Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Deep Dive: How Would Kansas Jayhawks Transfer Target Jaylon Tyson Fit In at KU?

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

Diving into Texas Tech wing transfer Jaylon Tyson as the Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team targets him in the transfer portal and following his visit to Lawrence. Scouting report (strengths and weaknesses), how he would fit in at Kansas and be a perfect fit for Bill Self and KU.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, we deep dive into Jalen Tyson, where things are at, his scouting report, how he would fit in overall at Kansas after wrapping up his visit over the weekend. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Johnson, you can hear me as well. Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us, like, subscribe to us on YouTube.

On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, Jalen Tyson wrapped up his visit over the weekend to KU. Let's deep dive into where things are at there, his strengths and weaknesses, scouting report, how exactly he would fit in, and the verdict of is he a take, is he not? Do you have to wait on some other stuff? We'll get to that on today's edition of the show. So let's start right here with where things are at.

He just finished up his visit over the weekend. Sounds like he came in Friday and then left on Sunday. That was about a week after he went and visited Cal. And right now it seems like that is the big, I guess, competition. It's KU and Cal, right? So the old, I don't know, the Jared Haas competition, I guess, there. So, you know, we'll see what ends up happening. Will he visit other schools?

Or did he see enough on his visit to shut things down? If he doesn't visit other schools, I think that makes you feel good about KU. If he does visit other schools, I don't think that necessarily means that he wouldn't pick KU. But I don't know. Maybe it means he's comfortable with Cal, too. Maybe it just means that he feels comfortable. Like I remember doing this when I was applying to colleges out of high school, after I had got into a couple that I was comfortable going to, I kind of stopped applying to other schools that, you know, we're not going to be in front of those. So I guess it could be for him. Like he's like,

well, I'm leaning Cal one maybe KU's two but you know I'm comfortable even if I do decide to go to KU so I'm going to stop visiting or it could mean that he loved his visit so much at KU that he's shutting everything down and then he would be like well okay I'm all aboard let's totally do this I love the visit I loved everything you offer all that stuff so who knows uh if he does end up visiting other schools or not? We will see. But right now, KU and Cal are the real two players in this. And if it is just between those two schools and other schools don't emerge

because there are other schools on the fray here. Obviously, this is a very talented wing with abilities of being like a 3 and D guy, which is so valuable. And you can really fit him in any lineup across the country because of his versatility with where he can play. So obviously there's going to be other suitors. It's just kind of about him. But if it is between KU and Cal it's,

it really is a battle of resources and blue blood and opportunity versus relationships and a different type of opportunity at Cal, right? Like from the KU perspective you have the facilities you have the the strength and conditioning program you have um the the proven track record of getting guys uh into the NBA and developing guys you have the proven track record of being a winner of being a team that can compete for final fours and compete for national championships you have the great fan base you You have sold-out arenas. You have the legendary Allen Fieldhouse, all the history and tradition of KU basketball.

For Cal, they don't really have that stuff. Sometimes they struggle to get support from the past alumni, from donors, from even the students. You go back and watch some of their past basketball games, and there's like 12 people in the arena, right? Now, that was under a different coach. They have have a new coach maybe it's revitalizing the program maybe there is more interest around and everything like that um but as far as those things the fan support and the history and uh the facilities like kansas is more than cal like that's not a secret but what cal has that kansas might not is the previous relationships. Fardaz, AMAC transfers from Texas Tech to Cal. Now who knows? I mean, those are both guys that

like AMAC was there for a year. So I don't know. Are they good friends? Are they just solid acquaintances? Who knows? But maybe that relationship matters. The relationship that matters more is probably the uh former one of the former assistant coaches at texas tech is now a cal and it seems like that prior relationship's there and so for ku you don't have that prior relationship and at the end of the day sometimes in recruiting that is worth everything like for instance ben simmons who was the number one recruit in the country coming out of high school ended up picking lsu which is you know not typically and this wasn't like

Will Wade LSU, where they were known for just like dropping bags and stuff, right? This was, oh gosh, it was a Trent Johnson, I want to say. I don't know. It was, it was LSU that was not a great LSU, I guess is the way of putting it. And it was all about the relationships, you know? So sometimes that is all that matters in recruiting and it makes you feel comfortable. It makes you feel like you're going to be taken care of, right? If you're leaving somewhere, if you're going to be far away from family, if you're going to be on your own, you want to be able to trust the people you're with.

And it's not that he wouldn't trust KU, it's that he has that built in trust with Cal already. So it really is a battle of all those resources and opportunity. And the opportunity at KU is to win at a high level, compete to be a starter. I mean, who knows if he comes in, let's say like sans Hunter Dickinson, maybe he would be the favorite to lead KU in points per game, right? I mean,

they have a lot of players on their team who feel like you're more going to be in that like eight to 12 point per game range, right? So, so maybe that opportunity is there, but it would certainly be tougher to be a 15 point per game score at Kansas than it would at Cal, right? At Kansas, you might score 10 point per game range, right? So maybe that opportunity is there, but it would certainly be tougher to be a 15 point per game score at Kansas than it would at Cal, right? At Kansas, you might score 10 points per game. You might be in the starting lineup.

You might be one of the top bench pieces. At Cal, you're going to be like a for sure go-to option, right? So the opportunity is part of it too, but also with Cal, you're on kind of a rebuilding program that should be better this year than last year, but they were really bad last year. With Kansas, you feel like you should be that big 12 final four national title contenders so the opportunity is different depending what he wants and the relationships those are the big

things even though kansas has all these other avenues of advantage uh the only other question in this recruitment is the scholarship number conversation right so ku has essentially one open scholarship at this point if kevin mcculler were to surprise us and come back then all of a sudden you'd be flush on scholarships what does that mean for hunter dickinson what does that mean for jaylen tyson right um now i think the staff is under the assumption or they're basically recruiting to the level of yeah we can't expect kevin to be back and that's the right way to go about this. Right. And if Kevin does surprise you and decide to come back and you're like, well, crap, we're over on scholarships, you figure it out from there. But I think right now you basically look at it and

you go, well, you have one scholarship open. Don't you have to reserve that for Hunter Dickinson? Do you have to wait on Hunter Dickinson to decide before you can figure out what you do with Jalen Tyson. You get the commitment. If he's ready to commit, you say, okay, and you figure out the rest later. We've talked many times on here that there are a lot of different ways for KU to open up other scholarships. Could it be a player that's currently on the roster transferring out? Could it be one of the incoming freshmen ending up not arriving at KU, right? Could it just be some workaround from KU

with basically having a walk-on type player getting paid NIL money to cover that and more? Or could it even just be, hey, as part of our self-imposed sanctions, we said three scholarships over three years. We didn't clarify which years we're going to have those scholarships. You know, we'll we'll do we'll have a full 13 roster this year because that's just how it happened to work out. And we're going to make a run for a title.

And then we'll take another year where we have two. And one of those years where we do have two, we'll pay somebody to be a basically NIL walk on. Right. There are a lot of different ways that you can get around this. That is not really concerning to me about filling up on scholarships. So I don't think this is a situation where it's like you can only have one or the other because you only technically have one scholarship open.

Like they'll figure out the scholarship numbers. You take the commitment from the good player who would fit in very, very well for your team. And then you figure out the rest later. All right, let's get on to strengths and weaknesses scouting report here in just a second but first this episode of locked on jayhawks is brought to you by fanduel sportsbook make a fast break to fanduel during the nba playoffs because

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The scouting report, the strengths and weaknesses for Jalen Tyson's game. What would he kind of bring to the table for KU? Let's start with the strengths. So the strengths for Jalen Tyson. I'm going to have to catch myself, by the way, because I feel like I've been so close. Maybe I have, and I haven't even noticed it. Saying Jalen Wilson on accident. Nonetheless, Jalen Tyson, Big 12 experience. You're talking about a guy you don't have to worry about transferring up a level or how are they going to do in the Big 12? He was at two Big 12 programs

this past year at Texas Tech. Ended up making 31 starts for a Big 12 program this past year, played 29 minutes per game. You don't have to worry about that. You have the Big 12 experience. You know the grind and the difficulties of going through the conference. You don't have to worry about that with Jalen Tyson. The shooting is obviously a plus here on the strengths. He has a quick, pure form.

It is very repeatable. Shot 48% from the field this past season. Shot 40% on threes on three and a half tries per game so not super high volume but not low volume either just solid volume there and really good percentage 72 on free throws so you know solid enough on free throws uh he ranked in the 61st percentile which is listed as good in spot up, and specifically in no-dribble spot-up three-point jumpers, he went 20 of 51, which is right around 40%. So really good spot-up option for you to have, which is going to be really important,

whether you have Hunter Dickinson and you want to space the floor around him, or you don't have Hunter Dickinson and you possibly have a lineup with KJ Adams and Ernest Duday out there, and you need as much shooting as possible. And you have Nick Timberlake. You'd love to add Jalen Tyson to have a couple of those guys on the court at all times with you because of his floor spacing on low volume usage. seconds and then launch up a shot like it makes him very very amenable to join really any team and because of that he ranked 20th in o rating in big 12 only games so this is a really efficient player who doesn't necessarily need to just chat or you know chuck up like 20 shots in a specific game um his defense is also really good like this is the prototypical three and D wing. He was 12th in big 12 only games in steel rate. So good at getting steals that runs in well with like DeJuan Harris, right?

Overall on synergy, he ranked in the 80th percentile on defense. He had a 76th percentile grade in man to man defense and a 94th percentile in isolation defense. Really good defender, lengthy. He's versatile. He can play up and down. And because of that's another strength here, the good size, 6'6".

Because of that, he's not like a really built guy. He's not like 225 pounds or something like that. So maybe that prevents him from playing some minutes at the four. But, I mean, he's a good rebounder. 6.1 rebounds per game. That's part of the strengths here too. And with him being 6'6", you can play him at the two if you want to play kind of a three wing lineup. I think the way that Kansas has kind of developed the roster, you'd probably be mostly playing the three because you have a lot of these kind of combo guards in this year.

But you'd play mostly at the three. You could get away with some minutes at the four. You could even play him at the two if you really did want to and play a little bit bigger of a lineup there. But yeah, rebounding good over six rebounds per game in Big 12 only games. He ranked seventh in defensive rebounding rate in the league. He was also 19th in offensive rebounding rate in Big 12 only games. So very good player overall. There's a lot of things.

Rebounds, defends, shoots. He was also excellent in transition play and in limited cuts was excellent there too according to synergy this would be kind of a perfect player for you he really would um i mean everybody can say that everybody could use a three and d wing you can fit them up and down the roster lets you be more versatile lets you space the floor more like this would be a huge get if k you could get him now as far as the weaknesses he is more of a streaky scorer not someone who's creating his own shot a ton i i don't know like when you look at the box scores you'll see some games with those higher point totals and then it's just kind of like up and down i don't know that

that necessarily is a jalen tyson thing though to be honest um texas tech over the past couple years like it's been an unbelievable defensive team they haven't been a team that's been known for running like super elegant offense and i wonder if sometimes they didn't draw up enough for Jalen Tyson with how good of a shooter and score he was so I don't know how much of that is on him but that is something to look for in those box scores it also might not really matter as much because if KU lands Hunter Dickinson and you have DeJuan Harris and Hunter Dickinson dominating the ball. Like if one game you're a guy who puts up 15 points and another, you put up six, it's like,

well, you're not the primary option there. So it's not as big of a deal. He's not really as much of a four. I guess you could put that in weaknesses. Like is KU ideally looking for a four man specifically? You can play him at the four, as I said,

but that would basically admit to rolling with KJ and Marcus Adams at the four specifically. But I don't know how I'm at. I don't really view that to be an issue. Like KJ Adams is a big 12, um, most improved player coming back. Marcus Adams supposed to have a very high ceiling. You can get away with maybe five, 10 minutes of Jalen Tyson at the four, and that might be enough. Um, and then I guess I'm going to bring this up because this is something that I've seen from other places, but I am going to kind of counter it. Some talk like how coachable is he? I have hesitations talking about stuff like this because I think sometimes one, I don't know. I was not in the locker room.

I was not in those all that stuff to sometimes when a player transfers and this is the big one sometimes when a player transfers there are coaches that leak info out that make a kid sound worse than he is because it could be a couple reasons one um they're spiting the player for leaving so they'll leak something to a media buddy who's like well i don't know he might not be very coachable and it might not be true he's just trying to he's mad that the players leaving. Right. It could also be in regards to like, you know, what if honestly, what if other coaches like didn't want other coaches to be like, oh, yeah, we want in on this kid because they hear rumors about that and they're not true. And then it makes them have a better chance at landing him because less schools are in on him. Right. have a better chance at landing him because less schools are in on him right like there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes from the political side i guess that without me knowing without me

seeing any incidents or anything i'm not really gonna buy into it plus i mean like ku winning tends to cure a lot of stuff and i think that um sometimes bill self likes the conflict i guess in practice like you you'll hear a lot of stories about him yelling at a player, and sometimes he likes it, maybe not in the moment, but overall when the player yells back because it shows fight in them. So I personally am not really putting much into that, but I've seen it at a few places that I'm just kind of like, okay, whatever, I'm not really worried about it.

But I figured I'd bring it up. And then the last one here is the, will he be eligible? I think that's probably the most pertinent of all the weaknesses. Will he be eligible right away? He started at Texas, then went to Texas tech. This is second transfer. NCAA said they're cracking down on this stuff, but does he have the, I don't want to call it an excuse that makes it sound bad, but does he have the ultimate, I guess, way to

get that waiver? Because I mean, literally he was on a Texas tech program that it's not just that their coach left or got fired. It's that he was fired for saying a racist phrase to a player. Now, was that to Jalen Tyson? Was it to a different player? Uh, is that going to be a sticky situation for the NCAA to be like, well, we, we know part of the different waivers we're giving is for like emotional or physical, like abuse or whatever. And, you know, we just don't think you viewing something to be racist from your coach counts as a mo like that would be a very bad look if the NCAA said that and did that. Right. So you feel like he will be eligible because of how that went down

that the NCAA again should not be like, well, we don't how that went down that the ncaa again should not be like well we don't think that should be right like that's that's a very bad situation for the ncaa to be in so i would think he is but again it's something to bring up here in the weakness column all right let's finish up how would he fit at kansas but what's his role be and everything of that nature with locked on jayhawks Three things up. How would Jason Jalen Tyson finish or fit in at Kansas? So he's the ultimate three Indy wing, which makes him super easy to play because you can play those guys at really the two, three or four positions specifically for Kansas though, because you have DeJuan Harris, Marco Jackson, you have all these combo cards.

You figure those guys are going to be figuring, you know, filling in most of the one and two minutes. Maybe you even get some Nick Timberlake minutes at the two, so really it's like four guys, which makes it tough for him to play at the two. So most likely he would, I feel like it'd be a competition between Jalen Tyson and Nick Timberlake to see who starts at the three. And then either way, like both guys are probably playing 20 plus minutes per game at the three, you know, maybe one's getting 25 at the three and maybe the other is getting 15 at the three, right? Maybe Jalen Tyson gives you 25 minutes at three. Nick Timberlake gives you 15 minutes at

three and Timberlake gets some other minutes at the two. And then Tyson maybe gets another five minutes at the four, right? That you can kind of mess around with the minutes and have it all work out from there. But I would imagine if he did come in, like I would kind of be expecting him to be a starter. And you never know how somebody is going to transition over, how they're going to click with the new playbook. And right, is it going to take till December till you start, till January till you start, or would you right off the bat?

I would just think though, because of his shooting, his three and D ability, athleticism, good size. Like to me, he would probably be in line to start at the three position um so i mean the verdict here is take without a doubt you don't really worry about the eligibility thing think he has a good chance to get that figured out but um this is a really good player and a really good opportunity for a perfect fit type of player when you need shooting never hurts that he's a really good defender good rebounder too that's something else you're looking to shore up from last season. Like in every way, this guy checks all these boxes.

He would be a great fit for KU and he would help take them a step further to being a real national title contender. All right. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us wherever you find any of your podcasts. You can hit us on YouTube and like, and subscribe to the show. Back on tomorrow's episode. I think we might be doing a KU football episode,

catching up on maybe some of the latest transfer offers and what they're looking into at this point in time. That is unless we get some sort of breaking news up until then. I'm Derek Johnson. Have a good one. See you next time.