Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Flory Bidunga Wins Big 12 DPOTY for Kansas, Tre White & Darryn Peterson SNUBBED in Postseason Awards

Starting point is 00:00:00 Flory Bedungo was named the Big 12 defensive player of the year. Melvin Council, the newcomer of the year. Where did some of the other Jayhawks wind up? What the heck? No Trey White on the list? That ain't cool. We're going to break it all down on this episode of the show. You are Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:00:20 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 episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. making it your first listen every day. And thank you for the everydayers catching each in every episode of the show. You can also find us on YouTube. And thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network.

Starting point is 00:00:48 On today's episode of the show, a little bonus episode, we're going to be breaking down Kansas and some of their Big 12 awards as we head into Big 12 tournament week in the postseason here for KU. Some really cool awards. Also, maybe some left on the bone. We'll get into a little bit too on what the heck. they had to go through with Darren Peterson and maybe some of our gripes or where they maybe got it right in the award voting. Let's start right there with the news on Flory Badunga, though.

Starting point is 00:01:15 So Florey was named the Big 12 defensive player of the year. And it was, I mean, this had to be as good of a race as I can remember. Honestly, one of the best races that I can remember was actually in the 2019 to 2020 season when the race was more so, it was just about two guys. were on the same team, Marcus Garrett and Yudoka Azabuque. They were both so incredible defensively, and it was like the conversation of, well, Garrett's probably the best defender, but Azabuque is still a great defender, and he's maybe more valuable because the center just inherently everything funnels to them. So they end up, you know, kind of getting more valuable in all of these things. So I don't know, I just found that kind of interesting there that the race you had with Mo Kreevis for Arizona,

Starting point is 00:02:02 who's an outstanding defender, you got some really good perimeter defender. You got some really good perimeter defenders in the Big 12 like Taman Lipsy and I mean Iowa State's got a couple of them uh carchenkov and Arizona is a really good friend like Jojo tugler's a really good defender at Houston they've got a bunch of perimeter defenders like a manuel sharp and for florrie to win that award just tells you just how impactful he is and how much he is seen um by these coaches in a lot of these different areas right and so um i think just really cool for for florida win that and you just go back to i think the biggest moment that that helps him win the award here is you go back to when he went from defending AJ DeBonsa in the KU-BYU game to the next game defending JT. Topin helping hold him to like

Starting point is 00:02:44 6 of 18 or whatever it was was I mean that just really sticks out to you right like it sticks out to me in a very real way and so was just really cool to see Flory win that award he also got named to the first team this was from KU and their release about it that's the ninth time that a KU player has earned the defensive player of the year award, Mario Chalmers in 2007, which that one probably more about just reading the steel numbers there, but Cole Aldridge in 2009 and 2010, Jeff Withey in 2012 and 2013, which I think what you find interesting there with Aldridge and Withie, you know, Florey could potentially have another year at Kansas. We'll see what ends up happening there. There's been the kind of transfer shopping rumors. There's been the,

Starting point is 00:03:27 obviously, an NBA potential there, but maybe he could join that list as well. Joel in 2014, Marcus Garrett in 2020. DeWan Harris won it in 2020. And then also he becomes the 39th first teamer for KU and the All-Big 12, which is more than double second place in the league. So really well worth it for Florey. I thought in the non-con, he was a little up and down. The high moments were a first team all-big 12 level, but the low moments were, you know, maybe you're getting outplayed by more of an average level starter. And then he turned it on in Big 12 play. And yeah, like the Arizona State first half wasn't great. There's a few games are, moments you could point to, but for the majority of Big 12 play, he was looking like a big 12,

Starting point is 00:04:07 an all Big 12 center. He was looking like an NBA center. The defensive value, the dunking ability, the rebounding, like really deserved award, I think, for Flory Bedunga here with the versatility and holding now that defensive end for KU. Now, Melvin Council also won newcomer player of the year for KU. He is the fourth Jayhawk to win it, according to the KU press release. Malik Newman in 2018, Deidre Glesson in 2019, Hunter Dickinson in 2024, and he's also the 20th KU

Starting point is 00:04:35 player to be named to the league's all-newcomer team. He also is the 40th to be selected All Big 12 Honorable Mention. I did find it interesting, just a quick gripe there. We'll get into some more gripes in our second segment coming up here in a second. I thought he could have been on the third team.

Starting point is 00:04:51 There's a couple guys I probably would have exchanged him for personally, but I can understand how he winds up honorable mention because for a lot of these other people who are voting on this, who aren't around KU as much. Like, okay, KU people know, if you're listening to the show, you're a diehard, right? You know that Melvin Council isn't just worth KU, like value to KU from a standpoint of his defense

Starting point is 00:05:15 and his ball handling and his, I don't know, like the raw stats. It's that, one, he's had a lot of big moments late. He's been able to make a lot of game winning place for KU. And two, he is the heart and soul, the team and the leader. And for most of you, like, if you're, if you're a voter in the Arizona area, right, who's voting on these awards, you might not know those things, right? And that kind of boost a player's value potentially. So I can see how you end up on the honorable mention list. I personally would have had him on that third team list. If, you know, we're talking about, especially if he's

Starting point is 00:05:46 named newcomer of the year, you would think that would be kind of inclined to do that. But still really cool for him to get an award, right? And when we talk about the, like, I don't know, maybe this is something you can use in recruiting. Certainly wouldn't hurt to try it, but like for KU to this portal season, grab some diamonds in the rough with Melvin Council and Trey White. And for them to hit so much, I think it's really cool that KU's had all these big time transfer gets and one of the ones that was maybe a little more underrated or unheralded nationally. And Melvin Council is one of the ones that wins newcomer of the year. And again, like, are you able to sell that now in the transfer portal

Starting point is 00:06:24 recruiting this upcoming off season to maybe a player who's like, you know, maybe they're not the star of the show, but you're like, hey, we're going to give you a seven figures. You can come in, make a million, million and a half, be potential to be a starter and exceed expectations like what we saw from Melvin Council. I think that's kind of a cool thing to have there. All right. Let's get you some of our other gripes on the list here. What the heck they had to do at Darren Peterson and some more thoughts overall on the

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Starting point is 00:08:00 Head to Lockdown Podcasts.com slash every day. You can also find the link in the show notes. Thanks for joining us here on Lockdown Jayhawks. Okay. First question here, as we talk about gripes with this, should we be annoyed, should we have the pitchforks out, that Flory Badungo was the only player on the first team for KU? I think that you could just in theory,

Starting point is 00:08:27 like be like, well, I think Trey White, especially with it being 10 guys, with it being 10 guys, Trey White or Melvin Counselor, Darren Peterson, should they have been candidates for the first team?

Starting point is 00:08:35 Now, the Peterson case becomes a difficult one from the standpoint of the missed time, certainly from a talent perspective, he would be on that list. But I think the problem here is you start looking at this list and you're like, okay, Jaden Bradley is the big toll player of the year. Braden Burrys, awesome for Arizona.

Starting point is 00:08:49 Moe Crevis, super impactful, both ends of the floor for Arizona. AJ DeBontza, like ridiculous number is going to be a top three pick in draft. Emmanuel Sharp, like maybe Houston's best player, really good on both ends of the floor. Kingston Fleming's put up ridiculous stats for Houston. Joshua Jefferson putting up like unbelievable point rebound assist totals. Flory obviously. Christian Anderson has been a superhero for tech. And then J.T. Topin, who, you know, I guess you could make the argument. Does the injury bump him down to second team? But certainly to me, he was a first team performer for the majority of the time. So like, it's hard to argue any of those guys,

Starting point is 00:09:24 Trey White, Darren Peterson with the availability stuff, or Melvin Council should be above any of those guys on the list. I actually have no problem with Flory being the only one. Maybe if KU wouldn't have, right, if KU beats, I don't know, Cincinnati and Arizona State at the end of the year, and they finish second in the Big 12, does one other player get on there by virtue of being a higher finish in the Big 12? It's entirely possible, right?

Starting point is 00:09:51 but I don't actually have a problem with it. My bigger gripes are, I guess I would have three gripes. One I just mentioned with Melvin Council. That one's a more minor gripe because, again, as I mentioned, I can explain away how it would have happened. I personally would have had, like, I can understand Coa Pete, Cameron Carr, the numbers those guys put up Rob Wright being on the 13. Themis folks, I can understand that too because you need some representation for UCF

Starting point is 00:10:19 with the season they've had. and he's the only player on the first. It's like the one I would probably switch over is Xavier Edmonds. Then again, TCU doesn't have any representation, but I don't know. To me, counsel probably a little bit better than Edmonds, but who knows,

Starting point is 00:10:30 maybe Edmonds will stick in my face and have a big game for TCU against Kansas. So that would be a minor gripe to have counsel on the third team there. Or maybe it would just be Trey White being on the third team, if we're being honest. Because to me, that's my biggest gripe here. I think Trey White got screwed out of all this. Like, if you want to make that argument that he should have been on there

Starting point is 00:10:48 over the third team over one of those guys, I think you could have an argument over it. At the very least, how does Trey White not end up on an honorable mention team, man? Like, these are some of the honorable mentioned players we got. Like, Milos Uzon for Houston didn't even have a great year. Like, he's still a good player. But like, I don't know, like Honor Huff at West Virginia, Terrence Brown, Toby Oaka, Tunei Yassifu.

Starting point is 00:11:11 Are these guys like Mustafa Chom, who killed Kansas, obviously, but like are these guys on another tier? Like, look at Trey White's numbers, man. He put up really good numbers on super high efficiency. efficiency and was a big boost to KU beating some of these teams like Houston at home and having some of these performances. I thought Trey White not even being on any of these lists is honestly pretty crazy to me. Not to mention he wasn't even on the all newcomer team, which also seems a little bit crazy to me. Again, it's good names in front of him there. But like, I don't know, man. I feel like that's the one where I'm sitting there going, how is he not on one of these lists? I think the other gripe that I would have like this isn't really again, this is kind of a smaller gripe. I actually. I actually would, I would have voted Tommy Lloyd for Big 12 Coach of the Year. I do think there's something to the fact of in the college world, you're the one who recruits the roster. You're the one who develops the roster. So like, I guess theoretically, the Big 12

Starting point is 00:12:01 Coach of the Year should always be the one who wins it unless there's some crazy underdog story that boosts up somewhere. But like, I do think Bill Self at least deserved credit for Big 12 Coach of the year with what he had to go through with some of the ins and out, but not having a deep bench. Now, you know that part of that would be on his end of the floor for not, you know, acquiring or developing that end of the bench. But if we're talking about Kansas only having, because think about this, Kansas only has one player, basically, by the awards, if you're going by the awards, that's basically saying Kansas only has one top 20 player in the league. And if you're adding the honorable mention picks

Starting point is 00:12:39 to this, there's eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, there's 12 guys on the honorable mention list. So that would basically be saying they gave out 32 all big 12 level recognition. That's basically he's saying Kansas only has two in the top 32, one in the top 10. For Kansas, I guess I forgot Peterson on the second team. So three players in the top 32, one in the top 10, you know, whereas you have, for instance, like Houston, Houston has two teams in the, or two players in the top 10 and four in the top 32. You look at Arizona, they have three of the top 10 players in the big 12, and they have five

Starting point is 00:13:17 in the top 32. like Texas Tech has two players in the top 10 and three in the top 32. You can make a real argument Bill Self deserves some credit for Big 12 coach of the year, having to basically coach two teams and maybe not have it as much talent as some of these other schools. I would be fine giving it to Tommy Lloyd. But yeah, my biggest cry, Tray White should have been on one of these lists. All right, let's finish up with a little conversation on Darren Peterson.

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Starting point is 00:15:38 merchant and swap firm. Thanks again for joining us on the show. So Darren Peterson gets second team. And what a conundrum this must have been for voters. Because just from a pure talent perspective, Darren Peterson is obviously, I mean, you can make the argument that he's number one, if not number two in the league. Like, if you were having a draft of players, if coaches got to start with player, they're probably taking DeBonsor or Peterson with the first pick if like all the big 12 players were available, right? So it just becomes kind of funny. And the other part of this too is this. Like we talk a lot about Peterson missing time in games, having out or missing some games. At the end of the day, he played in 16 of the 18 big 12 games, which

Starting point is 00:16:20 That's got to be more than J.T. Toppin, right? Yeah, it was. Yeah. J.D. So, again, Peterson started 15 big 12 games and appeared in 16 of them, obviously, the senior day game. J.T. Toppins started and played in 13 big 12 games. Now, Toppin in those big 12 games, 22.6 points, 11.1 rebounds. Incredible performance there. Peterson in those games, 20 points per game, 4.3 rebounds per game doesn't have the other county numbers. though really good 1.8 stocks per game. Peterson 44% 38 from 3. There is an argument to be made that if Topin's going to wind up on the first team, that Peterson maybe should have wound up on the first team. Because again, you're actually getting three more games of value from Peterson over Topin with the talent level there.

Starting point is 00:17:07 So I don't know. I hadn't really thought about that till right now. Now I'm kind of wondering if maybe he should have been on the first team over to AT Topin. And obviously, I feel bad about the injury to Topin. But like, you have to vote on what's there. And I don't know. Anyway, I don't think we have a problem with it, but it is going to be funny looking back 10 years from now. And if, like, Peterson is the dude in the NBA, everybody's expecting him to be and he's like a multi-time all-star.

Starting point is 00:17:30 We're going to be like, how is he a second team all big 12 player? It'll just be kind of funny to look back on for sure. But he becomes, according to the KU release, the seventh KU player named to the all-freshman team, which only began in 2018, 2019. Devon Dotson, Christian Brown, Jalen Wilson, KJ Adams, Grady Dick, Johnny Furphy. I don't know how Adams made the list. That must have been a bad year for freshman in the Big 12th.

Starting point is 00:17:56 Not that Adams was fine, but he didn't even play it. Like all the games for KU, but he is also the 23rd Jayhawk to be selected to the All the 12th second team, which certainly that'll be a fun. Like I said, like 10 years from now. Honestly, like overall on the awards outside of just KU, I don't understand some of the defensive team picks. I'm sorry, but okay, Jaden Bradley is a good defender. and I even, this was with Leif Tulin, the Lockdown Arizona guy.

Starting point is 00:18:21 We talked about this, I don't know, a week or two ago. The fact that Jaden Bradley was, again, is a good defender, he's not as good of a defender as Yvonne Karchenkov. Kajakov should have been on the list over Bradley. Mo Kreevis deserves to be on there. I'm cool with Emmanuel Sharp being on there, really good defensive two guard over there. Joseph Tuggler, good defender didn't have as good of a defensive year this year as he did a year before, but I can understand that.

Starting point is 00:18:42 Tame and Lipsy being on there, really good pesky defender, Florey being on their really good defender. But I think if you asked like scouts who the best defenders are in the Big 12 perimeter defenders, it would be Karchankov and Killian Toray for Iowa State. And neither one is on the list. And that seems a little weird to me that that would kind of be the case. But again, overall, decent day at the office for KU at the award. Some could have probably been better.

Starting point is 00:19:09 But I don't know, maybe some extra motivation now for Peterson going to the Big 12 tournament. I don't know for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks, you can find our show anywhere at your podcast, including on our YouTube page. Love an episode with Bracketologist Graham Doran coming at you tomorrow. We'll have some more KU basketball content, KU basketball previews and recap shows throughout the week at the Big 12th tournament. See you then, right here with Lockdown Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Flory Bidunga Wins Big 12 DPOTY for Kansas, Tre White & Darryn Peterson SNUBBED in Postseason Awards

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