Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - DEMORALIZED: Jayhawks Lack Offense in Houston Blowout | Can KU Get Tiller, Council & White Going?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Kansas just got, I don't know, pick your favorite adjective, demoralized, obliterated, smashed, crushed by Houston in the Big 12 semifinals. Not great vibes going into the NCAA tournament. Let's break it down. 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 with another edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day and thank you every dayers catching each and every episode of the show.

Starting point is 00:00:40 We are free and available anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. And thanks for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. We're going to break down Kansas losing big to Houston. What it all means, the team's offense just continues to kind of tank this season. And this might end up the worst offense of the Bill Self-era, which is not great to save the least. So we'll break that all down, what this all means. is KU's resume at this point look like headed into the NCAA tournament selection Sunday next up for KU. We'll get into all that on today's show, which is brought to you by five-hour energy,

Starting point is 00:01:14 have your cake and drink it to, birthday cake flavor is back, no fork needed, vanilla-e, cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order now at five-hourenergy.com, or you can check it out over on Amazon. So Kansas gets just depleted by here. Houston. I mean, what was it? 0 for 16, 0 for 17. I mean, at one point in the second half, different points they're shooting like 20% from the field. After the Arizona State game, just whatever, like a week ago, I thought that was one of the worst offensive performances we've seen in the Bill Salfera. And you followed it up with one that, I guess you could say, given the opponent, that was Arizona State, this is Houston. This one may be a little better

Starting point is 00:02:00 if you're grading on a curve. But Ross statistically is actually a worst performance. than that one. Nothing went and nobody really got going. Darren Peterson had a pretty good first half. Outside of that, nobody really played while. I guess Cole Rosario was hitting some shots late, right? Like, I don't know. Is there something we can work with there? Please be something to work with there because, yeah, not a lot of great here. And in general, like a loss to Houston isn't a bad loss. We know that. They're a really good team. But a loss of what we just watched of the epic proportion of how bad Kansas just played and has been playing to this point. point, KU stunk in this game and they are stinking it up at the end of this season. And it does

Starting point is 00:02:40 continue this trend of not just, okay, you've lost five year last nine games. It also kind of continues this trend of when KU is losing this year, they are losing losing. So I went back and looked at this. Kansas has 69 double digit losses, including this game in the Bill self era, which pretty good considering, you know, Bill Self is on what, year 23, something like that, that you're only averaging like three per year, basically. They have eight of them this year, right? And when you look at over the last eight seasons, they've 38 of them, the first 15 seasons, they only have 31. Now, part of that is the nature of the current day and age of college basketball. There's more threes. There's more efficiency. So sometimes losses are going to get spread out a little bit more.

Starting point is 00:03:34 But of these 69 losses that Bill Self has had by 10 or more points in his time at Kansas, 7% of them, which is a decent chunk, have not just come this season. They have come in the last month of the season for KU. Okay. This was the eighth double-digit loss of the season for KU. That is a new season high. I guess it'd be kind of a season low. It's the new most that KU has ever had in a season.

Starting point is 00:04:04 The previous high mark that you didn't want to get to was six. So not only are they passed it, they're passed it by a couple now. That was the 2018 to 2019 team that ended up getting blown out in the second round by Auburn. There are also several other teams who had five of them in a season, and they're mostly the teams that you could expect. The team last year, the team, the year before that, the team, the year before that, the 2020 to 2021 team, and then the 2017-18 team, With that one makes sense because they were, they were volatile with the three-point shooting

Starting point is 00:04:36 where it's like if they're having an off night, they might lose by double digits. If they're on, then they're going to beat you pretty good. But point being, yes, that is a worrying trend that a lot of those are within recent seasons, that, you know, a lot of those are within the last three or four seasons and that this one is the worst. Now, I do think this team actually has a higher ceiling than the past couple years of KU. I wouldn't say they have a higher ceiling than the 23 or the 2223 team. That team was a one seed. But I do think this team is a higher ceiling.

Starting point is 00:05:03 ceiling than the last two years, at least for KU. But I think you could make the argument based on that. This is the most double-digit losses in a season. And it's not just by one. It's by two now of the Bill Salf era. And who knows what's going to happen in the NCAA tournament, that this might be the lowest floor a team has in the Bill self-era. And that's just kind of what we're seeing. Like we've seen the highs when KU beat Houston at home, when KU beat Arizona at home, when KU beat Tennessee at the players era or won some of these games. And we've seen a lot of the lows and Boy, have a lot of them again, five double-digit losses over since February, starting with the loss at Iowa State. Seven percent of the double-digit losses, Bill Self has suffered in his entire career, Kansas, have just come in the last month.

Starting point is 00:05:47 That is very bad, obviously. Now, if we're looking at biggest negatives and biggest positives from this game, again, biggest negatives, the offense is just so stinky for KU right now. The worst offense by Ken Palm that KU was ever had in the Bill's health era is 59. They came into this game of 52nd. I haven't seen an update yet, but I'd imagine this is going to take them at least a little bit closer there. And then we'll see what happens in the NCAA tournament. The ups and downs of Bryson Tiller that we talked about after yesterday's game, it was mostly downs in this one, really from the word go, right? Like, just continuing to not really have good feel for the court when a second defender comes over, you'll lose it.

Starting point is 00:06:27 And then later you get manhandle, giving up an offensive rebound. The shot selection wasn't great. He gets benched in the second half. Body language for KU did not look good. And that's not a great thing to have at this stage of the season, right? And so now, like, I don't know. What's going to happen to Bryson Tiller the rest of this season? Is he going to be back in the starting lineup?

Starting point is 00:06:48 Or was this just a one-game message? Or, like, did you lose him now? Like, who knows? And then it brings a further question, which we can get more into this in the off-season, but I do want to at least touch on it now. What do you do with Bryson-Tiller in the off-season? From a standpoint of like, you know, okay, let me be clear on this. Things have not been working for KU basketball in recent years.

Starting point is 00:07:08 As much as you see some of the current stuff and you go, is this good enough, I do think you have to bring stuff back because the cycling in new players every single season, it's not working for KU. You got to try something else. Bring the guys back, right? But my question becomes, like, the highs of Bryson Tiller, the flash moments have actually been pretty darn good this season, where you can. can see the makings of a future really good player who's maybe a future pro player, right?

Starting point is 00:07:36 But the lows have been happening a lot lately. And it's like if you get into the off season and another team is willing to pay Bryson Tiller to come to their team and be like, we think you could be a breakout star. So we're going to pay you like that. And if you're Kansas, I don't think you can afford to match that. Now, who knows if that's going to happen or not again? This is just all the hypothetical world. but it does make it a very complicated case.

Starting point is 00:08:01 And then just in general, like between Tiller and Jackson, the court awareness that you have with those two on the floor just becomes difficult. And then you get these lineups where all Mark goes on the, as the same time as Jamari is the same time as Tiller, and it just doesn't work for KU. And they're not staggering Peterson and Flory. And then you have Trey White and Melvin Council, two of your players that you're counting on each and every game,

Starting point is 00:08:24 to be big time contributors for you, basically just disappeared in the Big 12. tournament. And if that happens in the NCAA tournament, you're going to go home early. Those guys have to get it going, right? And then, like, it's not just disappearing. I guess counsel didn't disappear. It was very apparent what was happening. Dude could not make a shot to save his life in this game. He finishes one for 14. At one point, it was, I think, over 10, 0 for 11. You get nine combined points from Trey White and Melvin Council. It wasn't much better in the TCU game. I mean, shoot like I just don't know what you're going to do here if you're KU like what is your identity

Starting point is 00:09:04 what is your rotation who are your players that are playing well right now there there's just not any answers for KU and bill self at this point in time right and then you couldn't get like floribadung of the ball one of your best players had four shots in this game and when he was shooting he looked uncomfortable but you never allowed him to get into an early rhythm in the game um by i don't didn't even have a field goal in the first half he may have had like one or something like that so this is very, very, very bad for KU, like very, very, very, very bad right now what is happening here. Now, if we do want to at least touch on a couple positives, just to try to give a little bit

Starting point is 00:09:37 of positive spirit here. I mean, Peterson was really good in the first half. He had the 12 points for the game. He struggled in the second half, but I thought the offense and the defense were good for Peterson in the first half. Again, nobody played well in the second half for KU. And then I guess you got some playing time for others, whether that's resting legs or whether that's giving an opportunity to some guys that, you know, did Cole Rosario do enough to give him

Starting point is 00:10:03 a shot in an NCAA tournament game? Or is it just one game late in the year that it's not going to matter, you know? You got a little bit of run for Paul and Bia, which didn't really work. But yeah, I don't know. I'm grasping at trust. This was a very bad result for KU. Again, not a bad thing that loses. They're a good team, good program. Bad with how it looked and bad with how it has been repeatedly looking for KU on the offensive end of the floor and that when they lose, they are losing big. And how much confidence do you have now for KU going into the NCAA tournament? I know my confidence meter isn't super high.

Starting point is 00:10:39 You're entering the tournament four and five in your last nine games. All five of those losses are by double digits. At this point, I would think you're a four seed. I don't know. Like if they got a five seed, I wouldn't be shocked. I'm assuming they're going to be a four seed. It's not the end of the world from that perspective and from a big picture perspective of saying, you're four seed.

Starting point is 00:11:00 Like, four seats go and runs all the time. It's more about the way they're playing right now doesn't even feel like a four seed. It's just disjointed. It's lack of chemistry. It's lack of offense. It's lack of shot making. It's lack of offensive ingenuity. It's lack of communication.

Starting point is 00:11:18 It's, yeah, it's not fun to watch right now. All right. Let's continue on with some more on this issue for KU. We'll get into some of our stats of the game. All that and more, this is Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. College basketball is nonstop. Big games, tight spreads, momentum swings every single night.

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Starting point is 00:13:56 code March on that. So KU falls to Houston 69 to 47. Yeah, just the vibes, the opposite of the Remy Martin vibes are immaculate right now. I mentioned earlier some of the double-digit loss numbers for Bill Self and how this continues to trend up and everything like that. This is also becoming a trend in the Big 12th tournament. KU over the last six Big 12th tournament games is two and four with a negative 64 point differential. Their last five big 12th tournament losses have all come by double digits. And then not only was this a double digit loss, this was a 22 point loss. This became the 18th, 20 or more point loss in the Bill South era.

Starting point is 00:14:38 11 of them have come just since the decade turned in 2020. So, you know, what, for 17 years, you have seven of them. And then the last six years, I guess, or six or seven years, you have 11 of them. Yeah, again, part of that. is the nature of the beast with how basketball is kind of going nowadays. But yeah, I just have one moment in play of the game that I want to discuss that the game was already at this point, like not looking good for KU, but I thought it really, I thought it really just was the chef's kiss to the moment here. So Bryson Taylor was struggling. Paul and Bia gets some run. And it did not

Starting point is 00:15:16 go any better with Paul Mbia in there. Chris Sannack, who had a really good game for Houston. got an offensive rebound over in Bia. Then there's a loose ball. Houston center dives on the floor between two KU players, gets the ball, taps around. Houston gets an open corner three and knocks it down. That had everything about this game. Houston out toughed KU.

Starting point is 00:15:39 Houston out hustled KU. Houston out shot KU. KU went to some bench pieces to try to find an answer that they couldn't get to. It was everything about this game and why Houston just spanked KU. are stats of the game. I mean, a lot we could go to here that are not great for KU. I mean, shooting 25%, that probably just simply should be the stat of the game, but they actually shot 30% from three.

Starting point is 00:16:05 So the two-point shooting was, I mean, they hit seven-twos and seven-th-threes. They only took 23-2s. They took 34-2s compared to 23-3s. So that's rough there. So that would serve me the stat. Honestly, KU only having eight turnovers, like that's a good number coming into this game. I would have felt good if you were to tell you. me that the like if you just obviously part of the the 15 to 10 offensive rebound advantage for

Starting point is 00:16:30 KU is because they missed so many more shots but if you would have just said coming to the game it was going to be eight to eight turnovers KU is going to be plus five on the offensive class you'd be like oh my gosh Kansas is going to be Houston and then turns out Houston shot 56 percent from three Kansas shot 25 percent from the field and honestly that's just it right there like that is kind of the difference now it's not as easy just to be like oh Kansas missed a billion open shots Kansas missed some open shots, mostly from three. Like all the two-point shots they missed, though, were heavily contested. They were not moving the ball well.

Starting point is 00:17:00 They were not getting open looks for others. They were not really working into good looks, whereas Houston did a little more work to get some open looks. And I think just in general, Houston has more guys who can beat you off the bounce and create. Kansas has one of them and Darren Peterson. Right now, Melvin Council, struggling. So you don't really have another one of those if you're Kansas. Houston has Kingston Fleming's who can do that.

Starting point is 00:17:21 Houston has Emmanuel Sharp and Milos Uzon who can both do that. So, yeah, shooting 25%, like they made 30 points from three-point shots. You made 47 for the game. Like, that's kind of another one you could probably point to. I only have one award in this game. And, you know, Kansas loses this game regardless of what happens here. But, man, I'm so done with watching games, any college basketball games with Kipp Kissinger and or Tony Boudia on it.

Starting point is 00:17:45 They just, they're bad at their job, man. They're so bad at their job. And for what it's worth, like the Kingston Fleming, I'm sorry, that is so lame, man. That's so lame. If we're just going to do basketball now where you can just launch into the defender at anywhere on the court and get a shooting foul from it, let's just, let's pack it up. Done with basketball, we're only focusing on football and baseball and some of the other sports. Obviously, I haven't really seen that call any other else.

Starting point is 00:18:12 So I guess it's a Kip Kisinger and Tony Biddea suck thing. But again, didn't impact the game from a standpoint of like, was toast in this one regardless. But just like, can we not do that, you know, from all the people involved, you know? So yeah, Kansas lost big, 22 points. What does the final resume look like for KU? What's next for the Jayhawks? Get to that next.

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Starting point is 00:20:49 Anyway, so KU is now sitting in a position where their resume is now in the books for the regular season. They're 21st on Ken Palm right now. They are 23 and 10 on the season. They went 12 and 6 in a very difficult Big 12. Obviously, made it to the Big 12 semifinals. Right now they have the 57th offense and the number 10 defense for KU. Now, when we look at it from more of a true full-on resume perspective, there are a lot of quality wins for KU.

Starting point is 00:21:19 it's kind of going to be the eye of the beholder for the committee. How much do you value the equality wins? How much do you value getting blown out? How much do you value losing to some lesser teams? If the committee is more into one of those over the other, it's going to heavily sway is KU closer to a three or are they closer to a five? I think the happy medium right now, you look at coming into the day, Kansas was a four seat on Bracket Matrix.

Starting point is 00:21:45 They had Alabama, Virginia, Kansas, Vanderbilt as fours. Bama lost today to Ole Miss. So AJ Store coming in big there. Virginia got a big win. Vanderbilt, I did not see what happened. But then the five seeds below them, Arkansas, maybe that's a team that could hop Kansas, potentially. Texas Tech is sitting in the clubhouse, St. John's.

Starting point is 00:22:05 If they beat Yukon in the Big East Championship, could they hop Kansas? And then you got Tennessee is the five, which again, I don't know who won between Tennessee and Vanderbilt, but potentially one of those could. So it's not out of the question. Kansas could drop to a five-seed at this point. I feel like they're going to be a four-seat, but again, I would not be shocked if it was a five-seat, even at this point in time for KU, given where some of those other teams are that, you know, based on how they finish in the conference tournament.

Starting point is 00:22:31 You look at it, KU is ninth in KPI. They are, let's see, 18th in strength of record. They're 13th in wins above the bubble. So that speaks to the resume. And then you look at some of their quality metrics, 19th in BPI. They are 19th in Bart Torvik. But again, when you start looking at the Quad 1 wins, that's where Kansas gets its biggest advantage to staying on the four line.

Starting point is 00:22:59 They are currently tied fifth in the country in Quad 1 wins. I don't know if this has been updated through today, but at least there they have nine of them. Now, they do have eight losses to go with it, whereas Virginia has nine of them. They only have like three losses. So, to be Houston has nine of them, but they only have five losses.

Starting point is 00:23:17 But that keeps Kansas at least, you know, the value of those big wins is super important. And then you look at the Quad 1A wins, like Michigan has the most with nine, Arizona and Duke each have eight of them. Kansas, that's six of them, right? I don't think anybody else has seven. So it's like that next tier.

Starting point is 00:23:33 So again, if the committee is going to judge this just based on what is, what is your best? Could you talk yourself into Kansas being a three seed? I'm not really expecting it, but you should at least see them on the four line versus if they do start looking, okay, you're four and five over the last nine. You've had some stuff going on with Aaron Peterson. You've had some big blowout losses. You've lost to some not great teams that might not be in the field like Arizona State and Cincinnati and West Virginia and stuff. Then maybe they are closer to a five.

Starting point is 00:24:03 So it'll be very interesting what happens on selection Sunday. Obviously, the difference between being a four and five seed is not that great. think the difference between being a three and four is pretty great, but still when still rather get a four than a five. Like, you just keep going further down the list and your odds go down a little bit more each time, right? If things get a little bit tougher each time that you go through. So we're going to try to do an episode this weekend, kind of going over some, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:24:32 like opponents that I don't want to see on the seed line for KU. And at the end of the day, like, you're not a one seed. Like, you don't get to pick your path. Like, you're going to have to deal with some good teams along the way if you're but just in terms of matchup situation, teams that I think might not be the best matchup in the world for KU to draw maybe in the first round or maybe in round two or something like that. So we await selection Sunday. You can catch us right here anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show.

Starting point is 00:25:01 And we'll see you next time for another edition of LJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - DEMORALIZED: Jayhawks Lack Offense in Houston Blowout | Can KU Get Tiller, Council & White Going?

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