Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - HOT PURSUIT: International Bigs Kansas Jayhawks Should Explore Like Bassala Bagayoko & Pavle Backo

Starting point is 00:00:00 Let's go study abroad who are some names from international players that KU should be targeting as they look to fill out their roster. 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. Today's episode's brought to you by Odu. Great organizers win because operations matter. And that's why you should get Odu. Try it for free at O'Don. Odo.com slash locked on. That is ODOO.com slash locked on. We're going to break down the Brendan Swordsby latest news of Cincinnati and why KU was screwed as a part of that from last year. And we'll start right here with a little studying abroad for KU.

Starting point is 00:00:51 Taking a look at some players that I think would make sense for KU as international big men targets for them to maybe kick the tires on. Now, the difficulty of the international recruiting is one. You have to have the right contact. You have to have the right, you know, agent contacts or coach contact for them to trust you to come over. What's the money going to be about to leave a club where you're probably getting paid? What's going to be the deal with eligibility? It wouldn't shock me if we see some more international signings for teams in July after they vote on some of this stuff at the end of the month here.

Starting point is 00:01:29 So there are some complications here. And I'm also not entirely sure how much KU was interested in these players. that we have seen them. They haven't been like a like Arizona and Gonzaga and some of these schools have had so much success with overseas players. That hasn't been the case for KU, but Kansas has actually done a pretty good job at picking and choosing the occasional international player who has worked out pretty well.

Starting point is 00:01:53 Like you go back to Sasha Kahn in the early days for Bill Self at Kansas. You look at Svema Kailuk, you look at, I guess Johnny Furphy from Australia. Like they have been able to, I guess Paul M. B. they've been able to pick and choose occasional guys here, right? And can they do that again this year? Now, I don't think there was a KU coach at the Adidas Eurocamp, which that is wild to me. I don't know, maybe you're working in the shadows or maybe it just wasn't there. But like, I think if you're waiting to get Malikyu ineligible, okay, that hopefully happens,

Starting point is 00:02:27 but it might not. So your other best option might be going internationally. So who are some of the top big men available? We'll maybe get into wings and guards available overseas on a different episode, but I just wanted to focus on the bigs because that is kind of the position of most prevalent and most need right now for Kansas, both from a standpoint of depth and ability to upgrade a position with some potential win now talent, right? The first guy that I'll get to is Basala Baga Yoko. He is a 6'10, 210 pound forward slash center from Molli. He'll be 20 years old in September. He just withdrew from the NBA draft process.

Starting point is 00:03:12 And I don't know. This is an unofficial report, so it might not be fully added up, but that he, I mean, when you watch him, you see really long arms. I saw a report mentioning a seven foot six wing span, which, I mean, if that's correct, like you could be talking about, hey, you want a cheaper, you know, knock off. Like you want, you want, you want Dr. K. instead of Dr. Pepper of Flory Bodunga, like maybe that is Bagayoko, right? And he, the stats don't jump off the page, but that's going to be the case for a lot of these

Starting point is 00:03:44 guys depending on are you playing at the junior level or at the senior level, right? Because he played 48 games averaging 4.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and a stock per game. But that's just 14 minutes per game on 59% shooting, playing in the top Spanish league, which if you're ranking the different leagues, like the Euro. league is the best because it is a combination of the best teams in each league in Europe playing against each other, right, outside of the NBA. But if you're just looking at like which country has the best league, it's probably the Spanish league, you would probably say is number one. And he was playing in that league on the senior team playing a lot of games. So, I mean, he's super

Starting point is 00:04:29 lengthy. He moves super well, really good athlete. Like this would be one that if you brought in, I would expect him to be your starter. Now, another guy that I would put in that category of, I would expect him to come in and be your starter, is Pavl'Baco, and he is a 6'11 big man. He'll be 19 years old in July. Very different player from Baguiojoko. Baguioko is more of your rim runner,

Starting point is 00:04:53 your shot blocker and rebounder and lengthy armed and everything. Baco is more of your skilled center, right? he was the back-to-back Adriatic Junior League MVP. Now, again, if we're looking at what are the best leagues, different countries, the Adriatic League is a good league. It's not as good as the Spanish League per se, but it is still a solid league. He was at the junior level there where he won those MVP's, but he actually did get some senior league run this season two.

Starting point is 00:05:20 He played 25 games with 16 starts on the senior team, which just to make it to the senior team when you're an 18, 19-year-old is really good because that's a bunch of, you know, there's 25 to 30-year-old professionals on those teams. And he produced too on the senior team. You're talking over 12 points, over four rebounds, over a block per game and under 20 minutes per game. He also shot 54% from the floor, 381 at the foul line. Now, I'm not saying he's Nicola Yokic. That would be blasphemy. But the playing style is more Yokic, a big man who's going to be skilled offensively, not the most fleet of foot or most athletic, but he's a really skilled player. Whereas the Baga Yoko, it's more of that again,

Starting point is 00:06:00 not saying he's this player, just the playing style is more similar to Flory. So kind of pick and choose, but honestly, if you brought in either one, I would expect either one to be starting for you at the center position. Now, this next guy, I just classified these as bigs. This guy, I don't really think is a center. He's more of a four man, but you could theoretically play him some minutes of the five. This would more so be if you're like, hey, I don't know what to do at the center position. Like maybe we just steer into Keanu Dawes more to small ball five and you just play

Starting point is 00:06:29 super athletic lineup with like stokes and then this guy Cameron who window he is a six foot nine athletic forward who can realistically play the three through five I think you mostly would want him as a four um he's from France you won't turn 19 until January and he actually got some some run with his senior team too at the Adriatic league and the Euro Cup um but between his 27 games at the senior level and the 11 games he played at the junior level for that team he averaged over eight points per game. You're talking 15 minutes per game. Three point seven rebounds, point seven blocks shot 50% right. And he is a really good athlete. Somebody who would be a good athlete for fours. He'd be a solid athlete for threes. Honestly, there is some similarities between his game and Keanu Daw's game where

Starting point is 00:07:17 you could just say, hey, one of them's the four, one of them's the five. Whoindo would be the better shot blocker. Who windows a good rebounder, but Dawes would be the better rebounder of the two. like you could make that work and just be a run-and-gun athletic team who's going to get out and, you know, in specific matchups when you're playing bigger centers. Maybe that is a game where Mbia and Reeves end up playing more. But he's just a really good player that would more so be about, hey, if we want an impact player, let's just add him and figure out how it fits later. Now, this next guy can play the four or the five, and that's Lee Alia.

Starting point is 00:07:50 He's a six-foot-nine, 225-pound big man from Argentina. he actually committed to Michigan back in 2023, didn't work out for whatever reason. Now he's going to turn 22 this November. He is coming off an injury season, but came back later in the year, ended up in the 10 games he played really good. It was in the Spanish League, only the Junior League for the Spanish League, though. But again, good to be in the Junior League of at least it is, you know, the Spanish League. But 18.4 points, 9.6 rebounds, three stocks per game on 56% shooting at the junior level. he would be somebody who I think could come in and be good competition to start for you at the five potentially.

Starting point is 00:08:29 And then the last guy to get to here is Zhu Zen. I don't know if it's Zhu Xin, but he is a 7 foot five, 250 pound center from China. He is actually playing in the top Chinese league right now. He is soon to be 23 years old in December, so he might only have one year. but he averaged 11 points on 72% shooting 8.4 rebounds, two blocks per game in the Chinese professionally, which isn't the best league that's out there, but there's usually, like I think each team has a lot of like three pros or like three non-Chinese players on their team or something.

Starting point is 00:09:04 And like I was just looking back at some of his box scores. Like for instance, the last game that Jin played of the season, he went up against Jared Solinger, who obviously was, you know, an all American college player and now is a veteran, you know, playing who played in the NBA for a while and has been overseas for a while. And he went up against him and held Solinger to 11 points on five of 13 shooting,

Starting point is 00:09:27 whilst Jin had 13 points and 11 rebounds. So, I mean, if you just make that comparison, I know it doesn't work that way. And you said, hey, you're getting a player who's as good as Jared Solinger right now. And you say Solinger was an All-American. Oh, he's going to be an All-American. Again, it doesn't work that way. But he would be somebody who is so gigantic that, you know, you would continue to just add more and more size to the team.

Starting point is 00:09:47 I thought I saw a rumor that BYU is in pretty tight with him, but we'll see there. I would also mention I would put Momo Faye and Igor Rizov in this list of players that I would expect to come in and maybe be the favorite to be your starter. But it sounds like Faye is a heavy favorite to go to Texas Tech. And then it sounds like Rizoff is going to be going to Yukon. But, you know, I guess if something changed last minute and you can get one of those guys, they would apply as well. All right. Let's get into some other names of players that maybe wouldn't be. guys that I would expect to be starters necessarily, but at least could play a role on the

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Starting point is 00:11:55 Dot supercast.com. Locked on Jayhawks. Dot supercast. Dot com. Okay, some other names that, and again, these are not ones that, like,

Starting point is 00:12:04 there's been like no reported interest from KU overseas. Now, that could be because they just haven't had any. That could also be because like, there's a, things are a lot more quiet

Starting point is 00:12:14 when you recruit overseas in terms of stuff getting out or not. You know what I mean? So for only know, KU has contacted or been in the works with an international player, we just have no idea who, or maybe not at all, right? Possible to know.

Starting point is 00:12:28 Here's another name, though, and these are more names that would need some development, but if things hit right away, they could at least be a rotation player. John Kuch Mock is a 7 foot six, yes, seven foot six with a 7 foot eight wingspan center from Australia. He was in the second league in Australia. It won't turn 19 until October, but he just played in the Adidas Euro camp, which was a combination of like some of these young international prospects, some of these like OTE guys. We saw like Jvonne Bardwell playing in the event, right?

Starting point is 00:13:01 Like Jalen Rose's kid who just got a KU offer, he was playing in the event and did really well. So Mock in this event, playing against other good prospects, 16 minutes per game, he averaged 5.7 points on 75% shooting, 5.3 rebounds in an insane three blocks per game in just 16 minutes. So think about that. If you extrapolated those numbers to him playing 30, two minutes a game, which I know he wouldn't.

Starting point is 00:13:24 That puts him on pace for 11.5, 10 and a half, 10 and 6 per game. He's gigantic. Now, he is, he's rail thin. Like, I would be worried about him just breaking in general. But like, I don't know, if you, again, you just want to get huge. You want to get more shot blocking. You could do worse, right? Messy Yangala is a 6 foot 8 French forward again.

Starting point is 00:13:46 This would more so be in the vein of like Huendo, who's more of a foreman if you're accepting more of, hey, let's just add the best player we can and figure it out from there. If we have to play more small, we play more small, right? But he's 6'8 French forward. He'll turn 17 in a few days, which the beauty of adding the Angola means you would get him for two years. Well, I guess he could transfer or wherever, but like he couldn't go to the NBA for at least two more years, right?

Starting point is 00:14:12 And he was playing at the French youth level, which the French league's really good as well, but he was playing at the youth level. He averaged 10 points, 5.2 rebounds per game, 47% shooting. he goes to the Adidas Next Gen tournament. Not to be confused with the Adidas Eurocamp. Eurocamp was the one that just kind of happened a couple weeks ago. Next Gen is like this, I don't know if it's a showcase or exhibition or tournament, what you would call it, but basically just guys that Adidas is highlighting as like these next, next up type prospects and young players overseas that they want to showcase.

Starting point is 00:14:43 So he participated in that when he was 16 years old and he had 14 points and six rebounds. This is a player who you could bring in, and he might not have a role this year, but probably has a very high potential. That would be more of a kind of Sveh McIloop, not type player, but type of move, I think, for KU, but potentially could deepen your rotation this year. Peter Bielitsa is a 6'9 forward slash center from Serbia. He won't turn 18 until February. So he's got a while for that. So again, another guy where, like, you're getting really young and trying to, develop him. And in that Adidas next-gen tournament, he was averaging 8.7.5 rebounds per game,

Starting point is 00:15:24 shot 55% on twos. In the Serbian Junior League, he was put up 13.7 boards per game. So productive player, just a question of how would that translate to better competition. And then, I don't know if it's Oginen, Ognen, O-G-J-N-J-E-N. I have no idea how to pronounce that. Anyway, Nikolich is the last name. He is a really mobile 6-foot-10. Serbian big man. You just turned 20 at the end of May. You're talking over 13 points, almost seven rebounds per game and two and a half assists per game of the Serbian Junior League.

Starting point is 00:15:57 So good feel from a big man at the Adidas Euro camp about 15 minutes per game. You're talking about eight points, five rebounds, 69% from the floor. Again, a guy that would come in. And I don't know that I would pick him to beat out, you know, Mbia and Reeves, but it would give you another center on the roster with potential that if it comes together or give you a different look or at least give you another. kind of body in there. And then here's some older prospects that those guys would be more, you know, if you bring them in and you get something out of them right away, great. If not,

Starting point is 00:16:26 then, you know, they do have ceilings that you can develop to. These next group of players, I just have a couple here are players that are a little bit older that you would want to contribute right away, but they're not in that same tier of the first segment we did of guys that like, I would feel pretty good about them coming in. And here's the first one. Leonardo O'KK, He is a 6'11, 215 pounds center from Italy. He'll turn 23 in July. So if the new 5 and 5 thing passes, it probably would be his only year in college. He played in the top Italian league this year, though, after a year before where he was at the junior level, year before that, he was at the senior level.

Starting point is 00:17:04 So he does have recent reps playing at the highest level in Italy, which again, Italy is not the Spanish League or the Turkish League. It's a fine league. But at least he was playing in the senior league, right? going against adults, 30-year-olds. And so in 22 games there at the senior league, talking eight minutes per game, lower end rotation guy, 2.6 points, 2.4 rebounds per game on 56%. But to show you the level of competition here,

Starting point is 00:17:31 you know, even though this isn't the Spanish League, like I said, like here's some of the recognizable college basketball names, just on his team, for instance. Xavier Sneed, former K-State Wildcat, Eric Green, who was like a 20-point per game score for Virginia Tech and ended up being a second round draft pick of the Nuggets. Chris Chioza from Florida who hit one of their big shots and in one of their runs they had recently.

Starting point is 00:17:53 Jacob Gileard, who's a Kansas City kid, who went to Richmond and upset that Iowa team in the year, KU won the title a few years ago. Umar Balo, remember the big man for Arizona who's really productive. He's actually ahead of OKK in the rotation there. So like point being, it's not like he's behind nobody. Like if you're behind Omar Balo, okay, Umar Balo was like a, I don't know, he wasn't an all-American, probably an all-conference, big man. So if O'KKK comes over and he has one year, okay, maybe he's not all-conference,

Starting point is 00:18:23 but can he at least be a rotational player? Yeah, I think that'd be possible, right? And then the last guy here is Yonnik and Soza. He is a 6'10, 200-pound center who was the actually 54th pick in the 2022 NBA draft of the Wizards. Didn't come over. Now, I don't like it. You probably don't like it.

Starting point is 00:18:42 But guess what? Baylor opened the floodgates with the James Nashy thing. So here we go. But he'll be 23 in November. I want to say he was actually on the same team as Silvio to Sosa, and then Silvio ended up going to a different club. But at one point in time, they were together. So maybe there's some sort of contact you can have there, right?

Starting point is 00:18:57 We played a limited role. He was on the senior team in the Spanish League, right? Seven minutes per game, 28 games. It's not huge stats, 2.6 points, 57%. But the fact, he was on the senior team playing against, you know, real pros and stuff. like the Spanish senior league is going to be better competition than the NCAA in theory, I would imagine, right?

Starting point is 00:19:19 So you would think that would translate over a little bit for KU. All right. So those are some names to keep an eye on. Maybe we'll do a guards in a Wings episode coming up at some point here. We'll see if KU gets involved in anybody. I do think there is some opportunity there. But can Kansas make a move? I think they certainly need to with two scholarships open.

Starting point is 00:19:36 Meanwhile, KU football screwed over by Brendan Sorsby. And now we have further proof that since, Cincinnati was in the wrong. We'll get to that next. Thanks for joining us on Locked on Jayhawks. Did you know Kansas was screwed over by Cincinnati and Brendan Soresby? So we all know the Sorsby's story at this point, at least if you don't, you've been on vacation or under a rock or both. And when you look at Sorsby, he's now going off to the NFL supplemental draft. We've talked a lot about what this means for college. And obviously nothing ends up mattering there. But the thing that I'm really interested in with the ties to KU specifically was that can't, Kansas played Sorsby and Cincinnati just this past season in 2025, right? And I mentioned this before, more so in passing, because we didn't know if Cincinnati knew or not, right?

Starting point is 00:20:29 That if Sorsby, if they did know and Sorsby wasn't eligible, Kansas is going to a bowl game. And quite honestly, like, I don't know, does it change the trajectory of the season for KU? Is that going too far? I don't know. But here's what would happen today. This was on 1053, The Fan, I would assume in Cincinnati. And they had on Brendan Sorsby's agent, Ron Slaven, Ron Slavin, Ron Slavin, who claimed that Cincinnati knew about the gambling edition and took no action.

Starting point is 00:21:01 He said, quote, if anybody should be questioned or catching heat, it should be Cincinnati. Because they knew for two years and never said anything or didn't do anything about it. That's the part of the story that gets lost. Now, there's a lot to this. I think Cincinnati came out and said that they got an alert that he was trying to sign up for like prize picks. They asked him about it, didn't go anywhere, and then they didn't get any other alerts. Who knows? The truth somewhere in the middle is the truth on one side or whatever.

Starting point is 00:21:29 There's also the element of this where it's like there's probably bad blood here, right? Soresby leaves Cincinnati. Cincinnati was trying to get, I'd assume now they can't since he's off to the NFL, but I was trying to get like a million dollar buyout essentially for him leaving in an N. and going to Texas Tech. So there's a lot of bad blood here. And obviously the conspiracy theorist, if you want to put on the tinfoil hat, honestly, I don't think this is that crazy of a theory, the idea that Cincinnati, especially now that

Starting point is 00:21:57 we knew they at least knew a little bit, was the one who leaked this because they were upset that he was going to tech and they weren't getting the buyout money, right? So anyway, who knows what happens there. But again, how this pertains to Kansas. So Kansas was five and seven last season, right? And they did get invited to a bowl game. They obviously declined it. I thought they should have accepted the bowl game.

Starting point is 00:22:18 The rest is history. But the big reason why they didn't accept the bowl game is because at that point, when the bull offer came in, they had already basically, I don't know, spread out as a team. They had already gotten to a point where the season's over, like move on. Some guys aren't entering the portal or ready to leave. Wouldn't have had a full roster versus if you would have actually been six and six going to bowl season, you would have expected to play, and it would have led to, I would imagine, different results, and you probably would have actually played in the game, right?

Starting point is 00:22:46 So you go back to, I think it was week five, week four of the season, whatever it was for KU, because I guess they played week zero. Cincinnati beats Kansas in Lawrence 3734. And if we just want to take the individual role, like if you don't want to play the game of how does that change the season, like does KU's momentum, was that the start of things dropping down for KU. Would this have built up more momentum? It's possible. If we just want to say it wouldn't have in that we're just the one game different results, the difference of KU winning or losing that Cincinnati game was bull eligibility. Kansas beats Cincinnati there instead of five and seven,

Starting point is 00:23:27 now they're six and six. Now they're bull eligible. And you can say, oh, you know, in the world of college football playoff, like, oh, you're making a big deal about getting bull eligible. Yes, I am, because it is Kansas football. And we have never seen the Kansas football program make three. consecutive bowl games, right? Not that that's what would have happened here, but like, this is not a bowl rich history for KU football. So you're dang right. I would have liked to see them playing a bowl game. And that's before even getting into the idea of potentially lost revenue in a day and age where, hey, revenue is super important, especially for Kansas, who's, you know, financially in a bit of shaky times right now. That's not even taken into account

Starting point is 00:24:04 the extra practices that you would get. And hey, look at this. Kansas has a lot of young players and a quarterback competition coming into this year. Don't you think that extra, those extra practice days would have been valuable. Heck, what if Jalen Daniels would have just said, hey, I'm not going to play in the bowl game and I'm going to allow these young quarterbacks with Isaiah Marshall and Cole Ballard to battle it out in a bowl game, kind of an exhibition feel to allow to get some on tape reps and opportunity for those guys to get the quarterback competition started. That would have been valuable to KU, but instead they don't make a bowl game because you played

Starting point is 00:24:38 again. And like, here's the other thing. It's not like Kansas lost this game 10 to 7. It's not like Kansas lost a defensive slug fest or a game where they just couldn't score. The reason Kansas lost to Cincinnati was not because of the offense. Jalen Daniels had 445 yards with four touchdowns. Kansas average 5.6 yards on the ground rushing. Emmanuel Henderson had 214 receiving yards for KU.

Starting point is 00:25:03 The reason they lost the game is because the defense could not stop Cincinnati. And I get it. The defense was not very good last season for Kansas. It didn't stop a lot of teams. And it didn't help that you gave up 215 rushing yards. But if Cincinnati doesn't have Brendan Sorsby, a good quarterback, and let's say, like, I don't know, I can't imagine their backup would have been as good as Brendan Sorsby, obviously, right?

Starting point is 00:25:25 If they have just a league average quarterback, is he putting up a game in Lawrence that Brendan Sorsby did, which was throw for 388 yards on nine yards per attempt, two touchdowns, no interceptions, run for 52 more, with a game. an 84.6 QBR. I would venture to guess that the other quarterback is not playing that well. And basically what it took with the way that Jalen Daniels played and the KU offense played in this game, Cincinnati's offense, Cincinnati's quarterback had to be darn near perfect for them to win this game in Lawrence. And they got that performance because Soresby has that ability. With another guy, he probably doesn't. And so Kansas probably wins that game without Brendan Sorsby. So that sucks,

Starting point is 00:26:03 because Kansas is a direct result of missing a bowl game last year because of this whole Sorsby situation. Now, I've seen some people be like they should sue Cincinnati for lost damages. And okay, first of all, I am one of these people. I'm just like, do we have to sue about everything? And like, I see the Wild West in college sports. But then again, I guess it's the trend. So you might as well do it. And I get it. I'm upset about it too. I think it sucks. I think you got screwed over. But I wouldn't sue because like, are we going to go back in the years that like, like, for for instance, in 2018, when KU played Silvio to Sosone is ineligible, how would you have felt if those schools would have sued Kansas and been like, oh, you took a win from us? And I get it. Those are different situations. Like, gambling on your team is different than paying players, which Sylvia was getting paid, which is now totally illegal. And to be honest, I never really had a problem with to begin with versus gambling on your team has always been a no-no. So they are different situations. But I guess point being like, we don't need to sue for everything. We don't need to be Texas Tech and take everything to litigation.

Starting point is 00:27:10 I just want to be acknowledged that KU got screwed here. And that's the story. I'm sticking to it. All right, that'll do it for this episode, 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. We will see you next time for a Football Friday episode right here on L.O.J.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - HOT PURSUIT: International Bigs Kansas Jayhawks Should Explore Like Bassala Bagayoko & Pavle Backo

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