Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Deep Dive: How Would Kansas Jayhawks Transfer Target Hunter Dickinson Fit In With KU?

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

Deep dive into Michigan transfer portal center Hunter Dickinson. How would he fit with the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team, where are things at in his recruitment, scouting report (strengths and weaknesses) and more with an upcoming KU visit.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, deep dive into Hunter Dickinson, the top prospect available via the transfer portal. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. You can hear me as well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN with Rock Chalk Sports Talk in Lawrence. You can join RCSD Trivia starting next week where you compete for KU Basketball Trivia

and win free prizes free to enter. So let us know if you're interested in that. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be doing a deep dive into Hunter Dickinson, the transfer from Michigan, who is the number one player available right now. Probably, I mean, for sure via the transfer portal, but probably overall.

Like even if you compare him to, you know, what's available out there right now at the freshman class, even though you have like five star out there with McKenzie and Baco, you'd probably go Dickinson because he comes in right away and is an All-American-level candidate right off the bat. So we're going to start with where things seem to be at right now. Then we'll work into his scouting reports, strengths, weaknesses, and then we'll finish up with how he would fit at KU

in the final verdict of take or not I think you know which way that's going to go though so where things seem to be at right now with Hunter Dickinson so this episode of Locked on Jayhawks scheduled to come out on Thursday he is supposed to be visiting on Thursday now I will be careful because we had the episode release on Monday that was the Harrison Ingram deep dive check that out if you missed it and it mentioned that yeah Harrison Ingram supposed to. Check that out if you missed it. And it mentioned that, yeah, Harrison Ingram's supposed to be visiting. And then we found out Monday morning that his visit got pushed back and it got delayed.

So who knows? Maybe by the time this comes out, there's another pushback or delay. But he is supposed to be visiting on Thursday. Obviously, that's important because the schools that he is visiting, you would think those are the ones that are at the top of the list. Who else has he visited? Who else is in the conversation right now for Hunter Dickinson? Maryland, that's a nearby school for him.

Kevin Willard got them to a second-round team last season. He's from the area. Kevin Willard hired his former AAU high school coach, whatever it was, to be one of his assistant coaches, so they have that previous relationship there, and it's close by to home for him. Georgetown is also kind of nearby to home for him. And I guess Ed Cooley, after taking over the job from Providence, he's looking to get things

kickstarted with Georgetown, who kind of a legacy Big East program. Maybe they have a bunch of, you know, extra NIL money to work with because of the kickstart with the program with what ed cooley is bringing in and then with villanova um it sounds like there could be a visit for villanova after the kansas visit or maybe they're trying to set something up something along those lines so down and then uh there are two other schools that you don't want to rule out here uh return to michigan would not be on i don't know unlikely or or maybe i don't know it would be unlikely but it wouldn't be, unlikely or maybe, I don't know,

it would be unlikely, but it wouldn't be impossible, I guess, would be the way to put it. It's possible Hunter Dickinson enters the portal and sees, you know, it's almost like a figuring out, yeah, what is my worth? And then you go back to Michigan and say, hey, these are what I mean offered NIL money from these other schools. Can you match that? I'll come back, right?

Could be a possibility. And then Kentucky is the last one. There have been some chirps out there, some rumors out there about that he's waiting to see what happens with Oscar Sheboy. And if Sheboy goes, then Dickinson could slide into Kentucky, make a bunch of NIL money, be the star of a Kentucky team down low. options in tow with maryland and georgetown you have the hometown thing with michigan you have this the returning to the norm with kentucky and kansas you have big nil money at play as well as you know blue bloods stardom being on national tv and all that sort of stuff um obviously in the case of kansas what they're trying to sell things on is yeah like uh we're not going to be outbid from nil money so check mark there um you know we're going to be outbid from NIL money. So checkmark there. You know, we're going to be, you know, nationally televised, relevant to all those things with who we are,

what we are as a program, what we are under Bill Self. And you know, we are going to feed the post. When David McCormick, his final year at Kansas, they were in the 99th percentile in the amount of like post-up opportunities that he got. Hunter Dickinson, better than David McCormick, you know? So he's going to get the ball a lot. He's going to be the centerfold of an offense that, you know, is on a team that should be a top five, top 10 team at that point

if you land Hunter Dickinson. Those are all selling points for Hunter Dickinson in addition to the normal stuff that you get with recruiting, like, you know, facilities and playing in front of sold out crowds and all that stuff. So we'll see how the visit goes. Obviously, I'm sure for Kansas, they're going to want to do everything in their power to try to lock it up as soon as possible. But this seems like one of those recruitments similar to Nicholas Timberlake, where there are going to be just more visits and more things that happen for him to weigh all of his options. You just hope that you put a really good impression on him when he is out to visit. Now, who are the favorites?

I think it's funny because I don't know that many people know, to be completely honest. You'll see certain Maryland people saying that Maryland's the favorite. You'll see certain Georgetown people saying that Ed Cooley has a treasure chest of NIL money and he's going to use it on Hunter Dickinson. You'll see people say, oh, of course it's going to be Kentucky, right? You'll see people say Kansas. I don't think people really know, to be completely honest. So that's what makes this very intriguing and is going to make it more fun when the decision does come down

because I think in today's day and age, we don't get this enough. Maybe by the time he is ready to commit, that stuff will kind of leak, but it feels like this is one of those true like races that you don't know about. And that's kind of fun because I remember growing up, part of the recruitment battles was, you know, you'd get the kid committing and then he'd pick the hat and you didn't know who he was going to choose. And maybe that was just for being younger. You weren't as aware to some of the, the, the of the sources and the ways that you can go about getting the information of knowing where the favorite is. But it feels like nowadays everything is more written out that like, oh, yeah, of course, like he's going to go here. Here's where he's predicted to go.

And it doesn't happen as much that you're surprised. So we'll see if that ends up being the case with Hunter Dickinson. All right, let's get to his scouting report strengths and weaknesses here in just a second. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Built Bar. Are you looking for a delicious snack but don't want all the sugar and the calories? Then you need to try the best tasting protein bar ever built.

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7'1", 260 pounds. That's always a good thing to have that size inside. Clearly high-level production. That is a strength, right? have that size inside. Clearly high level production. That is a strength, right? You don't have to worry about, oh, is this a potential player? Is this a guy who was a former five-star recruit, but he doesn't have D1 production and you're trying to untap that? No, he has high, high level production. Three years of starter level play and all conference level play at Michigan. Over 1,600 career points, almost 800 career rebounds. Last season, as a junior, he averaged 18.5 points per game,

nine rebounds per game, almost two blocks per game. I've seen a few people, this is a very small faction, being like, oh, but Michigan wasn't that good last year. They didn't make the tournament. They were 44th in Ken Palm. This wasn't just some train wreck of a team. And guess what? He was a starter on a team that went to an elite eight and, you know, was very close

to getting by UCLA. I mean, they were the better team there to getting to a final four. And then he was the star player on a sweet 16 team the year before. So, you know, he can very much impact winning. That's very clear. And he's had very high production, good efficiency numbers all the way around throughout that. Just a really, really good player. His post-up ability is a strength.

He was in the 77th percentile last season in post-up scoring. And what do we know? Bill Self and KU like to do. They like to feed the ball in the post if they have that option to. You didn't really have that option consistently or really at all last season. The most popular guy in the post was Jalen Wilson, and that was here or there. So you have this guy, and immediately it allows you to center the offense around that.

He's also a good passer out of the post. And how often have we seen KU Biggs, whether it was David McCormick or Yudoka Azebuki, be able to hit that kind of skip pass across the court after a double comes, and it leads to an open three for Kansas. And Doak, that was something he worked on as his time went on. Dave, same thing for him. Like they were never a lead at it, but they were good enough at it.

Hunter Dickinson is very good at it. And that would lead to maybe some more open threes for you as a team. Rebounding is a strength for Hunter Dickinson. So in conference only games playing in the Big Ten, which typically has a lot of other good centers and, you know, good behemoth big men, which continues to be the case, he was 12th in the Big Ten in offensive rebounding rate. He was 5th in the Big Ten in defensive rebounding rate. He averaged 9 rebounds per game,

and overall, his 22.5 defensive rebounding rate, taking into account the entire season, that would have been the best by a KU player since Jalen Wilson in 2021 when he was playing small ball five and Yudoka in 2020. So he would be your best defensive rebounder in a few years, which would really help because we know KU had issues at times last year on the glass and defensive rebounding. He would shore that up for you.

Post-defense is a strength here of Hunter Dickinson as well. We'll get to the weaknesses, and you'll hear some stuff about the defense, but post defense is not part of that. He does have some questions in space. Again, we'll get to that. But he's 7'1", 260 pounds. He is tough to go through. He is tough to go over.

He has solid block numbers. He's not Jeff Withey, but he's getting two blocks per game. He's got some better block numbers than maybe like a David McCormick in certain regards uh and in post-up defense he ranks in the 66th percentile on a synergy which is listed as very good on synergy so solid post-up defender and overall with everything accounted for he was in the 63rd percentile in defense so when you count for everything post defense pick and roll defense isolation whatever it is everything you total up 63rd percentile in defense so above average to good so while there are defensive flaws that we'll talk about here this isn't like some turnstile this isn't some guy who just like oh man but he's

almost unplayable and you know like if you're comparing his strengths of scoring 19 points per game and you have to, you know, nitpick and be like, well, there is a bit of a weakness here. It's that, but he's not just like an overall, like overall pretty good defender, which when you compare with when you add up with the offense and with the rebounding ability, that's what makes him this elite player that could immediately come into Kansas and and be a first team all-american national player of the year candidate like that sounds crazy to talk about with a new player and obviously yeah you know the you do have to worry about the translation and everything but this guy is is that good he is that good um improving three-point game is part of the strengths too so as a sophomore he took two threes per game he shot 33

percent uh freshman wasn't really taking threes then as a junior he shot 1.7 threes per game shot 42 percent that's kind of like marcus morris uh marquise morris territory for ku i know that doesn't sound like a lot and it's it's not really a ton um 1.7 per game and you still do have that worry about you know for KU how are you going to get enough shooting on the team and all that stuff but he helps you get there and he allows you to if you are going to move KJ Adams to maybe more of a four role he allows you to get away with that a little bit more because he can come up a little bit but yeah I mean uh Marcus Morris was shooting two threes per game his junior season at Kansas when he was Big 12 Player of the Year. He was shooting them at 34%.

That same Kansas team, Markeith Morris, was shooting 1.6 threes per game at 42%. So think kind of the Morris twins in terms of his ability to stretch out. He's not going to take a ton of threes, but if you leave him wide open on a pick and pop, he'll let it fly and he can hit them. He wound up in the 98th percentile. This doesn't just account for the threes in spot up shooting so you know pick and pop is not going to be the most

popular part of his game pick and popular um sorry i will leave now no um he's going to mostly post up use some pick and roll you know uh whatever you'll get him the ball in the high post but he can hit those pick and pops which just adds to his game and makes him so much more flexible and who knows maybe with another year of three point improvement he's shooting three threes per game at around 35 40 which would be really helpful for the ku offense now as far as weaknesses um don't really have a lot here right i mean post-up scoring is good the rebounding is good the offense overall is good say well maybe we'd like to see him shoot even more threes expand his three-point game a little bit more but clearly that's something that

he's shown to be pretty good and is improving post defense is good really the one nitpick type of thing that scouts have had about him is defending in space he wound up in just the 19th percentile in pick and roll roll man defense, according to Synergy. So struggling a bit in pick and roll in that situation. Defending in space. I mean, he's seven foot one, 260 pounds. He's not going to be, you know, some six foot three guard running around out there defensively. But guess what?

Can you have David McCormick two years ago? I love that. I'm turning the weaknesses into a positives here. But nonetheless, can you had had David McCormick, you know, I love that I'm turning the weaknesses into positives here, but nonetheless, KU had David McCormick two, three years ago as your starter both years. David McCormick was not some space-defending wizard. I mean, I think it was Chris Stone who termed the phrase like the crab defense and that Dave, when he would run out there,

he would kind of look like a crab when he was like shuffling back and forth side to side and stuff he wasn't the pillar of defending in space for big men but Bill Self adjusted Bill Self um ended up having I mean that that 2020 to 21 team that ended up losing USC in the second round over the final month of the season that was maybe the best defense in the country that was with David McCormick out there you know you look at the defense was more than good enough to win a national title with Dave in his final season at Kansas because Bill Self is going to figure it out he's going to play to your strengths whether it's drop coverage or how they guard certain screens they're going to figure it out to kind of cover up more of those maybe weaknesses in space and at the end of the day like most teams

you know as much as Villanova in 2018 might have spurned some people to think like, oh, no, like you can't get away with a lumbering big man in today's day and age. And yeah, it certainly does hurt you. There are ways that it can hurt you. But there are also ways you can cover it up because not every team has what that 2018 Villanova team had, where they have Omari Spellman, who's a first round pick as a center shooting 40% on super high volume from three. Right. So the pick and roll thing would be the biggest thing. But I it's not that I think Jawan Howard's a bad coach, but I think Bill Self is the best coach in college basketball. And so there's probably an upgrade there from Jawan Howard to Bill Self.

I feel like he could help him figure this out and they would cover up maybe any of those warts defending and pick and roll or defending in space that I wouldn't really worry about it, especially when you look at all the other great things that he does that make up for it. We're going to finish off here with locked on Jayhawks and how he would fit with the team and the verdict of if you take him, how you go about it, all that stuff with L.O.J. So how would Hunter Dickinson fit in? Well, he would obviously come in and be expected to be the starting center um you would have questions about you know if you're Ernest Duda Zuby Edgeford I obviously you expect both those guys to be here if they bring on Hunter Dickinson

does that make either one of them rethink that I don't know that it would and I think that you know realistically both those guys would have to view it as well Hunter Dickinson probably only going to be here for a year and then he maybe would go off to the NBA even though Dickinson could have two years left to play but if he does stay for the second year then maybe you transfer and I think of the case of Uday and Zuby like from Zuby's perspective he's thinking I was ahead of Ernest in the Kentucky game on the rotation then I rolled my ankle Ernest got in front of me from there who's to say I can't beat him out

again in the spring and then if I'm the backup big and then Hunter Dickinson goes then I'm in line for the starting spot same goes for Ernest he's thinking well I beat him out at the end of the year I even if I'm the backup big for a year I'm still playing good minutes and then I'm coming in the next year is the projected starter right so

maybe it would be whoever loses out on that battle would transfer away but i i would think that would probably be next year not this year right so i i don't know that it would affect too much there from the center position it would make you feel good about the center position because you would have good you would have three real centers and then kj adams if he's a wing or center that you'd have enough bodies in case of injury or foul trouble in a given game right if you have an arkansas game where your top two bigs get in foul trouble you would still feel good that your third big would be either zoobie or kj in that situation um or ernest i guess if he were to lose out to zoobie right we shouldn't rule out um so that would be great as far as how it would

fit on the defensive end like i said think of like with david mccormick and how they would probably be defending stuff with him inside. Offensively, he would be the focal point of the offense. He would come in immediately and he would be expected to be your leading point score, your leading rebounder and the best player on the team. He would like right now. I was on the Lockdown College basketball show. You can check that out with Isaac and everyone. And I hadn't really thought about this, but he asked the question about, you know, who would you expect to lead the team in scoring right now?

And I don't know. I don't know. Would it be DeJuan Harris? He's not like a huge scorer. Would it be KJ? What is he going to play? Where's his role going to be? If it's Hunter Dickinson, that makes it an easy answer, right?

Makes it a very easy answer. And I think as far as where you look at KU, right now in Bartorvik, they're ranked 10th. You add add hunter dickinson on their roster cast they go all the way up to first just with that one guy so yes he would fit amazingly for ku you don't really have to worry about how he would fit and it opens things up a little bit more for you because he's going to draw certain doubles which are going to help like i obviously do have questions about the three-point shooting for ku and we'll see what else they have they can add stuff in the portal that's going to alleviate those concerns because they still have all these scholarships open but if you have hunter dickinson

it makes all those other players around you better three-point shooters because he's going to draw double teams and he's going to be able to pass out of it so automatically everybody gets a little bit of a boost there in their percentage and And also just having like that star level player and having a guy who now you feel a little bit better about if you do move KJ to the four playing in there because of the ability for him to step out and shoot it a little bit, as opposed to KJ play next to Uday, where you wouldn't really have that from both guys. It makes this a wonderful roster fit in addition to him just being like a great player. I guess I'll just address this part. Like I know some people are like, oh, do we have to worry about it? Like there were a lot of other schools and a lot of other teams

that, you know, hated Hunter Dickinson. And he has his own podcast. Like what if he mouths off or whatever? I don't really care. Here's the thing. Like good basketball players can be like, okay, we talked about this on RCST the other day, the word prima Donna, it has a very negative connotation.

I don't think it necessarily needs to, because for me, you can be a quote unquote prima Donna, where you're viewed as somebody who like, oh, you like to do other things outside of basketball and you like to express your opinion and you like to enjoy, I don't know, the luxuries of life or whatever. But as long as you work your butt off and you play physical and you play hard and you're not soft, I don't think Bill Self cares and I don't think you should either. And Hunter Dickinson plays hard. He plays tough. He works his butt off. Like who cares if he wants to do a podcast you know or or who cares if other schools don't like him because he trashes or he talks trash you know what i mean like

so what he's a fun player then so i i have no worry about that uh at all verdict obviously a take you do everything in your power to get hunter dickinson every bit of nil resources every bit of donor, you know, conversations that you need to have. You make it happen for this guy because your team would be centered around him. He would be the best player on your team next year and obviously raises the floor and ceiling of that team.

So you do everything you possibly can, which certainly seems like KU is trying to do. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back for tomorrow's episode. I think we're going to do a top 10 center options, but maybe we'll do a Primo Spears deep dive. We'll see for that episode with Locked on Jayhawks.

You can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can hit me up on Twitter at D Johnson Radio, and you can subscribe and like to us on YouTube as well. Have a good rest of the day.