Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - How the Kansas Jayhawks Can Conquer Their Road Woes at Colorado Buffaloes

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Can the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team overcome their road woes against the Colorado Buffaloes? With a challenging matchup ahead, the Jayhawks face a crucial test in their quest for consistency away from home.Explore the dynamics of Kansas' recent struggles on the road, including their surprising losses and the potential turning point this game represents. Key players like Hunter Dickinson and Dajuan Harris are set to make an impact, while Colorado's Julian Hammond poses a significant threat. The episode breaks down the previous KU vs CU clash, offering insights into shooting percentages and player performances. Discover the keys to victory for Bill Self and Kansas, focusing on shooting accuracy, offensive rebounding, and managing the late game time and altitude challenges.Tune in for an in-depth analysis of the Kansas Jayhawks' strategy and player matchups. Don't miss the chance to gain unique insights into this pivotal game!Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!PrizePicksDownload the app and use code lockedonnfl to win $50 instantly when you play $5. You don't even need to win to receive your $50 bonus, it's guaranteed! Prizepicks. Run Your Game.Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONCOLLEGEFabricJoin the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their families. Apply today in just minutes at MEETFABRIC.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. Policies issued by Western-Southern Life Assurance Company. Not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions.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, we preview Kansas Colorado. If it is a new season for KU, can they start winning on the road? It'll just be a little bit. 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 on Derek Johnson here. This is locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day.

Thank you. The every day is catching each and every episode of the show. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show and on today's edition of locked on Jayhawks. We're previewing Kansas at Colorado. We'll get into what happened in the first go-around. We get into the headlines for the game, the Colorado scouting report keys to the game players to watch, and

plenty more on today's episode, which is brought to you by fan dual sportsbook right now new fan dual customers can get $150 in bonus bets. If your first $5 bet wins to check that out with fan dual sportsbook. Alright. So Kansas takes on Colorado. And let's get into our headlines here because this is a road game for KU. And I think the first one has to be the road struggles. Kansas struggled on the road last year. They've struggled on the road this year.

They've lost four straight road games coming into this one. And when you look at them, too, they're not just losing on the road. Two of those games were big blowouts, right? You obviously think of the most recent one in which they lose by 34 points at BYU. And you also add in there that you even in the game like at Kansas State as part of that four game losing streak, like you easily could have lost that by double digits, you lost the Utah one by seven. Kansas just clearly hasn't been playing, you know, well on the road. Now, we heard from Bill Self talking about new season on Friday and they looked like a much better team

on Saturday against Oklahoma State. They just did. And yes, Oklahoma State, not the best team in the world and you should beat that team. But there's a difference between beating another team because, oh, they're just not very good and you win by 10 or 12, it's a ho-hum win, versus blowing them out, winning by 34,

doing so many things well and looking as good as Kansas did. Kansas would have played the way they played on Saturday against a lot of other teams of the Big 12, they would have beat a lot of other teams of the Big 12, probably all but you know maybe three or four teams, right? And then even then they might have beat some of those teams that it becomes more dependent on things. They played every game on Saturday, point B. Can you carry that over? And if this is really a new season,

then you should be able to perform on the road because you haven't been able to do that these last couple of years for KU. And then beyond that, like the other part of this, if things are really different now, right? If this really was the lines run in the sand before Saturday's game, the other thing that we haven't seen this team be able to do well, I would say post Kevin McColler injury two years ago, and then really this season after probably the Duke win, is be able to string momentum together and be able to follow up a good performance with another good performance, or at least follow up a good performance with another win. Because

you think back to it, and that doesn't mean that Kansas hasn't been able to win back to back games. We've seen them win back to back games. Like we've seen them win back to back games. And you could point back to like when they blew out UCF and then they beat Arizona State by 19 and then they won at Cincinnati by 14. That was probably the closest to it. But since that point, right? You beat TCU on the road

and then you have that Houston game, right? Where you can't build the momentum. And then you sneak by UCF, you have the Baylor game. You beat Iowa State at home where it's like, could this be the turning point? And then you lose at Kansas State and then you win against Colorado and you have the two losses.

You just haven't been able to build that momentum recently. And that would make this a new season too, if you can win this, even though these would be games against two of the bottom three or four teams in the big 12, the fact that you would be able to, you know, finally went on the road again and be able to kind of build off what you just did, like that would say something about where things are going.

Now, this is the second meeting between these two teams, obviously, the first one, that's what makes this interesting. The first one was just like a couple weeks ago. In fact, it was less than two weeks ago, it was like 13 days ago, when these two teams met the first time, Kansas won 71 to 59. There's a game they got up 40 to 26 at halftime, but then Colorado kind of snuck back at the beginning of the second half and then from there Kansas never really got him more than like an arms length away.

Colorado hung in there which makes this one more interesting because you don't have the friendly confines of Allen Fieldhouse when you look at things that that happened in that first game that are of note, if you're looking at some of the team things, Colorado shot 53% on two point shots. They only went four of 23 on threes. I mean, if they would have been even seven of 23 on threes, which is still not like a lofty percentage,

all of a sudden you're squeaking this one out down the stretch. So we'll see if Kansas can do a better job on their two point shots shots because I don't expect them to go for 23 again when they're playing on their home floor in this one. From the kids perspective, they also didn't do well from three. They were a little bit better six of 21. They shot even better from two.

They were 57% on twos. From there, neither team had a big like offensive rebounding game. Kids was a little bit better there. The other thing sticks out to me though, from the team perspective, both teams had just eight turnovers. Colorado is one of the worst turnover teams in the country. So the fact that Kansas only had four or six steals and they only forced eight turnovers does not speak well.

And we've talked a lot about their turnover forcing troubles of late. They did have a good turnover forcing Yamiche at Oklahoma State. Let's see if they can kind of carry that one over into this one. Then from an individual basis, an individual perspective, what was interesting, Julian Hammond, the leading scorer for Colorado,

only two points. He was one of seven from the floor. Can Kansas count on that happening again? Probably not. But can they slow him down again? That remains to be seen. While Hammond had a below average game, it was Sebastian Rancic who had kind of a breakout game. The 6-9 freshman, 19 points, 9 rebounds. He's averaged in six a game. It was Sebastian Rancic who had kind of a breakout game. The 6-9 freshman, 19 points, nine rebounds. He's averaging six a game. He's been playing well recently. And maybe this kind of kickstarted something for him, but we'll see what Kansas does against him

and if he can have kind of a repeat performance for them. And then Benga Doc, I forget if that's how you pronounce him, but he had 11 points for them. Their center was like 6'11", but only 185 pounds. He can present some problems for KU defensively. But also I think you saw the difference of having a big man in there is 185 pounds because 100 Dickinson had 19 points on eight of 11 shooting with nine rebounds. Like he was able to kind of bully his way on the inside. Now, Elisha Malone had 10 points for Colorado at the other end. So they did get 21 points from their two big men, but their two big men weren't getting that much rebounds

and weren't able to stop Kansas on the inside. KU also got 10 points from KJ. He had some fun dunks, especially in the first half. Zeke had 13, he hit half of the team's three pointers. Dewan had 10 points. And then Diggy Coyt gave some good contributions with eight points off the bench for KU in that first go around between these two teams.

Now, when you look at Colorado, players to watch coming into this one, we mentioned Hammond, 12.9 points per game is the team leader there. He also leads the team at three point one assists per game, and he is leading the team at one point two steals per game. He's shooting about 39 percent from three, 90 percent of the foul line. You got to check him. He is a very good shooter. Andre Jakimovski is a transfer from Washington State. He had a fine game in the first go around. He's 10 points, four and a half rebounds per game,

fine defender, big six foot eight guy who will play the shooting guard in the three. So they get some size. This is a big team overall in Colorado. He's a high volume three point shooter, 32%. So not super high efficiency, but he is high volume, and we'll get him off. So if he's feeling it that day, right, he might get seven threes off. And if he's feeling it and goes four, seven, five, seven, it's kind of tough when you're playing against that.

We mentioned Bangot Dok and Elijah Malone, they're kind of two center rotation between the two of them. They're averaging close to 16 points, close to seven rebounds per game, close to two blocks per game and both of them can shoot the three a little bit. They're both below 30%, but they can at least shoot it and have shown they can. They're both over 72% on free throws.

So that is certainly interesting. Trevor Baskin also named a bot watch. Um, 7.6 points per game, 4.8 rebounds per game. I don't believe related to Carol Baskin, uh. 51% from the field for Baskin as well. Then Rancic, who we mentioned, he's kind of been playing better lately. So the six points per game, probably somebody would expect from more than that. A couple of interesting players, Javon Ruffin, RJ Smith, Asana Diop, Harrison Carrington, all between like three and a half and six points per game essentially.

In the case of Smith, 39% from three three So certainly somebody to watch there for Colorado now in terms of some of the things they do well Some of the things that they struggle with this season. I mentioned earlier The biggest thing that sticks out to me is this is a team who's very bad at holding on to the ball not turning the ball Over they are 354th in the country right there also They're also last, as you'd imagine, in Big 12 only games in turnover rate offensively and getting the ball stolen from them offensively. They turn the ball over way too much.

We'll see if Kansas can take advantage of that more than they did in the first meeting. Not a very good offensive rebounding team. They haven't shot threes well. They're 33% on the season, which is below average nationally, but that number dipped to 30% on the season in Big 12 play, which is currently 13th there for them. Also, they've been a better defense than they have been an offense this season,

but on the defensive end of the floor, they don't force a ton of turnovers either. They also have been torched from three-point range on the defensive end of the floor. They have been a pretty good defensive rebounding team overall, though. And on the defensive end, they've they've at least been middle of the pack in Big 12 games in two point defense. They've also been pretty good at getting some blocks, which, you know, top six in the conference there. That's a big reason why they're kind of middle of the pack and two point defense.

Offensively, they are at least middle of the pack as well in two point offense. And they get to the free throwthrow line at a high clip. Fourth and Big 12 only games in getting to the free-throw line and fourth and Big 12 only games in free-throw percentage, close to 75%, which is even higher overall for the season. So this is a team that can get to the free-throw line and take advantage of it at the very least. But overall, they're 152nd in the country on Ken Paulman offense.

They're 65th on the defensive end of the floor. All right, let's get to our keys to the game for KU. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by PrizePix. March basketball is here, and there's no better way to get in on the action than with PrizePix, the best place for daily fantasy sports. With PrizePix, you pick more or less on at least two player projections. If you're right, you can win up to 1000 times your cash. It's fast, easy and keeps every game exciting. You can build lineups with Jason Tate on more than 29 points.

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shots that they're getting per game that are coming at the rim. They also take a good amount of like mid-range twos as well, which I don't love that, but that's neither here nor there. But they've struggled more with them on the road. And so the amount of shots that Kansas getting at the rim is actually lower than the percentage they're shooting at the rim. And I think part of that is sometimes the lanes aren't always there, which we don't need to get back

into that because everybody knows what's going on there. But nevertheless, Kansas is in the 79th percentile during conference play in terms of their shooting at the rim, they're shooting about 66% at the rim this season. So, you know, that's a solid number. And if you're looking at the full season, as opposed to just big 12 play, they're at 68%, which is in the 91st percentile nationally. So like they shoot at the rim very well.

However. On the road so far this season. Kansas is only shooting and I believe this is full on the road. So not just their conference schedule, but when they went on the road to like Creighton in Missouri, those games counted in there too. But on the road this season, Kansas is shooting just 61 and a half percent at the rim that is in the 41st percentile. So they go from being over on the season, if you just want to view it that way, 68% at the rim on the road, 61%.

And if we just want to compare home and road, for instance, and change that up a little bit, right? Because then the overall season numbers count the road numbers. On the road this season, Kansas is shooting 61.5% on the rim. Again, that is in the 41st percentile, below average nationally.

At home, Kansas is shooting 74% at the rim. That is in the 100th percentile. So Kansas is literally the best team in the country when they're playing at home at shooting at the rim. And when they're on the road, they've been below average. That's got to change in this game. I don't know what would cause that. They're the most experienced team in the country.

You shouldn't be bugged by playing in these road environments. So I don't know if this is a road thing. I don't know if this just happens to be, you've just happened to add some bad games in those situations or the teams you've been playing on the road have good rim protectors or whatever it is. But in both of Colorado's big 12 wins, they held their opponent to under 40% on two point shots.

You gotta make your gimmies if you wanna win on the road. Number two key to the game here is build off the offensive rebounding that you had in the Oklahoma State game. Because that was KU's second best offensive rebounding game of the season. If you're going by offensive rebound rate, the best you might be asking, there's the blowout win over UCF.

So when Kansas gets a bunch of offensive rebounds, they tend to blow out opponents is kind of the takeaway you can have there from those top two. Now, on the season, Kansas is 12 and one when they have an offensive rebound rate of 30% or higher, which is actually like after average for the season. Like they're right around that number. So basically when they're just to what they can be on average of a rebounding team, they're a really good team. But when they don't go for those offensive rebounds and whether that's

an energy thing, whether that's a hustle thing, because it's not living up to par of what it should be and that's relating to other areas. I don't know, but they're only six and eight when they don't have an offensive rebound rate of 30% or higher. And then you look at it even further of the 12 games. So 13 games with an offensive rebound rate of 30% or higher, 12 of those games,

they've had an offensive rebound rate of 32% or higher. And of those 12 games, they've won 11 of them. Nine of those 11 wins were by double digits. And one of the other two wins that wasn't by double digits was the Duke win. So again, when this team is getting offensive rebounds, they are like an elite basketball team, like seriously. And I think they're part of the reason why, again, it goes into stuff like if you're getting offensive rebounds it means you're playing with high energy but it also is because you know this isn't the team that's going to launch up a ton of threes or

get to the free throw line a bunch so one way to become a more efficient offense is to just grab a bunch of offensive rebounds and just pepper shots at the rim in a real way so I don't know that that might be one of the most corollary stats for this KU season, honestly. So keep an eye on that moving forward and in this game at Colorado. And I should also mention KU, we talked about that first game with Colorado. It was actually under that 30% mark on offensive rebound rate. It was more middle of the pack lower half game for KU against Colorado. But when you look at it, you only won by 12. If you want to win this game, expecting Colorado to shoot better from three this go around, get some more of those rebounds.

And then the third key here is dealing with the altitude, the road environment, and the game time tip, right? The fact that it is a 10 o'clock tip, how does that affect the, what is this circadian rhythms or something like that? I don't know. That would make me sound smart if I actually knew what the term was. But that can affect things, right? The body clock, so to speak, coming into the game. Like, are you going to be tired by the time you get to the second half? I don't know.

I don't know. Is that going to have any effect here, especially because the game is being played in altitude, where you can get tired a little bit faster. And the last two games we saw KU play in altitude at Utah and at BYU, those didn't go so well for Kansas. Now, am I blaming it all on the altitude? No, I'm not. But did the altitude help in either situation?

I guess we won't ever know for sure, but I probably would say no, probably didn't. So I think it's going to be very interesting how they get affected by some of those things. And then just in general, the road environment. Again, Kansas has lost a lot of road games here over these past couple of seasons, and they've lost four consecutive road games in total. In Big 12 Play, they've really struggled on the road. And we just talked about some of those numbers of when they play at home versus when they play on the road. So as an experienced team, you would think you're going to be able to handle this stuff. Can you handle it and be professionals? Can you go on the road here and steal the soul of the opponent? And if this is really that new

season, something we kind of talked about earlier in the show, like, start winning games on the road or start performing better on the road. And this would certainly be your most winnable game on the road. I don't know, maybe all season. Maybe that's unfair, because Colorado is playing better basketball now, but it certainly would be up there. If you're KU or let's finish up players to watch this is locked on Jayhawks. And today's episodes brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

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Don't forget to make Locked On College Basketball, Locked On College Football your second listen every day. We'll have a Kansas-Colorado postcast for you. Yes, we will be doing it after, I know it's a 10 o'clock game, probably going to get over at like 12, 15 or something. We'll have that postcast up for you. So if you're up late at night or when you get up early that next morning, you're making your commute to work or whatever it is, you can tune into the show anywhere you

get your podcasts or on our YouTube page. Our players to watch for Kansas against Colorado. Let's start with our player matchup. We're going to go with Julian Hammond against DeJuan Harris. And I thought about making this Hunter Dickinson against kind of that two center rotation for Colorado because it was very interesting that the two or I guess the three players combined for 40 points in the first meeting. And I think they both present real offensive problems for the others defense.

But I went with Dewan against Julian Hammond specifically because I mean, Hammond is the leading scorer for Colorado. He shoots 38 and a half percent from three and it's on high volume, 13 points per game. And we talked about Colorado, you know, struggling, shooting the ball in Big 12 play. They're down to just 30% in Big 12 only games, 33 for the season. And that's even with Hammond shooting close to 39% on threes this season. So if you look at the 33% that they've shot overall for the season, if you take out Hammond, the rest of the team is at 31.7%.

Again, that number drops even more once you get into conference play, where you're basically under 30% at that point in time. So if you're Kansas and you can slow down Hammond like you did in the game in Lawrence, when he had just two points on one of seven shooting and couldn't really get going, it's going to be a recipe for Colorado not to score a lot of points, right?

I know that game was closer than you would have liked and Colorado hung in there. It wasn't because the offense. Colorado had 59 points, right? You would glad, if you told me right now, Colorado is gonna score 60 or less, like you gladly take that right now and just assume or hope that your offense

can not have a horrible game. So you look at that, and I think a big part of that was Duann Harris playing good defense. Maybe it just also wasn't Hammond's night. Can he continue to do that and bother him in this game? Plus, when you look at it, Colorado turns the ball over again, 354th in the country in turnover rate on offense. Well, Duann Harris just had six steals in the first half against Oklahoma State. Can you get two, three, four steals in this game too,

if you're Duann Harrison. Then on top of it, Duann just comes off a really good game. He had 14 points, five assists, those six steals. He was just in control all game long against Oklahoma State. When you're looking at going on the road and performing on the road, I think sometimes you can point to what's gone wrong with KU or what's wrong with the team.

You need your veteran leader, point guard, who's a six-year player to perform well on the road. And this is one of those situations where it's like, go perform, go do it, right? So I think that's the big player matchup of the game. High on the go off meter, that's where we're gonna go with Hunter Dickinson. Because even though I do think there's some certain things,

the Colorado big men can challenge Hunter Dickinson with. I do think Hunter has a very favorable offensive matchup when he's on the floor, right? He either has like a hundred pounds, maybe 80 pounds, whenever it is on a dock. If it's the other big man, then he has like four inches on him. And Hunter took advantage last time,

19 points, nine rebounds on eight of 11 shooting. I think, and that's even crazier when you think about KU scored 71 points. So like, you know, if this was a game where KU scores 85, for instance, maybe he gets up to 25 points or something like that. For what it's worth, I will say, in looking at some of the recent Colorado box scores,

like Wings have scored pretty well against them in recent games, but like, I don't know who that would be for Kansas because with Ryland Griffin and AJ Stor, like those guys, their playing time, their level of play has been inconsistent. I guess if you counted Zeke Mayo as the wing because he sometimes plays the three, right? Then maybe that would be the one. But I think Hunter has another

big game in store for him offensively. Now he has struggled his last couple of road games, but I think this would be the one that you like him to figure it out a little bit more. All right. That'll do it for this episode of the show. Locked on J-Ox. Find us anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page page we'll be back at you for a late night postcast of the KU Colorado game this is LOJ