Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Gradey Dick Goes Pro + Kansas Football Hires Sean Snyder + Kansas Women's Basketball WNIT Champs

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

The latest University of Kansas athletics news from Gradey Dick going pro with the NBA Draft to Kansas Football hiring Sean Snyder, son of Bill Snyder, as an assistant coach and the KU Women's Basketball team defeating Columbia to win the Women's NIT.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Grady Dick turning pro. KU women's basketball team wins the WNIT. KU football makes a power move, bringing on Sean Snyder. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. you can hear me as well rock chalk sports talk monday through friday from 3 to 6 p.m on klwn in lawrence and the best of our cst podcast thanks for tuning in to locked on jayhawks and making locked on jayhawks your first listen day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also subscribe to us on YouTube.

On today's show, we got a lot of KU wrap-up news stuff to get to from over the weekend slash Friday. We're going to get to Grady Dick turning pro, which is what we're going to lead things off with. Sean Snyder, the son of Bill Snyder, is now an assistant coach for the KU football team, and the KU women's basketball team wins the women's NIT against Columbia to claim that title.

This episode of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to start off with the Grady Dick news, though. So Grady Dick decides to go pro. That news came on, what, Friday, that he is going to declare. Now, he didn't officially, when you read the statement, say whether he's going to be retaining his collegiate

eligibility or not, but I guess the point is that he didn't say that, and it probably doesn't matter. Basically, the point is that he's going to go pro. It's pretty much a done deal. The only thing that maybe could, I don't know. I mean, if he enters in and he signs with an agent,

then it doesn't matter either way. But I guess hypothetically, if you were to enter in and you don't wish for this to happen, you hope everybody's okay, but you remember this happened to Brandon Rush. I think he tore his ACL during the pre-draft workouts, ended up having to come back another year for KU, and then came back and obviously won the title

and ended up being a first-round pick. You hope that doesn't have to happen for Grady Dick, but I would assume that, yeah, he's going to be gone. It's official. So as far as the legacy, I guess, that he leaves, it's hard to say legacy for a one-year player. But clearly a fan favorite, a guy who was really fun to watch in his one year at KU,

he will consistently be put on those short lists of who are the best freshmen in Bill Self's time at KU, who are the best one-and-dones in KU history. He'll be on that list. I don't know if he'll be at the top. There's some good names that are on that list. You have Josh Jackson to Andrew Wiggins to Joel Embiid, Xavier Henry. It depends how you look at Ben McElmore with the redshirt season. There were some other really good one-and-done players in KU's time,

but he's certainly on that short list of those top players with what he was able to do, shooting over 40% from three as a freshman. KU needed him to come in because it wasn't a great shooting team around him. The players around Grady Dick shot 32% from three this year. They needed him to kind of carry their water with the three-point shooting. And a lot of times you saw in the games that KU struggled were the games that he wasn't able to get free from three, or he wasn't able to launch up a bunch of shots. And because of that, KU, the rest of the team wasn't as good of a three-point

shooting team, and it really hurt them. But the fact that he was able to carry that weight as a young freshman, usually a lot of times the shooting is what takes a little bit longer to come around as a freshman but that's obviously his calling card and he was really impressive in his one year at KU I think the idea when he first came to school was maybe this would be a two-year thing for him obviously things changed he ended up being a second team all big 12 pick by that notion top 10 player in the big 12 as just a freshman we talked about last week the decision most of the mock drafts or big boards have him kind of between that like number nine to number 11 range in the draft he'll be making a lot of money and

certainly you wish him well and it'll be cool to see his progression in the pros because i think there's a lot more to his game than just being a three-point shooter. And I think you'll see that added by, you know, you're going to look at his game in four or five years and be like, man, he's such a complete scorer that I think he'll be able to add to that over the course of his time in the NBA. As far as where the view, obviously, you know, so it's not one of those things where you went into this decision going oh no this blindsided us how are we going to like you've been planning for this happening and having to get

over this for a little bit of time now right and so already and we've talked about this, like my immediate worry, I guess, for this next year's KU men's basketball team is that is the shooting going to be good enough, right? Are they going to have enough shooting? Because if you have DeJuan Harris, KJ Adams at the four, Ernest Duda at the five, unless KJ like balloons into being a big three-point shooter, which I think that would be a little bit unexpected. It's tough to see how that works shooting wise. Now you go back to the team two years ago, the one, the title, you saw DeJuan Harris,

the point guard is your starter. Okay. DeJuan Harris is your point guard and your starter. Your power forward was Jalen Wilson, which Jalen this past year shot 33, 34% from three, but Jalen Wilson in the championship season was shooting like 26 27 from three and then your center david mccormick was a non-three-point shooter you were able to be a good enough three-point shooting team because you had two guys who could come off the bench and

hit threes uh jaylen coleman lands and at the end of the season remy martin and your two other starters were snipers now christian brown he didn't it was funny over the course of his ku career people were like no shoot more christian shoot more threes because you're such a good three-point shooter uh but ochi was obviously like shooting a ton high volume at super high efficiency so basically basically what that means for ku is that if that is going to be a starting lineup this year dewan harris with earnest due day kj adams those two and three men better be snipers from the outside there's some targets they're going after like the nick timberlake kid from from i think towson he

would be a perfect fit for that to come in and help you with that but that's what you're going to be searching for you need shooters right now there's real questions about the shooting on next year's team there's also questions about who are going to play the wing minutes for this team now if kj does move to the four you could him 10, 15, 20 minutes per game at the four. Elmarco Jackson might be giving you 20, 25 minutes per game as a guard next to DeJuan Harris, which means that you have him at the two, and now there's less minutes that you have to give out at the wing

with the three, part of the two position, part of the four position. So there's less minutes than you might think with kevin jalen and grady going pro i guess we are kind of waiting on the decision of both kevin and jalen jalen obviously that's like a hundred percent chance that that he's going to go pro with kevin maybe there is a little bit of leeway there maybe there is a little bit room of i don't know could he come back i'm not expecting it but i don't know maybe there is a you know i said 10 for grady dick maybe it's 15 maybe it's i don't know. Could he come back? I'm not expecting it, but I don't know. Maybe there is a, you know, I said 10% for Grady Dick, maybe it's 15%. Maybe it's, I don't know, even less than that 5%. I don't know for Kevin McCuller. Um, so you're, you're kind of just trying to figure out what

the transfer portal now get enough shooting and get wings specifically wings that can shoot. Those are the two things that I think you're really going after at this point in time, because of the departure again, not unexpected, but certainly if you were clinging to any hope that Grady Dick would come back and this team would all of a sudden be, you know, they would have that shooting checked off because you would have one of the best shooters in the country. That is no longer the case. Now you clearly have work to do from here on, but again, not unexpected work from where KU has been. All right, in just a second, we're going to get on to the news of KU football, making the hire of Sean Snyder with Locked on Jayhawks.

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Now, Lance Leipold, Sean Snyder met with the media on Saturday, and Leipold basically said they tried to bring him on last year, but he ended up going to Illinois. So they bring him on this point point and at this point in time like most of the staff most are hey this is your job like we don't really have anything open so the official title there is just like assistant to the head coach um which i think is more of like it's you know in the office it's like assistant to the regional manager i don't think it's like that in terms of the title meaning nothing, but I think it's a little bit like that in terms of just like,

hey, we don't really have a job open for you right now, but we know that you are helpful. We know that we can bring you, like, just come on, we'll create a title for you, and then if special teams coordinator opens up or whatever in a year or something like that, then we'll fit you into that role it's just right now we're in the middle of spring ball all our coaching positions are filled here's the title we're going to give you for this point in time but you're still going to have a big role

in what you do for this team and as far as what that role is well first of all uh sean snyder and clearly this goes back to the bill snyder days because he is the the son of bill snyder which adds a lot of entry here um was always known for great special teams at Kansas State. And to be clear, Kansas State still had a really good special teams unit last year. This is not just specific to Snyder coach teams. Kansas State just continues to have great special teams. But clearly, Sean Snyder knows how to work special teams units, had really good ones at Kansas State when he was the special teams coordinator.

Goes to USC, I think that was in 2020, and they had one of the best, if not the best, special teams units in the country. Then he goes to Illinois last year. They had kind of a middle of the pack. I think by one metric, they were ranked 68th in the country in special teams units. So about average on the season, which, which you know for KU last year who was not good at it a jump to average would be a huge increase in what they could be in terms of special teams and then you look at some of the specialists they've added from the kicking game to the Australian kid they're bringing in over the summer to punt this could be a much improved

special teams unit for KU next season he's going going to help with that. Now, he wasn't listed as a special teams coordinator, but when you look at that being his background, it's pretty clear he is going to help out in the special teams versus phase. And there were a lot of KU fans that deservedly still, when KU struggled so mightily last season with their special teams, pointing the finger to be like, well, why is there not an actual special teams coordinator?

Because right now it's two of the assistant coaches for KU Taiwo Onotolu is one of them who coaches the DNs and then he splits up special teams duties with other assistant coaches and so having this one guy who can kind of focus on some of that stuff even though that's not his official title is going to help them immensely in that area now one of the things that Lance Leipold said at his presser on Saturday with Sean Snyder was that Sean Snyder is also going to help out with some recruiting stuff, which I found that to be very, very interesting

and impactful for KU. Obviously, the Bill Snyder name runs thick through the state of Kansas with high schools, with recruits, knowing who he is, what he stands for, and having his son go out there to be able to establish in-state connections and further Kansas trying to recruit in the state of Kansas. I mean, that is gigantic. That is gigantic to whether it's just getting him in a building to, you know, be like, hey, I'm Sean Snyder. Like, will you meet with me about this kid?

Or, you know, to a recruit, I'm Sean Snyder. I'm the son of Bill Snyder. Like, I've coached now at both schools in the state of Kansas. Can I meet with your kid? Like, those things are very, very impactful. And for Kansas, I think this staff has done a much better job than previous staffs at trying hard to establish connections in the state of Kansas. And I know there were some things last offseason about like that,

oh, well, there were some flaws with this or that within state or that you had this big recruiting class in state for the 2023 class and Kansas didn't have any commits until they got the flips from Calvin Clements and Jane and Ham um and that yeah they're still like falling behind in that area but it's like they're fighting an uphill battle Kansas has been so bad at football for such a long time all the kids growing up watching Kansas State be really good for a long period of time in Kansas be bad they're fighting that uphill battle but they've done a good job of trying getting out to all these schools and doing their best um and this just adds to that this shows a commitment to that

in-state recruiting which i think is very very important for ku so you love the hire i think from from that standpoint like forget the notion of just the the funny aspect of this of being bill snyder's son coming over to k just from areas of weakness for KU special teams and trying to improve in-state recruiting which I wouldn't call that a weakness but it's clearly something you're trying to make inroads on and haven't been as good as like a Kansas State this is a perfect hire for that notion and you heard the comment from Sean Snyder saying that you know he wanted to be with people who are all in the right direction and coaching staffs like that and I think that's

what this is that there is a respect level from the snyder family because you know sean snyder is his own man he can it's not like bill snyder is going to be like you know oh you're grounded you can't coach kansas right like he's a 50 year old man right he can do what he wants um but i i would imagine like you know you have those conversations with your dad who is such a legend at k-state the stadium is named after him to where you know, you have those conversations with your dad, who is such a legend at K-State. The stadium is named after him to where, you know, you're like, is this going to make things awkward for you at all? And is this the wrong move for me? Is this the right move for me? Right. Like I talk to my parents when you're talking about like job stuff.

And I think that there is a level of respect with Bill Snyder and Sean Snyder and that family, clearly, with Lance Leipold and what the staff is now trying to do at KU. I think for the longest time, there have been a lot of coaches at KU who just didn't get it. Lance Leipold is a worker. He is a grinder. He's not about the flash. He's not about the here or there. He is about doing the work and putting together a good program the right way. I think there are some similarities in terms of how they went about it between those guys that there is a level of

respect there which makes this higher so it'll just be kind of funny to figure out like will bill snyder show up wearing ku gear will bill snyder uh tweet out about like good job for ku and the special teams or whatever it is like he's done with some of the past teams for sean snyder how awkward are the thanksgiving dinner is going to be? It's just, it's going to be very funny. Kind of from that standpoint, which adds another layer to this.

That is great. I think for the, the, the rivalry between the two schools that I think is great for just the sport and in the big 12, like it's another storyline. I think it's fun. It's funny.

It's adds to KU, just trying to be a better football team. So there's a lot of different notions as part of it that I thought were very, very interesting there. All right, we're going to finish up this episode of Locked on Jayhawks talking about the KU women's basketball team. The KU women's basketball team is women's NIT champions. They take down Columbia 66-59.

Good Columbia team. They came in at 28-5 on the season. They had the lead 16-15 after the first quarter, but KU really dominated inside 24-10 in points in the paint, led 10-2 in fast break points when they were able to get out in the open floor. And the defense, as it was really for the entire WNIT, was stellar. You uh down in in shooting the ball they were just 30.9 percent from the field they shot just nine of 34 from three k you didn't have a great offensive game for really the second straight game like washington in the previous game had a good defense and you know okay you only had 30 or 61 points this game k you only shot 33 percent from the floor 33 percent

from three they grinded out they got to the free throw line they're hit they hit their free throws uh tayana jackson a beast against 17 points 21 rebounds and three blocks inside you got 12 more from wyvett mayberry um 19 from zakaya franklin and callie holly kersketer gets to go out with a win on her home floor you had almost 12 000 people in attendance to the game that was really cool to see hopefully that carries over to next season where you start seeing some really good attendance numbers for ku because if they do i mean you're talking from just a recruiting standpoint the ku women's team uses like all the same facilities uh basically they're playing it out in field house all this stuff that the men's team uses and the men's team typically gets all

these good recruits and stuff and there is a bit of history there with the KU men's team having more history but it's not like the KU women's team hasn't had good history with Lynette Woodard and some of the things that they've done in the past winning all these big 12 titles and stuff in like the 90s that if you start getting that type of crowd attendance for Allen Fieldhouse maybe KU women's team can start landing more of these I know they have Samaya Nichols coming on as a five-star crew maybe they can land more of these five-star recruits these top 10 top 15 recruits and that would be a very big deal because you see the woman's final four going on and what caitlin clark is doing and undefeated south carolina now they're playing lsu and wouldn't it be cool for ku to get to that level and there there's no

reason they couldn't if they get the right crowd attendance and support from the donors and the fan base and everything and what's cool about this woman's nit it gives an opportunity for teams that have players coming back i mean it is cool too for the seniors to get to play extra games like holly kersketer but there are a lot of players for ku that can come back next year they'll be missing holly kersketer but guess what zakai franklin can use her covet year diana jackson can use her her COVID year and have one extra season. Wyvett Mayberry can be back next year. Chandler Prater will be a senior next year.

There are a lot of key players for KU that should and could be back next season. These extra games, these extra practices could be really beneficial. We were talking with Brandon Schneider on Rock Chalk Sports Talk last week, and he mentioned that Arizona, just a few years ago, won the NIT. Very next year, they were playing for the national title game. If you have the right growth and commitment from your players and you make the right additions in the offseason, you can make that big leap next season.

I mean, look at the men's game, too. The NIT finalists from last season, it was Xavier beating Texas A&M. All of a sudden, A&M jumped to being a top 25 team that was a seven seed that a lot of people thought were underseeded. Xavier went from being the NIT winners to being a three seed in the NCAA tournament and making the Sweet 16. You can make a big run off this and use it as a launching pad, and that's what could be cool off of it. Yeah, it was disappointment for KU not to

make the tournament, but if now they make the tournament next year and they're better than ever because of it and they get more long-term experience and extra practices than if they would have lost in, say, the first round, this could be a long-term huge win for Brandon Schneider and the program at KU. All right, that's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back tomorrow

with an episode with Nick Schwartz. Have a good rest of your day, wherever you get any of your podcasts. Later!