Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Early Things to Watch for KU Basketball & What Jayhawks Football (Hopefully) Accomplished in the Bye

Starting point is 00:00:00 We're a week away from late night in the fog. KU basketball season is here. What are the early things we're going to be watching for in the 2024 to 25 season? You are locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Derek Johnson, you can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. Part of the Locked On Podcast's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're a week away from late night in the fog. We're going to be going over the biggest things to watch early in the season for KU basketball. Plus, we're going to get into what KU hopefully did accomplish during the bye week this week and a little KU basketball recruiting and Olympic sport update to finish things off.

Starting point is 00:01:00 This episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Place your first $5 bet and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit FanDuel.com to get started today. So we're a week away from late night in the fog, two weeks away from their first exhibition game, which is against Arkansas, which you're going to learn more in that than the late night in the fog event. But still, it is officially kind of basketball season here. So what are the biggest things to watch early in the season for KU basketball? I think the first is how good and how comfortable are the newcomers? You know, it's always nice to see the shiny new toy.

Starting point is 00:01:33 It's nice to see the new transfer, the new freshman. What do they look like in a KU uniform? How do they play? How do they fit in with the rest of the roster and with Bill Self's system? And yada, yada, yada, right? Because especially when you think about newcomers, there are guys who you hyped up and I hyped up and we thought were going to be good players

Starting point is 00:01:51 that maybe just didn't click right away or maybe clicked later in the season or maybe just never worked out, right? Whether it's McDonald's All-American that rode the bench all season or if it was a transfer who averaged double-digit points per game at their previous stop that just doesn't end up fitting kind of the hope of what you had for them. There's also players that exceed their expectations, that are better than their

Starting point is 00:02:13 recruiting rankings showed out. You think like Johnny Furphy last season and what you get from some of these guys. So it's fun to see how those players all fit together and what they look like, because it's one thing to say, oh, you know, I watched some high school clips and highlights of this kid or I've seen what he did his previous stop. What is he going to do for Kansas? We're going to find out a little bit more about that early in the season. How is Kansas going to be rebounding the basketball? That's a big question for me coming up early in the season,

Starting point is 00:02:38 and I think you're going to learn about it a lot in some of their early games. You look at the exhibition against Arkansas. You know, that's obviously going to be what's expected to be the top 25 team in the country. So how do you rebound against them? Typically, John Calipari teams have several seven-footers and stuff. You look at the Champions Classic game against Michigan State, Tom Izzo teams typically really crash the glass hard.

Starting point is 00:02:59 And then you look at the North Carolina game. North Carolina traditionally, ever since Roy Williams, that's kind of an elite rebounding team, at least traditionally, we'll see what they have this year, because no Armando Bay caught. So I don't know for sure. But typically, the system has been that in what they've kind of done. And so you're gonna have games like that and others early in the season where you're going to get that rebounding battle tested. And that is a big question for me for this KU team. I think defensively, you should at least be a good enough defensive rebounding team because

Starting point is 00:03:26 you have Hunter Dickinson. He is going to gobble up a majority of those defensive rebounds. Defensive rebounding is more about like positioning, boxing guys out, stuff like that. Offensive rebounding is more about like tenacious motor, really good verticality, really springy athlete quickness. You have to be able to, you know, out quick a guy who's trying to box you out they're different sets of skills um we'll see how kansas is an offensive rebound team because they weren't very good a season ago can they be better this upcoming season with some of the personnel that on paper haven't been great rebounders in their previous stop but now going

Starting point is 00:04:00 to be asked to be playing different roles so what does that look like early in the season just how much better is the three-point shooting for this team is going to be asked to be playing different roles. So what does that look like early in the season? Just how much better is the three-point shooting for this team is going to be something to watch early in this season, especially if it's the starting five of Zeke Mayo, DeJuan Harris, A.J. Storr, K.J. Adams, Hunter Dickinson, because you weren't a good enough three-point shooting team last year. That would be three of your five starters back from the season before. And then you look at A.J. Storr, he's a worse three-point shooter, at least he was last season than what you had with johnny furphy or what you had with a healthy kevin mccullough now maybe aj store takes a leap up and he's a better three-point shooter the one big difference would be that you have zeke mayo in there to shoot as opposed to nick timberlake or el marco jackson or

Starting point is 00:04:38 i guess later in the year if it was furphy if you're talking about with furphy was starting you know in january when kevin Kevin McCullough was still healthy. Obviously, that wasn't the final product for the team. But nonetheless, is that along with more bench shooters like David Coit and Ryland Griffin, is that enough for this team to completely overhaul the shooting? And to what level are they? I have confidence they're going to be a better three-point shooting team. They're going to be a better shooting team overall.

Starting point is 00:05:02 But what is the level there? Are we talking about you're better than a team that was not good at shooting and now you're just, you know, average at it? Are we talking about a team who's good at it? Are we talking about a team who's elite at it, who's great at it, right? Those are all going to be real questions that we find out a little bit more early in the season. And as much as, you know, some of the games against very much lesser opponents, you're not going to learn that from. I mentioned some of those big games you play early in the season. And we did have some early games that KU played against good opponents last year that they didn't really shoot well from three. And that was kind of a,

Starting point is 00:05:30 I don't know, sign guidance of what was going to be over the course of the season. So you are able to at least take some hints from some of that stuff. Ball screen defense is going to be something I'm watching for early in the season as well. You look at the ball screen defense. We all remember how the season ended for KU. Obviously, they were injured, they were thin, you know, some of those issues with shooting and stuff. But beyond that, it was the defense that killed you in that Gonzaga game. You couldn't stop the pick and roll, you couldn't stop the ball screen. You really struggled all season long defending teams who could space you out, who could shoot threes and spread you out with kind of your two big lineup. And that two big lineup is

Starting point is 00:06:04 here to stay for KU with KJ and Hunter. maybe you play it less minutes than you did a season ago because you have more options to go to and there's more of AJ store at the four and whoever else at the four right so maybe that does end up being the case but still with Hunter Dickinson out there teams are going to try to attack him with ball screens and putting him into those ball screen actions and how much better can you be at those things you lose Kevin McCuller who again wasn't there for the end of the season so for just comparing KU now to where they were at the end of the season you know it's it's not like you had that comparison but um he was your your best defender overall on the team and you look at it well with more scorers that you have now on the roster can DeJuan Harris look more like the big

Starting point is 00:06:42 12 defensive player of the year from two years ago as opposed to last year, which you saw flashes of it, but I don't think he was afforded because of the bigger role and the big minutes he had to play, that same luxury to do all that stuff a season ago. So what is that going to look like for KU? Because that and the three-point shooting and the rebounding, those are things that are going to determine just how much better this team is from a season ago. This is one that I'm going to be interested in early in the season for sure. What does a one final year senior bump for Bill

Starting point is 00:07:10 Self do for Hunter Dickinson, KJ Adams, and DeJuan Harris? I kind of fumbled through the wording of that. Normally I just call it the Bill Self final year bump. I kind of added some extra words just because, I don't know know it's different because the COVID year some guys are fifth year sixth year whatever it is we've seen a lot of great examples of players coming back for that one extra season and in some cases it was a senior year others it wasn't like I think back to Jalen Wilson the whole idea he everybody knew when the season started this was going to be Jalen's final year I think he might have had even a year maybe even two years left of eligibility because of like a medical redshirt whatever

Starting point is 00:07:47 regardless everybody knew that was going to be Jalen's final year he had that final year bump where he ends up becoming uh you know all big 12 all-american level player right um you think about Kevin McCuller the season he was on pace to have last season he was having that big bump you think about Devontae Graham right maybe that was just more he had the bigger opportunity and usage but he goes to first-team All-American. That one final-year bump, Frank Mason is obviously the poster child for this, going from a guy that we thought we knew what he was, which was a very solid player.

Starting point is 00:08:14 He was All-Big 12, I think, second team and third team as a sophomore and a junior. He was a very solid player, top 10, top 15 player in the Big 12. We didn't know he had the level of national player of the year, and that's what he showed as a senior. He had that one final year bump, right? There are other examples of this that you could go throughout time that Bill Self has been here and point to that that player, when he knew it was going to be his last year, when everybody knew it was going to be his last year, backs against the wall in terms of how much time you have to accomplish something special at Kansas, whether it's individually as a team, whatever,

Starting point is 00:08:46 those guys usually take a bump. And there's situations where, you know, they just are who they are, right? You think of like Marcus Garrett and some of these players who were good players but didn't have that breakout senior season, and they were still good players. But the point is it does happen, even though it's not everyone, and there's three guys who it could apply to this year, Hunter Dickinson, DeJuan Harris, and K.J. Adams Adams so I don't think all three are going to have that bump but

Starting point is 00:09:10 what if one of the three has that bump and who would be the most likely I mean it's probably not Hunter Dickinson because like what does that mean Hunter's already averaging like you know 20 and 10 or 17 and 10 or whatever he's gonna average 25 and 15 like no I guess maybe he you joke as a book it was another good one by the way but um maybe hunter just gets better like defensively like doke did in terms of his space i don't know but more likely it would be maybe it's dewan harris again i think his improvement just comes from you know getting back to the guy who was a couple years ago defensively and i guess making more shots around the rim this year kj is the one that i'm looking at like have we gotten too accustomed to knowing what KJ is?

Starting point is 00:09:45 And this will be the first time he's in the same role for the second straight season. He's at a different role each of his three seasons. Same time he's in the same role, he's got that final year bump. What if he goes to averaging from 12.5 points per game to 14 points per game? He's shooting 65%, 70% because he's an unstoppable, strong driver. He's dunking everything. What if he does become a better rebounder? He's getting, you know, six, seven rebounds per game, like the athleticism says that he should

Starting point is 00:10:08 be able to do. He becomes a better defender overall. What if KJ Adams does take that bump, or what if one of these players takes that bump? What does that look like for what have already been some pretty accomplished players for KU? I think secondary to that is another year of familiarity with DeJuan Harris and Hunter Dickinson. Does that lead to even better play for Hunter specifically? Because they already had a pretty good connection and obviously it's easy to accomplish that when you're as unselfish as DeJuan is with the ball and you're as skilled as Hunter Dickinson is with it, that you're going to have a quick connection between point guard and center there. What does year two do to that? I don't think enough people are talking about that,

Starting point is 00:10:41 that there's going to be a better connection with all these players, I think, on the court and specifically between those two, that it could be quite the dynamic duo. And then position battles early in the season, right? Rotation spots up for grabs. Who's going to be the fifth starter? I don't know. Is it going to be AJ Storr? Is there really any competition?

Starting point is 00:10:58 Is Rylan Griffin going to come off the bench? Is he going to play the biggest role off the bench? Who wins the backup? I guess other combo guard battle between David Coit and Shaquille Moore. How does Shaquille Moore come back off the bench? Is he going to play the biggest role off the bench? Who wins the backup, I guess, other combo guard battle between David Coit and Shaquille Moore? How does Shaquille Moore come back from the injury? Who wins the backup center battle between Flory Badunga and Zach Clements? Do we see any lineups with Flory next to Hunter or with Clements next to Hunter?

Starting point is 00:11:18 Where basically now you have another player that you can view as kind of a four for this team. Does Rakees pass more? Does he earn minutes? Does he earn rotation minutes as part of this team? I think there's a lot of interesting questions with the rotation, with the starting line, and a lot of fun lineups they could throw out there, or at least interesting lineups, like I said.

Starting point is 00:11:37 Like, what if there is a lineup with Hunter playing next to Floyd? What does that look like? How much do they play their small ball lineup with having A.J. Stor at the four? That's what I want to see. Lineup with DeJuan Harris, Zeke Mayo, ball lineup with having A.J. Storr at the four. That's what I want to see. Lineup with DeJuan Harris, Zeke Mayo, Ryland Griffin, A.J. Storr, and then Hunter at the five, or I guess even Flory or K.J. at the five for stints of time.

Starting point is 00:11:53 I think that could be a really dynamic offensive lineup. You know, what are some of the fun, unique lineups that they do over the course of the game? All right, let's get on to some KU football, what hopefully they accomplished during the bye week. This is Locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by Z Biotics pre-alcoholic probiotic drink. It's the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking.

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Starting point is 00:13:36 All right, continuing on here, what hopefully did KU accomplish during the bye week? Well, the first one is just resting up and getting healthier. That is true for everybody ever who's been on a bye week? Well, the first one is just resting up and getting healthier. That is true for everybody ever who's been on a bye week. And when you think about Kansas, there's some pretty notable players who have kind of been banged up. Obviously there are certain players that are playing through stuff that we just never know about. I think in general, like I always look at the running back position and I'm like, yes, bye week is great for you because you always get hit all the time. Like, you know, taking the bumps and bruises. Great for that, right? Get fresh legs. Cornell Wheeler has been – I mean, they have missed him mightily.

Starting point is 00:14:11 The defense has been much different without him on the field. I think part of that is you've played better offenses in some of these games, but also you are missing him. He's the guy who normally calls the plays, but also, you know, you've been going from Cornell Wheeler to linebacker play that hasn't been the best in the guys that have been kind of replacing him. And so with Cornell Wheeler, just trying to get him healthy and back into action is going to be huge. Also, Kobe Bryant, I have a sneaking suspicion that he's going to be playing in the Houston game, but I guess it remains to be seen on what's going to be happening there.

Starting point is 00:14:39 Obviously, he had the injury and that, you know, was a all-big 12-level corner that you'd be missing. And so, obviously, there have been guys who were banged up even beyond that, probably on the lines of scrimmage, like just get everybody healthy and rested up. Game planning for really the next two games, the Houston game and the Kansas State game. I think it would be silly not to at least, you know, you do a little bit of work ahead on Kansas State as well, even if you do more work on the Houston game because that's what's in front of you. But you could take all the extra game planning that you possibly need for these games.

Starting point is 00:15:12 And I think when you look at the KU offense, they seem to have done better in the early portion of games. Is that, I guess it just seems like they have done better whether, you know, when they've had maybe more planning behind it, because then maybe you have more brainpower behind it of guys who aren't Jeff Grimes that can weigh in on what's happening here. And when they have to think on their feet, maybe it's not as good. So the extra game planning can't hurt. Getting more in sync as an offense with really everything. I mean, that one's pretty self-explanatory, right? And I think Jalen Daniels continuing to shake off more rust in a low-pressure environment, which is practice and in the bye week

Starting point is 00:15:54 and building off what was his best performance of the season. You know, at least he's coming off that performance with the extra time off. And then I think it sounds like they had a scrimmage earlier this week. I mean, hopefully everybody stayed healthy in that and stuff, but that's an opportunity for younger players or players further on the depth chart to either prove themselves and move up the depth chart and or just gain those extra reps. So I think the bye week can be very helpful for that, for those young guys to really midway through the season when they start to know the playbook

Starting point is 00:16:23 and some of the stuff a little bit better, make some inroads in a real way. And I think this one is probably the most important one given where Kansas is at right now. And you can make this argument regardless of where they were, but especially right now, self-scouting. This is something that I know Kansas does. I don't know how often they do it. I don't know if you have time to do it every week. I mean, to a certain level, you are watching your game film. Although there were some weird comments earlier this year from Jeff Grimes about not doing that. But anyway, you know, you're always self-scouting to a certain standpoint, but during the bi-week you have extra time to self-scout and not just self-scout probably from a standpoint of watching the film and be like, we should have done this

Starting point is 00:17:01 differently or that was good or whatever. Maybe more tendency stuff like, Hey, we tend to do this in this situation or do this in that situation. And what can we do to buck the trend? So we're not becoming too predictable. Those are things that are important and figuring out where your weaknesses are, where you can improve those weaknesses, how you can improve those weaknesses, just kind of reevaluating as a whole,

Starting point is 00:17:20 because obviously right now things have not gone well for Kansas and you need to do a lot of that reevaluation. Let's finish up here. KU basketball recruiting and Olympic sport update. This is Locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by Robinhood. With Robinhood Gold, you don't need a silver spoon to eat up the financial flavors of the 1%.

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Starting point is 00:18:30 or if you're in the mood, Locked On College Basketball, or with the NHL season, NBA season right around the corner, NHL started, find one of those other shows, whatever you're looking for. All right, a little KU basketball recruiting and Olympic sport update. So let's start with the KU basketball recruiting. Bryson Tiller, who is – I feel like there have been so many stories

Starting point is 00:18:51 about Bryson Tiller visiting KU, KU having an in-home visit with Bryson Tiller, whatever it is. I feel like it's happened so much. Anyway, he is a 6'9", 240-pound power pound power forward i guess big man in today's day and age i feel like the day of the power forward is is going away it's just like you're a big man basically anyway he is a uh i guess depending where you look if you're looking at 24-7 the composite he's top 20 player in the country five star on the composite though 24-7 alone has him as a four star rated just a nudge lower. Anyway, he narrowed down

Starting point is 00:19:27 to his top four. KU is in it, but I don't know. Going back to the idea that I've seen all these stories, it feels like it's once a quarter. It feels like it's once every three, four, five months that either KU's visiting him, he's visiting KU, whatever it is. The fact that there hasn't been a commitment after all of these visits, it's, it's almost like the guy who's like, he's been dating this girl for like eight years. And the girl is just like, please propose to me, please propose.

Starting point is 00:19:50 Like I want to be proposed to. And she's been saying this for like four years. And the guy's just like, keep stringing her along. Well, maybe he's just not going to propose, you know? And that's how I,

Starting point is 00:19:59 that's how I feel about this is Bryson Taylor. It's like maybe one of these past seven meetings would have been enough that he would have committed. So I don't know my honest opinion just based on that, which probably isn't enough is that he's probably not going to be KU bound. Otherwise he probably would be by now, but I guess they're in the top four. So who knows? Darren Peterson is done with his visits. He announced that he will be announcing on November 1st. That's coming up in about three weeks here. And there have been a lot of people that have been, you know, putting Kansas in the pole position. We will see.

Starting point is 00:20:29 There's still three weeks to go, so who knows what happens with NIL money floating around and players making last-second bids and trying to get, you know, this or that. But sounds like KU is at least in a good position coming into that decision with Darren Peterson, one of the best players in the country. Eric Reiby, he is a center who had some pop-up hype in terms of both his play and with KU recruiting him. It seemed like KU was making good inroads, but it sounds like apparently UConn is the team to beat here, but he did narrow his list down to five. KU was in it, so I wanted to keep an

Starting point is 00:21:00 eye on there. And as far as the Olympic sports, KU soccer fell at home 3-0 to Oklahoma State. They're sitting at 5-5-3, 2-4 in Big 12 play. As of right now when I'm recording, last I saw it was 2-2 with BYU on Thursday night at Rockchuck Park. They're going to be against Utah on Sunday at noon and then three straight on the road to finish with ASU Arizona and at K-State. As far as KU volleyball, they won in four sets at Colorado. Apparently there was a good KU road

Starting point is 00:21:25 attendance, so good to see there. So sitting at 12-1, 3-0 in the Big 12, ranked top 10 in the country. They are, as of time of recording, playing at West Virginia right now. They're at Cincinnati on Saturday, then back home on October 17th, so a week from today for home game against K-State.

Starting point is 00:21:42 That'll be a fun one to go to if you're in town in Lawrence. That'll do it for this episode go to if you're in town in Lawrence. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us today. We won't have anything for you on the weekend unless any breaking news happens because no KU game, but we'll be back on Monday. We're going to start our KU basketball positional previews. We're getting to some KU football next week as well

Starting point is 00:21:58 and preview the Houston game. All that and more. Make sure you're subscribed to the show. We'll see you next time with Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Early Things to Watch for KU Basketball & What Jayhawks Football (Hopefully) Accomplished in the Bye

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