Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - How Should Bill Self BUILD THE ROSTER around Darryn Peterson After Learning Key Lessons This Season

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Kansas Jayhawks basketball faces a pivotal moment. Can they overcome offensive challenges to reclaim their championship glory? What lessons have they learned from a tumultuous season and how can Bill Self take those into building future KU rosters, including around 5-star guard Darryn Peterson next season? The hosts dissect the season's key takeaways, focusing on the importance of shooting efficiency and roster dynamics. They explore how Bill Self's coaching might shape future successes, especially with Peterson's versatile skills. The discussion also highlights the potential of an all-time Bill Self Kansas transfer team, featuring names like Remy Martin, Jeff Withey, Hunter Dickinson, Dedric Lawson and Malik Newman, and evaluates current player performances, including Dajuan Harris, Zeke Mayo, Flory Bidunga and AJ Storr.Join the conversation to uncover how the Jayhawks can navigate their path to success and what changes might be on the horizon.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!NissanTake your adventures to new heights in the All-New Nissan Armada PRO-4X. Learn more at NissanUSA.com.Disclaimers:Optional features. Towing capacity varies by configuration. See Nissan Towing Guide and Owner’s Manual for additional information. Always secure cargo.Supply HouseJoin the Trade Master program today at SupplyHouse.com/TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code SH5 for 5% off your first order. That’s SupplyHouse.com! ROYDownload the Roy app now from the App Store and start backing your favorite athletes the way they deserve—with transparency, trust, and a real impact. This is the future of college sports. Join it now by downloading Roy and supporting your favorite players!FanDuelRight now, new FanDuel customers can get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Bonus Bets if your first FIVE DOLLAR bet wins!Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. 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)

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, biggest takeaways from how this season has gone and what it should mean for KU Bill Self moving forward as they build future rosters, especially next year around Darren Petersong. 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 with Nick Schwert on another edition of Locked On Jayhawks. Thank you for joining us anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. Thank you to the every dayers catching each and every show. Thank you for making it your first listen every day. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking some big picture future KU basketball talk with takeaways from what we could learn from this season, probably more negatives, but you know, some people that's how they learn. It's like, Oh, I don't want to be like my parents this way, because they

do this weird thing, you know, and you watch them do it. And it's like, Okay, not going to do that. So anyway, we'll also get into a little transfer talk. And then who's Stella and is it anyway, today's episode of the show is brought to you by Nissan and the 2025 all new Nissan Armada. Stay with us for the Armada team of the week later on in the episode. Okay, so Nick, I want to talk a little big picture, KU Basketball Talk here. What do you envision being the biggest takeaway from this season and how it has gone toward future roster building? The biggest takeaway is you can't build a championship team around two guys who can't

shoot and another dude who's pretty slow. So, and the big takeaway moving forward is, let's not try to find the loophole so that Hunter, Juan, and KJ all are playing for KU at 2026. That's my big takeaway. I mean, right? That is going back to the beginning of the offseason. Bill Thelph was talking that talk about how he was going to go out and working to repeat their mistakes from last year. And they thought that they could build a championship roster by keeping those three guys and simply changing the pieces around them. And you can't.

And it's not an indictment on any one player. It's an indictment on the combination of them. Having specifically a point guard and a four, neither of whom can shoot, limits what you can do offensively and it makes other teams defensive game plans really really easy. KJ's come on as of late, that's been great, but hasn't been the case so many times this year. It coincides with Juan playing some of the worst basketball we've ever seen from him. So with Juan playing some of the worst basketball we've ever seen from him. So your margin for error is super, super slim

with this trio. And I think moving forward, I mean, the takeaway is just to maybe not have the hubris to assume that just because these are like program guys and they've been around and they know the system and they know what the coaches want, just because you have that, doesn't automatically mean that these are the seniors

that are gonna lead you to a final four run, because I think that's what happened. I think they said, hey, we've done this a million times before. Under recruited guys, but they stick around and they like figure out a way to become big time players. And those guys on this year's team are just not at that level.

So I have one takeaway, it's honestly a takeaway I had at that level. So I have one takeaway, it's honestly a takeaway I had last year too. So I don't know, maybe that's not a good one, but it's like, you have to have offense. I mean, this team on like Genbomb, you look at it, there's still top 10 defense in the country. The offense has not been good. And you look at last year, like again,

the defense actually ranked okay. The offense did not. And you look at every national champion since 2017, they've all had better offenses than defenses. Every national champion since 2017 has had an offense ranked in the top six, heading into the NCAA tournament on adjusted offensive efficiency.

So like, you have to have offense. And the way I look at it, you have to have guys who can get buckets for you. That can come in a myriad of different ways, like Hunter Dickinson can get you buckets, right, in the half court. But they don't have enough guys that can do that, right? And you have to have guys who can create, like, in a one-on-one situation, in a one-on-one setting.

I don't even know that my takeaway from the season is that you can't play too big basketball. I look at Houston. They're one of the best teams in the country. They're playing too big, so you don't shoot. You know, the combo of like Javier Francis and Jawan Roberts, they've attempted nine threes on the season, but they have three guards around them who can get a bucket anytime they want, can shoot, can hit threes.

So that's the big thing to me, where it's like, if you said that you had a pair of KJ Adams and Hunter Dickinson, but it was around Devonte Graham and Frank Mason. Like, sure, that might work, you know? And I don't think this is the ideal roster build, but that might be my biggest takeaway. So that brings me to this next question.

If you could only pick one of these things to fix moving forward, you can only pick one of them, which do you choose and why? I mean, four options here. Having a score first point guard, and score first is kind of a relative term. I would count like a Frank Mason. I would four options here. Having a score first point guard and score first is kind of a relative term. I would count like a Frank Mason. I would get, you know, Hey, Derek, can we change that? Can we change that to instead of having a score first point

guard, can we change it to not having a score last point guard? Sure, sure. But like Devon Dotson, right? You're still getting three fours per game. Yeah. Score first, right? So having a score first point guard, not playing too big next to each other, a more mobile center, or running an offense that just launches a ton of threes. Which of those, if you were able to sit in front of Bill South and be like, do this, and he was like, okay, which of those you choose? Score first point guard.

Easy. Easy. Because everything else can be overcome by being good in other areas. Right? You have two bigs, what if the two bigs are both really good and they play well next to each other? Great. Problem solved. Launching threes, like you don't have to launch a ton of threes to be an efficient three team. I can't remember what was the third option that you gave? Marshall S. Lindenberg Mobile big man or you know, not playing two bigs?

James McDonough Again, my plunter around the right pieces is fine, but I do think there are severe limitations to the guy who has the ball more than anybody else not being able to score on his own. I think that's an issue that you can't really overcome in other areas. And I think I texted this to somebody the other night during the game. I said, again, picking on the one because he had a really bad night. But I said, I'm so done with the point guard

not being an offensive threat. It's just a lame brand of basketball to watch. And you know, every single time you watch, or even if you're just talking to friends, or you hear Coach Self talk or whatever, Fran for sure brings it up on every single broadcast. He's like, well, you know, when this guy was playing with NBA players,

he looked like one of the best point guards in the country. I don't know if this team has any NBA players on it. It's like, that's fine. I shouldn't need a bunch of sick players around you to you to look good. Because to me, that's window dressing to me. It's like, okay, so what are we actually proving here? That he was only good when he was around other good players or that somehow it's unfair that he's not.

I want a guard. It doesn't have to be like an elite score. I don't need someone who goes out and scores 23 points a game. I don't need someone who scores 20 points a game. But I would love a point guard who would have play breaks down six seconds left on the shot clock. I trust at the very least you're going to get to a spot and get a shot up. I mean, look at Diggy. Look at Diggy versus Houston. Right? End of the game, like they run that play and he gets the ball at the top. All he needed was one dribble. All he needed was one dribble. And he's like, he's like this tall. Okay? So I want that.

I don't care if it's Diggy, but I just want a guy who could go get a shot. Okay. So that brings it into Darren Peterson next year, who it sounds like he's going to play some point guard, but I view that more as like he'll play as a wing and he'll initiate offense, you know, in the same way that you saw sometimes with like Wayne Seldin, for instance, or with Andrew Wiggins. If you viewed it as Diggy Coy is the starting guard next to Darren Peterson, you cool with that? guard next to Darren Peterson. You cool with that? The hell, yeah. Well, you know what? You know what? I'm cool with it for now.

And when I say for now, I mean, I'm assuming at some point in the next two games, Diggy's going to do something that will remind me why he was a free agent in August. But as of right now, Diggy stocks at an all time high. So, of course, I'm ready to go to the moon with Diggy Coyton. I don't know what that fit would be like, and I don't know if that's in the plans, but I do love the idea that Diggy's sounds like coming back for another season.

Even if he's like, even if he's the same role he is this year, you need dudes like that who are just dogs and have energy and who aren't afraid of any moment. Yeah, and it's nice knowing that, hey, you don't have to bring in another transfer to play that role and then they're pissed about it and it doesn't work out. Like, you know he's comfortable with it. Okay, how much of the fit around Darren Peterson

do you think is going to matter? And follow up to that, it feels like the hype is reaching a point that is like this kid's going to be better than Andrew Wiggins and Josh Jackson. Are you there? You know, Andrew Wiggins gets kind of slipped on. I think it's because that team wasn't very good, but his. The last game he had was not good, right?

If he goes out scoring 25 points and they lose to Stanford, because Stanford just hitting all these threes, I think it's probably remembered differently. Yeah, but I mean, Andrew Wiggins was on a team with Bunch of Other Freshmen and Perry Ellis and Tart Black. Put it this way, if you swapped Josh Jackson with Andrew Wiggins just the years they were in school, everybody would be like, that Wiggins dude is sick playing next to Frank Mason, you know? Yeah.

Granted, I mean, Andrew Wiggins was still a number one pick in the draft and a decade later still having a very good career. But it wasn't the transcendent talent that we thought, aside from Josh Jackson, 28 years old and like basically retired from basketball it's crazy. But with Derek Peterson, the beauty of a guy like that who is he gonna be a point guard, he's gonna be an off ball, I don't really care. When you're a do it all player, guess what? You can kind of build around them however you want. Now there is a best case scenario, I don't know what that is, but you have options. You have options with what you want to put around him.

I imagine whatever his position is going to be, Bill South is going to hand the keys over to him. Now, am I as high on him as I was Jackson or Wiggins? I don't know, probably not, but no specific reason why. I think with there, the one thing I have confidence in is that any concerns and I've heard a little bit of this like oh well Bill Self could have ruined him or he's not gonna let him play what he's not gonna do this if there's one thing I know for certain Bill Self likes having

strong confident I'll hunt in point cards it's the one position where I don't Bill Self likes having strong, confident, talented boy cards. It's the one position where I don't have any concerns with like young kid coming in. If he's good enough, he's going to play and he's going to play a lot. It's not like a big guy. If he was the number one big guy in the country, you'd have reservations. If he was a wing, you'd have reservations. Look back to Kelly Oubre, right? That was kind of up and down at the beginning of the year, but with a guard, he's going

to find a way. He's going to find a way. And I truly think like he is going to hand the keys to the team over to him the second he steps foot on campus. All right. Let's get on to an all transfer team at Bill Self's time at KU. I want to get to that next and then who's style line is anyway. This is locked on Jayhawks.

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who has slowly turned into an awesome win for Kansas that is probably gonna keep them in the NCAA tournament. Michigan State, a team who's horrible at shooting threes, 346 in the country. They're shooting under 30% from three, but they rebound, they make all their twos, they play good defense, and just like that, Michigan State, I wouldn't mind them

if they were a two seed and Kansas was the seven seed, even though I don't have a ton of confidence right now in things, but when it comes to the Nissan Armada, they say go forth and conquer, and that's exactly what the Spartans have done so far this season. They're heavy duty, they're rugged, just like the Armada. And it's clear that our team of the week is out here

ready to conquer the road ahead with confidence, just like you can in the all new Nissan Armada or any of Nissan's outstanding vehicles. Take the Nissan Armada Rogue or Pathfinder and go find your next big adventure shop, NissanUSA.com. I continued on here on Locked on Jayhawks. So I wanted to, in thinking about some of the transfers, go over a all transfer team at KU because I was actually in my head, I was putting it together and I think there's

a very clear top like six transfers of the Bill Salvera at Kansas, but it becomes difficult because three of those six kind of play the same position. One of them is Deidre Glawson, who I guess you could say plays the four. But anyway, here's some players that come to mind. This isn't every player who ever transferred in, but I just want to throw these out there. Roderick Stewart, Zeke Mayo, Remy Martin, Malik Newman, Rylan Griffin, Jalen Coleman-Lands, Isaiah Moss, Kevin McColler and Mario Little on the wing,

Kevin Young at the forward position, and then the big men spot, Hunter Digginson, Dedric Lawson, Jeff Withy, your guy, Hunter Mickelson, and then Tarek Black. If you're putting together an all-transfer team, I'll tell you what mine is. You can go from there or you know, rip it apart, whatever you wanna do.

I think the point guard spot, like I don't know that you have a lot of options in just terms of pure point guards. And maybe this is telling me there's a reason I'm doing this. Remy Martin, I think kind of has to be the pin. Do you say Zeke Mayo, a point guard? You know, most of the guys are shooting guards and maybe there is something there. Now part of

it is they've usually had a good guard that maybe they just haven't had to bring in the point guard from the transfer portal. But going back to the idea that they don't really have a lot of, you know, guards to choose from at the point guard spot in the portal probably tells you all you need to know about, you know, what position works well for self to go into the portal and get and maybe which ones don't. I would go with Malik Newman at the two, everything he did in March certainly matters a lot.

I guess I would go Zeke Mayo and play a three guard lineup here. And then I'd play Kevin McColler at the four and have Jeff with you at the five and just have an awesome defensive lineup with some shooters up top. But it's interesting because I was at the two for you. Yeah, I had Malik Newman at the two and Zeke Mayo at the three. Those would be the lineup I would put together if I was putting together like an actual team, I wanted to succeed. But if you're doing it based on rankings, who just the top players are,

you would have to have, you know, Diedrich and Hunter up there. Yeah. Well, let me start here. Is Withy the best big man transfer, or is it Hunter or is it Diedrich? It's Hunter. I mean, it's definitely Hunter. You think it is?

Yeah. Withy, the difference between Withy and Hunter Dickinson is that Jeff Withy was on a roster where his steel set was like the missing piece. It was the key, it was Hank. Doesn't shot blocking, doesn't defense become the key for anybody, like isn't the roster build around Jeff Withy easier than it is with Hunter Dickinson from, I mean, if you have Kevin McColler at the four

and Jeff Withy at the five, like good luck scoring on it. I mean, Kevin McCuller is a wing defender and he's only gonna guard one guy. He's not like a rail protector. He's not like helping on the backside. So I really, okay, that's fine. That's fine. I think what you're going to find

is that your team better have a great defense because you're not scoring. That's a down offense. Remi Martin, Malik Newman, Zeke Mayo? Oh, sure. If you want to just highlight all the good games those guys had and just like, I'm getting March back that. Oh, OK. We're in March right now.

And you're getting March, Remi Martin. Great. So you just get the best of everyone. I remember some down times for those guys. My relic, honestly, wouldn't be that different than yours. And again, I'm going to be saying that like you can't possibly justify picking Jeff Withee. I'm simply answering the question of like, is he the on and off pick?

No. No, I like the roster build better with it. No, I can understand the argument for Hunter, but you also get more years out of Jeff Withee. I think you've slept on Diedrich Lawsonson because I think Dietrich Lawson is just a shorter version of Hunter, but a much better shooter. You think Dietrich Lawson is not on the same level as- I think he's a shorter version that was a much better shooter. And so it opens-

Somehow, somehow worse athlete to frankly I mean well about that um Dude, I think average 25 points per game in his NCAA tournament career, Kansas Yeah, just up 39 percent from three hundred shooting like 21 percent. Okay See everything with you were balls rather freaks. I know what you know, what's basically that? I'm pretty sure you're doing Like we're doing a fantasy draft and then you're like, I'm gonna get Dirk at the five I got a chart Lewis at the four and you're gonna it's gonna be impossible for you guys Okay, I would agree that

Remy and Malik are No-brainers Those are like you just crapped on it and now okay, okay No, I was crapping on the way you presented it, not exactly what you presented. Bucky kidders, dude. Okay, Rebi and Malik, who else?

Who else am I gonna choose? Honestly, I don't know that I can take Zeke at the three right now. I just, like, what are my other options? Do I vote? That's the thing. You gonna go Ryland Griffin? You gonna go Jalen Coleman-Layens? No, I mean, do I go Isaiah Moss? Do I go...

Kevin at the three and play big, you know? I don't want Kevin on my team. I don't want Kevin. Yeah, I'm still on over him quitting last year. Give me... Give me Isaiah Moss at the three. I'm gonna put Jack Whitman at the four and under Dickinson. All right, that's perfect. That's perfect way to end it. I do Stalin is it anyway next.

Thanks for joining us here on lockeded on Jayhawks. We're going to finish up on this episode of the show, with a little whose stat line is it anyway, if you're new to the show, you don't know what's going on here. I'm going to basically give Nick a stat or in this case, stats, and he's going to try to guess who they are and maybe they have a point. Maybe it's just a random stat. I'll let you decide. All right. The question for this one. So on CBB analytics, they have a stat that,

I don't know why I said this has to be CBB analytics. Anybody can do this, but it's a stat basically that combines shots at the rim with three point shots. So it's like an analytic dream, right? Those are what analytic people want in basketball. Shots at the rim and three point shots, right? And it puts it together, puts together an effective field goal percentage for how you are doing

at a combination of those two things. So in theory, if you're better at, you know, this rim plus three-point shooting, you're an analytically inclined fellow, I guess. Um, would you like to guess the two best and the two worst players for KU during conference-only play, obviously among, you know, qualified players? the two best and the two worst players for KU during conference only play, obviously among qualified players.

The best and the two best and the two worst. I think it might be easier for me to start with the worst. And I'm gonna have to think that Duann Harris is on that list. Yes, I thought you would not get to Duann Harris. I thought the worst one was, was obvious. Duann Harris is the second worst. 45.8% on that effective field goal percentage

at the rim and three point, where does that rank nationally? That puts him in the 17th percentile nationally among those two areas, which are pretty important. And then the other one is AJ's store. Yes, that is the lowest one. 41% ninth percentile nationally. Yeah. You know, he might be the worst player in Bill Salk's history.

He, the worst. Which is crazy, like, if you're just talking time at KU, I mean, certainly among rotation players, but like, how are you going to be able to say that? Because you know what's going to happen in here? He's going to transfer to some other, I don't know, it's been so bad, I don't even know if it'll be another power five. But let's say it's like a lower power five

that's like a borderline NCAA tournament team where he gets to be the guy in terms of the offensive shots, and he's going to muster his way to 42% shooting to 16 points per game, and you're going to look back on it over his career and just look at his stats and be like, what do you mean that was the worst, you know? I don't even know if that's possible. I don't even know if there's another like fine major.

But he did it last year. He did it on a Wisconsin team that also played two bigs. He did it on a Wisconsin team that played super slow. Yeah, but now you're on the big stage. Nobody watches Wisconsin. Big 10 basketball plays on Sundays. You know, Hey, you plays on big Monday, they play on Ryan Dive on Saturday. They're on PSPN. They're on CBS. Like now everybody's watching and they're watching you look like a rec league player. He, when he's out there, He doesn't even look like he's in a rec league game He looks like he's warming up for a rec league game like he's just lackadaisical. The team's moving the ball around

He gets the ball and he's like yo when he's just starting to bounce in between his leg. He's going nowhere with it He has no idea what to do. They throw up a pass near the tear the red. He can't catch anything I mean you're catching the ball is one of the fundamental aspects of being able to play basketball. Forget shooting, forget skill. It's like, can you catch it? Can you pass it? Can you dribble? He can't do and he is a bad basketball player. It's not a bad fit. He is a bad player. And I think any coach in America that was watching

the tape on him and say, keep him away, keep him away from work or a program. And I can't put a light on me, figure out why the Kansas coaching staff didn't have that exact same reaction. Okay. What about the best? What do you think are the best? The best. So, I mean, Hunter's shot so poorly from three, he's so good inside, it probably cancels out. My guess is that there's nobody on this team that's like really good. Hmm, no.

Okay. Well, Flory... Flory is in the 99th percentile at 82%, but you know, you take that one to the grain of salt because it's just, oh, I will shoot if it is a dunk. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

And then did you say this is just conference play or this is just? Yes, correct. This is the one that I don't think you're going to get. Although now you might because I gave you that hint. Now I might. Is it... Is it Diggy Corian?

No, he is up there. It is another guard though. Is it Zeke? It is Zeke Mayo. He's in the 88th percentile in this stat, 62%. In a cold spell right now. Yeah, cold spell is pretty. I don't think yeah.

Who do you have more hope for figuring it out the last couple of weeks? Him or Rylan? Him. Rylan, I don't know the Rylans in his head. I'm just not sure he understands what's going on. I mean, he got benched for little Diggy Coy first Houston. That tells you a lot. And then Bill says after the game, like, we played guys who were, we played our toughest guys tonight. What's that tell you?

All right, quick follow up. A.J. Rylans sitting on the bench. This is the last thing for tonight. Should Diggy Coy start against Arizona? Or play Starters level minutes. I guess it doesn't really matter who starts, but you know, should the main five Diggy Coy be in it? Yes. It should be the same five we saw at the end of the game.

And I think, and furthermore, you have your seven man rotation and then Rylan's eight and then AJ is on the moon. That's your rotation. All right, AJ on the moon. Maybe that'll be the episode title. He's the short one. What do you got going on right now? Where can you find some of your work?

You can check out our podcast, Could Be Wrong, which is wherever you get your podcasts and full episodes on YouTube. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. He's Nick, I'm Derek Johnson, and we'll see you next time. We'll have a KU Arizona preview at you tomorrow here on Locked on Jayhawks.

Also anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. See you then.