Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - FREAKISH: Flory Bidunga LEADS Kansas Jayhawks Past Notre Dame | Game Breakdown and Syracuse Preview

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Kansas Jayhawks’ big men dominate as Flory Bidunga and Bryson Tiller power KU past Notre Dame, 71-61—are the Jayhawks poised to keep rolling without star guard Darryn Peterson? The impressive frontcourt performance, highlighted by Bidunga’s 18 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 blocks, showcased Kansas’ interior strength and versatility, while Tiller’s 17 points and 9 boards added critical support. Key moments included clutch threes from Melvin Council and Jamari McDowell and a gritty defensive showing holding Notre Dame to just 34% shooting.Derek Johnson recaps Kansas’ latest victory and previews their high-stakes battle against a surging Syracuse squad, fresh off a narrow OT loss to Houston. Can Kansas sustain their momentum against Syracuse’s athletic frontcourt and chaos defense while battling injuries? Top storylines include adaptation without Peterson, KU’s rebounding opportunities, and X-factors like Kohl osario and Tre White. Will the Jayhawks’ interior dominance be enough to handle Syracuse and solidify their NCAA Tournament credentials?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Omaha SteaksSave big on unforgettable gifts with Omaha Steaks. Visit https://OmahaSteaks.com for 50% off site-wide and an extra 20% off select favorites during their Cyber Sale.And for an additional $35 off, use promo code COLLEGE at checkout. WayfairDon’t miss out on early Black Friday deals.Head to https://Wayfair.com now to shop Wayfair’s Black Friday sale for up to 70% off.Sale ends December 7th. GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Florida Bidunga looked like a pro today, and Kansas knocked out Notre Dame by 10 points. We're going to break that game down and also preview the KU Syracuse game. 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. This is Locked on Jayhawks, and thank you for making the Locked-on Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast out there. On today's episode of the show, we are going to recap KU's 71 to 61 win over Notre Dame, Florida Budunga. Two Big Basketball took off for KU. We're also going to get into a little preview of tomorrow's game for Kansas against

Syracuse who looked pretty good in an overtime loss against Houston. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you'll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the Fandual Sports app today. So Kansas wins 71 to 61 against Notre Dame. They moved to four and two on the season. And it was a game about the big men for KU. I know Trey White obviously contributed in a big way. And he was really solid for KU was 16 and 9. And, you know, counsel gives you 12 points. But this was a game about the two bigs for KU. Bryson Taylor, 17 points on eight of 15. He was eight of 10 on two point shots, nine rebounds, and then Floribunga gives you 18 points

on eight of 15 with nine rebounds and five assists. And the combination of the two of them also wound up getting Kansas a bunch of blocked shots. You got five from Flory. You got one extra from Bryson Tiller. So they were the ones who kind of dominated this game for KU. And it's just so many moments throughout the game. I mean, the fact that you were able to get 35 and 34 minutes out of Tiller and Florey, respectively, is pretty incredible, especially after Tiller was in foul trouble early, that's going to be kind of what carries this season for KU, even when Peterson comes back. Those guys need to avoid foul trouble, and then they can be efficient players. But especially when Peterson's not back, they need to do that.

And we saw the effectiveness. I mean, the shopmaking ability of both players around the rim and around the lane and some of the developments of Florey and the offensive game are pretty incredible. like Tiller had a really good game. I really enjoy watching Bryson Tiller, but like Florey is a freak, like in the best positive way of saying it. Like the play where he gets the blocked three and picks up the loose ball, drives it down, he's getting bare hugged, it's an intentional foul.

He still makes the shot nonetheless. He gets two free throws, makes him both. Then on the inbound play, they eventually get him the ball and he scores on a tough make. Basically a six point play. Like that is a freakish play. some of the moves that he had on the block that you didn't see last year, or just the ability of like, like, honestly, one of the craziest things I think that is going to probably go, I don't know, unrecognized in the game.

At the end of the game, I forget the exact score at the time, if KU was up eight or up 10 at the time. But there was like a minute, maybe a little less than a minute to go. KU was inbounding. And Notre Dame is just pressing them, trying to get a steal at the end of the game. And if not, they're going to foul. And, you know, KU, I think, had to use a timeout. then they come back and they are kind of stuck, like, who do we throw the ball to?

And in most situations, the last thing you would ever want to do on the inbound pass is throw the ball to your center because that would usually just be like, oh, you're done for. They're going to get a turnover or they're going to foul him and he's going to miss free throws. Instead, KU throws the inbound pass to Florey, like in the corner too, which is like even worse. And Florey just handles it with poise easily, passes it up ahead, pitches it up ahead to the perfect guy. who then throws it up ahead. And I forget who got the, maybe it was Melvin Council at the dunk off of it.

But regardless, like, you don't see that. And it's just, there are so many moments with Flory right now that are happening where you're like, that is not a normal thing that a center does. And it is really fun to watch. It was a little inconsistent at the beginning of the year for Florey. It's starting to be, hey, this dude's going to be in the NBA next year from Flore. It is really impressive, the streak of play that he is putting up right now.

I would say that beyond that, some of the biggest positives for KU, it wasn't a great three-point shooting game. You shot 30% from, you know, three. But I think at one point you were like one of ten, so you were finished five of ten at that point. And you hit some key ones and big ones in the second half. You know, it really felt like as you were kind of moving from the end of the first half into the early to middle parts of the second half, you were constantly up like four, five, six, seven. And it felt like the difference of you being able to kind of push that out, kind of have that kill shot kind of bring it out to double digit lead was the inability to hit one of

those key threes. They started finally hitting them and they were able to overcome a bit of a Notre Dame push and then eventually win, you know, by double digits. And I think that was important that this doesn't have to be a great three point shooting team, but you still got to hit some. You can't just, you know, go over there. Beyond that, the defense was another positive again for KU 61 points allowed, 34% from the floor for Notre Dame. They were only 17% from three, which part of that they maybe missed a few shots that they normally make with some good shooters, but part of that too is KU's defense, forcing you into deeper threes, forcing you into maybe an extra hand in there with length and wingspan and athleticism, you're going to get

a contest a little bit better than a team who doesn't have some of those things. If we are looking at some of the negatives from the game, I think the injury bug would certainly be the biggest one that you would point to and say, you know, obviously Darren Peterson was already out coming into this game, so that didn't change. but, you know, even like Trey White at one point got hit in the face. He's, like, bleeding everywhere. His white jersey is covered in red. Fortunately, they had a backup jersey or they had some, I don't know, great

Clorox or something going on in the locker room. And they were able to, I don't know, overcome some of those things. Like, Flory at one point was kind of just like holding his back. But the one they weren't able to overcome in terms of the player being able to play through. The injury was Jaden Dawson. And I guess he heard his, his, his like wrist, his arm or something in warmups trying to dunk it. So that's not great, especially when Dawson was starting to come on. He had his season high in minutes for KU in the

Duke game, figured to have a pretty big role this week with Darren Peterson out. And it's unfortunate for KU and for Dawson, right? Dawson has an opportunity for extra minutes with Peterson out to take advantage and showbill self, hey, I deserve to be, you know, playing big minutes or in the rotation. And now that might not be possible. We'll wait and see what the x-rays say and how, you know, he is to potentially come back. And then beyond that, it's like a standpoint from Kansas, you're really thin on, you know, some of the shooting guards and those sorts of things.

So it makes things a lot tougher if you're Kansas now. And it basically means Corzario, like, has to step up now. El Marco Jackson, you are given a role. Jamari McDowell, you're going to be playing now. Do we even see G. Angala at some point? Who knows? Beyond that, I would say that you only forced five turnovers. I would have liked to see that number a little better.

We look at Kansas being such a good team at, you know, running and transition and scoring when they force a turnover. You'd like to see them get more than five. Now, it is a little tougher against a team like Notre Dame, who if you're taking more threes, you're not throwing as high risk of passes necessarily, right? A lot of times turnovers might come from you driving, the ball gets stripped or thrown in the post and there's a double team or something. Also, Notre Dame plays a slower tempo, so they're going to be more under control. But that is something that, you know, especially as I look to the Syracuse, game, it's going to be a more important. Can you force turnovers and get those easy buckets, especially when you're playing a team that is going to limit you in the half court?

But I think the biggest moments in place of this game, it was that, you know, Flory block the three, grab the ball, get the basically six point play out of it. That's the obvious play of the game. If we are to mention some other ones, though, the sequence where KU had like a billion blocks might have been a goaltender two in there too, but that was certainly fun. I think Notre Dame actually ended up scoring on it. I got, like, all the offensive rebounds. That was certainly fun. There was a moment where Notre Dame was pushing.

It was 59, 54. Trey White hits kind of a step back three at the top of the arc. That was a key moment for KU. Jamari McDowell hitting a three when it was like, again, with Dawson out. You're counting on him to play a role. Okay, he, you know, contributed in that way. You know, just a lot of fun moments in this game. And it was, I wouldn't say it was a whole hum win for Kansas,

but it wasn't one that you necessarily sweat. especially down the last couple minutes of the game. And I think that's a good thing when you were without Darren Peterson because when you look at this game and this will apply for the Syracuse game, too, they are a bit of litmus tests, right? Obviously, you hope you get Darren Peterson back. And then once you get him back, you hope he's there for the rest of the season. But there is the question of whether it's, you know, without Darren Peterson,

if there is more to it or whatever, or if it's just the question of, you know, what is the supporting cast alongside Darren Peterson, what is the ceiling, what is the floor for this team? part of those questions become what is the team without him and if you can beat Notre Dame like you did today and you can beat Syracuse after that that would certainly illustrate to me that even without Darren Peterson you're an NCAA tournament caliber team and then you throw Peterson into the mix that's where you have the potential to become something special right and so that was why I think today was certainly important that you beat

you know Notre Dame's and I don't think they're top 25 team in the country or anything like that to pick by one media outlet, like ninth of the 18 teams, so like a decent team in the ACC with how your best player. Like, I'm not going to complain about a 10-point win when your best player is out. So I think it's going to be tougher against Syracuse. We just saw what they did against Houston. We'll get to that in segment three. But let's continue on the conversation.

KU Notre Dame recap, we'll get to our stat of the game awards and we'll get out some game balls. This is locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Fanduals, sports book. NBA is back along with college basketball and there's no better place to get in on the action than with Fandual. It's the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game, I want to ride that hot hand. Fan Duel has live bets on everything from who's going to score next to who's going to make that fourth quarter comeback. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. He keeps every game exciting,

especially when your team's making that late pushing. Right now, we got feast week going on with college basketball this week. So college football winding down to the end of the season. This is a great week to get in the action with Fanduel. And they're given new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So head over to fanduel.com, sign up, play your game with Fanduel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA and the Lockdown Podcast Network. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the show and making the Lockdown Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network. Our stat of the game, that defined the KU Notre Dame game, yet eight blocks. Eight blocks is a huge number to have

in any game. Kansas is actually averaging around there, so like they're having pretty incredible block numbers, which, you know, makes sense. Florey's really good at blocking shots. He led the Big 12 in block shots last year, even though he was coming off the bench. Bryson Tiller has a long wingspan. You got guards who are athletic or have or both long wingspan. So it's really cool to see how that is having an impact for KU. I think another stat of the game, I mean, Notre Dame being four of 24 from three for a team who relies on the three-point shot, that's going to kind of define the game. That's going to make it tough for them to win a game like this. And then I would say the other one is that 16 to 6 in assists. Kansas was moving the ball well. And I think that's part of it

too. When you look at the three-point shooting Notre Dame being four of 24, okay, they had six assists. So how much of that is because the KU defense was doing a good job of forcing Notre Dame's threes to not be as high percentage of shots, whereas KU was moving the ball well. And getting those assists. I think that does tell at least a little bit a story of the game. Our awards for the game, we're going to give out our dog food, no fear award in honor of Melvin Counsel, and he's going to actually get the award along with Jamari McDowell. You know, there was a moment there where Melvin Counsel was like missing all his threes. I don't know if he started 0 for 3 or 0 4. I think it was 0 for 3. And they were clanking a couple.

And it was actually like there was a stretch where I want to say he missed two threes within like a few possessions. They were relatively close together. And he got another open three look. I think it was the shot clock winding down. But there was like no hesitation for him. It was like, okay, I missed the first two, whatever. I'll just take the next one. And obviously there are certain times that can get you in trouble, right?

You end up with a game where you're 0 for 8 or something. But I'd prefer to go down and swing in that way, right? Especially when you're without Darren Peterson, especially when you're a team that maybe doesn't have as many great three-point shoot. It's like, I remember the old Auburn teams with Jabari Smith a couple years ago. And it was like, why is he not shooting more? You have this like six foot 10 dude who's making all these shots and their guards are just like chucking up shots.

And some games they'd get hot. Other games they'd go, you know, 0 for 8. That's not what Kansas has right now. So you need to keep taking those shots. And the fact that he was not deterred at all by a slow start shooting this season or in the game, I just appreciate that, I don't know, like courage, I guess to continue to take those. And kind of same thing for Jermar and McDowell. Like he goes one for four.

that's his only made shot and you're a role player coming off the bench who is being asked to play more with Dawson and Peterson out, it'd be easy to not take that three that he ended up taking and just, you know, kind of hiding from the moment, right? And instead, you accepted the challenge, you shot the three and you took the three. So I appreciate that. And I think that's going to be important for Kansas moving forward. The Happy Learned How to Put Award. If you ever seen Happy Gilmore, Happy Gilmore can crush the ball. And then, eventually he learns how to punt. That's like what we're watching with Flory Bedunga right now. Actually, Florey joked in the, well, I hope it was a joke. I don't think Bill Self is going to be

happy if it's not a joke. He joked, I guess I'll say in quotation marks in the post game with the TV crew that he was going to talk to Bill Self about letting him start take threes. Again, I don't think that would go well for either party there. But, you know, he is just, it's incredible watching the growth. Like, we knew. he was this springy athlete who could block shots last year. And we saw some of flashbacks. Like, obviously the six point kind of sequence here, you think back to the UCF game last year where he, I figured if it was a blocker or steal where he ends up dribbling it down the court and like throws down a dunk. It's like we've seen a little bit of that before. But it's the post moves too.

It's the shots where he's sitting contested on a hook shot or kind of like banked in on the side of the lane. The one move that he had where he is, so he catches. it on the right side of the block, right side from KU's offensive perspective, catches it on the right side. And he makes the defender feel like he is going to go to that left-handed hookshot, which is his kind of primary offensive game. And he's sweeping from basically the right to left, his right shoulders closest to the basket. And it would, you know, certainly the defender is like, okay, he's going to take that hook shot that I've seen him take so many times. And instead, he pivots off of it, kind of does this little pirouette spin move off of that. And later,

it in the opposite side of the cup. And it's just the growth of his post game is really, really incredible. He's really fun to watch right now. On our offensive game ball for KU, we are going to give it to Flory. I don't know, I thought about giving it to Tiller with the 17 points. Trey White good again as well. And Trey White getting four offensive rebounds like that matters to this as well. But I'm going to give it to Flore. He leads the team in points, 18, shot well, over 50% from the floor. He had three offensive rebounds. So he's getting you extra possessions. And this is the other one, like going back to that Happy learned how to put. Florey can pass, man.

Florey actually wound up leading Kansas and assists. He had five of them. He was throwing out of double teams. Like, that's just going to make KU more and more dangerous because you saw at times Notre Dame throwing doubles and then he'd sling it to the opposite side of the quarter, find Bryson Tiller for a dunk or something. So we're going to give it to Florey for the offensive MVP here. And then the defensive MVP, you know, if you were just talking about the first

at like Marcus Burton for Notre Dame very good guard ended up with 24 points nine of 18 shooting so I can't give it to Melvin counsel and it wasn't always counsel on Burton sometimes like how Marco Jackson was taking him and stuff like that but in the first half like it does it is worth mentioning Marcus Burton was three of 11 in the first half I think part of that was Melvin counsel so I'll give him an honorable mention for that first half defense he also had KU's two only steals of the game but we are going to go Flory for the defense Florey had five blocks like what do you want me to do I mean I'm going to give them both. So that would also mean the overall game ball goes to Florida Padunga.

Okay, let's get into the preview of the Syracuse game next. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And KU takes on Syracuse now. And yeah, Syracuse look really good. It was a loss against Houston. but they end up losing in overtime. Houston's scene is one of the best teams in the country. I was really impressed with the orange in this one. So I don't think this is like you look at Ken Palm right now.

It has Syracuse at 52nd in the country. I think there's a good chance. They actually started the year 68th. So like clearly they are moving up. I think there's a good chance Syracuse ends up being an NCAA tournament team. So take that for what it's worth and the value and comparison of this game. But Red Autry is the head coach for Syracuse. in year three. They went 20 and 12 in year one, 14 and 19, so took a step back in year two.

They went from 80th in Ken Palm in year one to 115 in Ken Palm, but again, now they're in that top 55. A little shortened preview here with the length between games. So we're just going to do two biggest strengths and weaknesses here. For the biggest strength, I think it's their athletic front court. This is a really athletic Syracuse front court. And it gave Houston some problems scoring inside. You think of Houston, you think of with Calvin Sampson, they want to be rugged, they want to be powerful inside. They shut down Houston on the inside. The reason Houston beat Syracuse is actually using 11-3s on 41%. Houston only shot 33% on their two-point shots.

So that should show you the kind of tenacity that Syracuse has inside, but it's the athleticism. William Kyle, 6'9, 2.30, freak athlete. He was like the defensive player of the year in the Summit League. I forget where he transferred to last year. And then transfers to Syracuse this year, didn't totally work out for him last year, but now in a better spot. And he looks like that great athlete. Donnie Freeman is like a 6'9-9-9-4-type, who can kind of do it all and gives him athleticism.

Tyler Betsy at 6-8-2-25. Sadiq White, 6-9-195, like I don't know the pronunciation, but like 6-9-2-25. These are all guys who are springy athletes. And they are just a team that is going to run the bigs that got length. They're going to bother you on the inside. So very impressed. And I think that becomes really interesting with this matchup because Kansas has athletic bigs.

So it's going to kind of be good on good. I don't know. Is that a good thing for Kansas? Because, you know, I'm taking Florey and Bryson Tiller, you know, in a way that, like, I just really like that front court for KU. Or is that a bad thing? Because if it neutralizes in some way, does not having Darren Peterson. and that getting neutralized, does that become a problem for you?

So I think that's going to be very interesting here. But that athletic front court for them, here's where it really shows off. They score 19 fast break points per game, right? Biggs run on the floor. They are number two nationally right now in two point defense. Now, albeit before they played Houston, not really a murderer's row. They beat Binghamton, Delaware State, Drexel and Monmouth. None of those are top 200 teams.

And the Monmouth game, they only won by five. But the Houston game is the one that matters the most, and they shut them down from two. So I do totally buy into that. And then scoring inside, their top 25 nationally in two-point percentage offensively. So that's where you see all of those things kind of come together. Their other biggest strength is their chaos defense, which that also makes sense. If they're an athletic team, if they're a long team, you're probably going to force a lot of blocks and seals.

That's been something Kansas has done well so far this season. That's something Syracuse does well so far this season. Right now they're 17th in the country in block rate. They are 86th percent out or 86th in the country, excuse me, in steel rate. and they are 24th in the country in turnover rate defense. So they force chaos. That'll be a key for Kansas, avoiding that chaos, avoiding turning the ball over and leading to those Syracuse runouts.

Now, you look at the two weaknesses for Syracuse. One of them is actually rebounding. That is one thing you would think, oh, athletic front court. They're probably really good on the offensive glass. I don't know if that's a scheme thing. Maybe they just throw guys back and try to prevent you from because they're not giving up a lot of fast break points per game. So maybe it's more of a scheme thing, at least on the offensive glass.

Defensive glass, I can't really explain that, but they're 190th in the country in offensive rebound rate. They're only 22nd in the country in defensive rebound rate. So here's the problem. Kansas has not been good at getting offensive rebounds this year, but maybe this is the chance to do it. And then shooting has not been a thing for Syracuse this year. Again, like there are a lot of similarities between these two teams overall.

But Syracuse comes into this game. They are right now 241st in the country in three-point percentage. They're only shooting 31.2%. And it's even worse at the free throw line. They're 364th in the country shooting 56.1% at the free throw line. And that honestly, like I mentioned Houston won the game with their three-point shooting. Honestly, you could also say they, Houston won the game by Syracuse ineptitude at the free throw line. Syracuse was 12 of 29 at the free throw line against Houston.

That's 41% on free throws against Houston. And so, you know, do keep that in mind. If this is a close game late, like, there's a chance Syracuse could kind of boof up at the free throw line and give you a chance there. Are there players to watch for Kansas, we're going to go back to the well. Flory Bedonga. It's the obvious choice, but I think it's the right choice as well. Florey has been excellent so far this year.

He's on a heater. And with Darren Peterson out, he kind of needs to continue to carry Kansas in a way. And it's going to be a much tougher matchup. It's going to be a much more like style on style matchup for Flore. And so I think it's going to be interesting how he handles that. and how he deals with that, can you again avoid foul trouble? But Kansas needs Florey to give them 15 to 20 points, give him 8 to 10 rebounds, play that strong defense on the inside.

It's going to be so critical and important for KU again. For Syracuse, we're going to go with Donnie Freeman. Freeman is averaging 17.8 points per game, at least this is before the Houston game. These numbers have not updated, but 5.3 rebounds per game, two and a half assist per game, one steal, and 1.3 blocks per game. So 2.3 stocks per game. This is a player who is just very good and he does a lot of everything. Shooting 50% from the floor, 27 from 3, 78 at the foul line.

Again, just does a little bit of everything for Syracuse and just a very, I don't know, rounded player. Now, one thing that is interesting is that he did not play in the Houston games. I don't know his status coming into this one, but if he goes, that's somebody to watch out for. Now, the other guy that I would mention, just in case he doesn't go, because, again, I don't know the status of him necessarily. Keep an eye on Tyler Betsy. Betsy had 16 points off the bench against Houston. He hit four threes. So for a team that doesn't necessarily hit a lot of three-point shots, he's somebody to keep an eye on, and he is more of kind of a stretch forward.

So it becomes an interesting guard for KU and for any team kind of going up against him. The keys for the KU offense. I think you need to finally get some offensive rebounds in this one. If you're KU, so Kansas came into the day, I don't know where it's going to update, but 18th percentile in the country and offensive rebound rate, but Syracuse is outside the top 200 in defensive rebound rate. And if you look at what Syracuse does well defensively, they limit shots at the rim, they make it hard for you to shoot at the rim,

they force turnovers. Getting those extra possessions might be pretty valuable for Kansas in a game like this, especially when you're not a great three-point shooting team. So maybe this would be the game that you can kind of unleash that a little. do get it is difficult right now without Darren Peterson and in terms of, I don't know, like, I know, I don't know, it's just one of those difficult things where when you look at the style on style here, it becomes more of an issue for KU in terms of like, okay, A, can come to somebody get hot from three, but B, if you're not getting those offensive rebounds,

where are you finding your points? I do think this needs to be one of KU's better offensive rebound games. For the KU defense, I think the interior defense needs to be, I don't know, A plus, whatever. They came into the players era, did Syracuse 78% on shooting at the rim. Okay, so you have to find a way to defend at the rim without fouling. That's going to be the key. Maybe this is a game that Paul NBia plays a little bit more. Who knows?

And then our player matchup of the game, we're going to go with Kai and Anthony versus Col Rosario with Dawson and Peterson Hurt. They need good minutes from Col Rosario. And they haven't really got much on the offensive end, the last two games from Rosario. But we know he's kind of a streaky shooter and a young freshman, like he could have 12 points, one game and three the next. This would be a big game to, you know, get one of those 12. Anthony's been a good player. And obviously, you know, we don't need to bring up any past memories with KU against a member of the Anthony family.

But that certainly adds a little intrigue there. And then our Hawks, the Soar here is Bryson Tiller. Tiller was really good in KU's players' era opener. They do give up a decent amount of shots in terms of attempts in the floater area in the mid-range. And I think of Tiller being somebody who really operates from there. I could see Tiller having another 12, 14, 14, 15 point game for KU. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. So you can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page.

We can like and subscribe to the show. See you tomorrow for a KU-SERCuse recap right here on LOJ.