, and they're going, man, you couldn't have stepped down like two weeks ago.

I don't know. Maybe they're just still chosen Michael Malone. But like point being, does the Bulls job attract any college coaches? Because there was a rumor that came out that the Warriors might target Todd Golden if Steve Kerr retires. That's kind of another job. And who knows if Steve Kerr even retires, does Chicago look into Todd Golden? Beyond that, John Shire grew up a Bulls fan. I believe he's from Chicago.

He's the Duke head coach. would he be interested in taking the Chicago goals job? You know? And if you got to move like that, what would that mean for the current guys? Now, this was also sent out that Todd Golden is going to be speaking to the media 11 a.m. on Wednesday. Is there a chance Todd Golden is taking an NBA job? I am of the belief that that's just going to be an announcement of like a contract extension or something because there was the news that Thomas Hogg is going to come back for Florida.

and it's like, why would he do that if Todd Golden wasn't going to be there? But theoretically, if one of these NBA jobs lures one of these big coaches, there's going to be some really interesting players that are available to the transfer portal. So potentially runoff news, potentially not, but, you know, we'll wait and see what happens with the rest of the offseason for KU. All right, so that'll do it for this episode of the show. Again, Gabe Dines, Deep Dive tomorrow. Again, I recorded it before the Paul Ambia News.

So a couple references that might be, you know, a little bit delayed or late on that end of things, but it'll at least give you a good idea of what, you know, Dynes is supposed to be for a player who's supposed to be visiting KU this weekend. We'll see if that ends up happening now with the Paul and Pio News anyway. All right, that'll be it for this episode of the show. We'll see you next time on Lockdown Jayhawks.