Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - IF They Can Afford It, Kansas Jayhawks Should Still Add to the Roster + ROCK CHALK ROUNDBALL CLASSIC

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Kansas Jayhawks Basketball: Final Scholarship Spot Debate Heats Up. Should the Jayhawks fill their last roster spot? Can they even afford it? Is it likely they don't use it? Host Derek Johnson breaks down the pros and cons, focusing on international big men Ege Demir and Kerem Konan. The discussion covers potential impacts on Kansas' lineup, comparing Paul Mbiya and Bryson Tiller for backup center minutes, and how these moves could reshape Bill Self's strategy. Plus, get the scoop on the Rock Chalk Roundball Classic, featuring Kansas legends raising money for childhood cancer families.Tune in for expert analysis on the Jayhawks' roster construction and a preview of this star-studded charity event that's making waves in Lawrence.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE at www.monarchmoney.com/lockedoncollege for 50% off your first year.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when 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, I'm going to make the case why Kansas should fill their final roster spot scholarship spot available with an Ege Demira Koremko knot. 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. This is Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And thank you to all the everydayers catching each and every episode of the show wherever

you tune in. Thank you for joining us. And on today's edition of LOJ, we're going to be talking about why Kansas should fill their final scholarship spot, their final roster spot if they could. Now does the money allow it? I don't know. Maybe that's a different question. We'll get into all that on today's episode of the show, including why the battle of if he did, Ege Demir vs Kareem Konan. Who would you go with? We'll also talk a little back up big battle, Paul Mbi Bryson tiller and a little on the rock chalk roundball classic as well which is coming at you tomorrow. highly recommend going to one of my favorite events in Lawrence each and every year

today's episode of the show is brought to you by fan dual sportsbook where right now new customers can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins you can do that over at fan duel. Okay, so let's start here. I think the first part of this is the portion of it where I tell you the disclaimer that, yeah, Kansas probably is unlikely to add another spot or another player, another scholarship player to this roster. And that it feels like at this point in time, I'm kind of going into the season with the expectation that this will be the roster that the guys they currently have are going to be the ones that we need to evaluate of how they fit, how they

will play, how the rotations will work out, who's gonna be starters, who's gonna be coming off the bench. This is the current roster to go with and maybe if they do end up with another roster addition maybe it ends up being more of like a Corbin Allen type addition, a long term addition, or maybe it ends up being closer to what we saw last year where Diggy Coit joined Kansas in August as kind of a bench role player type of piece that ends up just falling in your lap and ends up being a little bit cheaper.

Those feel like the options. I think the biggest thing going against you for filling this final roster spot is the money element of everything. It seems like you probably had to put up a good penny to get Cole Rosario, who is a riser in the class to reclassify and join your team for this year. Probably cost a good amount of money to get Paul Embiid. I mean, I don't know if Kansas was involved in the reason and be a left NC State to be like, hey, I got a bigger offer, I'm going to go here. Or if it was just he

left NC State and then happened to, you know, you're probably going to need to give him a big offer nonetheless. And I don't think that's even the wrong strategy for KU, right? Go out, target the guys you want, and if your options are, hey, we can hope we get the guys for both these players for a bit of a lower cost, but then we can maybe get three guys, or we can for sure get the two guys we want and maybe won't be able to afford a third, I think that is the right strategy to go for the two guys which Kansas ends up doing. And I don't know that that's the case

of what they were doing or what they are doing, but I do think that reasoning, that logic would make sense to me. Now, if you do have enough money to make one more move, and again, it feels like that's probably not likely, but it is important to bring up knowing that theoretically, any amount of money is possible in the NIL era because theoretically, okay, hey, we're tapped on our money.

A donor could come in and be like, no, I'm going to get that guy for you. Now, it does get more complicated at the clearinghouse situation where they're going to potentially limit NIL deals. So you would have to be bringing on a player for NIL, which would be closer to their fair market value, which maybe they would view that as, okay, at that point, I'm just going to stay overseas because I'll make similar money. The reason I was willing to come over is because I was going to be making, you know, eight times or ten times the amount of money I'd be making here because you could overpay me. But now that you can't overpay me, I'm not going to come. And it feels like from a rev share perspective, that's where you could overpay theoretically because they're not checking the rev share stuff.

But if you're tapped out on rev share, then it is all reliant on NIL and that gets you more complicated because it is just a little more complicated jumping through hoops with NIL and overseas players. They have to get paid while they're like overseas. You have to find certain workarounds to make it happen. So point being, all of this leads me to believe

it's probably not going to happen, but if you could move mountains to make it happen, if you could find that little bit of extra spare change in your pocket, if you could convince the player to come for the right price and make it work, I think it would make a lot of sense for Kansas to add this one final roster spot and not just go into the season with what they have now.

First of all, you never know what's going to happen about injuries, which, I mean, just in general, they happen all over the country. But like what KU big man did not get hurt last season, right? If we're just talking about bigs, because in this specific conversation, I'm not just saying they should bring out anyone. I'm saying go for one of A.J. Jameer, Kareem Konan or that type of international big. What KU big did not get hurt last year?

Was Flory the only one? Because you know, Hunter had at one point like a rolled ankle. I don't remember causing him to miss any like game time. It was like the beginning of the season. Obviously KJ did miss game time. Zach Clements missed game time. And it's not just like last year, how many seasons has a Bill Self big man been hurt at the end of the season, whether they were able to play through it in

certain instances, like you don't as a bouquet in road to the 2018 Final Four, or completely missed the NCAA tournament due to injury, whether it was Joel Embiid, or, you know, I guess you don Asabuke missing some time here. Like, there have been so many big, Billshoff big men that have been hurt at the end of the season. Don't you want to strengthen up your depth,

your possibilities to avoid that. What about foul trouble? Sheck Diallo averaged the same amount of fouls per game as Hunter Dickinson did last season. He obviously played a lot less minutes. Now typically young big men get better at not fouling the more they stay in college or the more they just play basketball, so to speak.

So you would think he's going to get better at that, but it still is a concern. Paul and Bea, a very raw center prospect, he's probably gonna have the occasional spat, the occasional run in with foul trouble here or there. Then you look at Bryson Tiller and you know, I don't, think of them being on floor either game styles feel more foul prone than than Tiller who is more of the skilled

big but still you're talking about a young big man and Bryson Tiller who as we just discussed like sometimes young bigs can write foul trouble wouldn't it be nice to have another body in there it also give you another practice big whether that's players working on their game and getting to improve against better competition or just have another body out there. I think it also opens up being able to play a little bit more two big basketball, which would make you a more flexible matchup team.

You know, in recent episodes, and thank you to Everdayers who already got this, we talked about how they could be playing, you know, maybe it's close to the 1920 team. That team also had three bigs, and they played about seven minutes per game of two big basketball. That's kind of what I'd be projecting this roster at playing this upcoming season.

But Bill's off likes to play some too big basketball and and I know to a certain standpoint like modern basketball, you don't want to play too big basketball. There are other teams who make it work. The thing is if you're going to play too big basketball, you need to be good at the things too big basketball teams are good at. And the last couple of years when KU was playing a pairing of KJ and Hunter, which essentially

was too big basketball, you weren't good at some of those things, like offensive rebounding, for instance. So you look at it, and it would allow you to do that a little bit more. You would have more depth, more minutes to possibly provide. The other big question here is, what if Poland Bia is too raw? You know, I know he's 20

years old. I know I have expectations that he can fill that backup center role admirably because of the wingspan and the length and you coach him up with Bill Self. I think he's going to have a solid season as KU's backup center. But what if he is too raw? What if he is making too many mistakes and you know, Bill Self can't trust him? Well, what are you going to do? And then you go to Bryson Tiller, it's like, what if Bryson Tiller isn't healthy enough? Or if he's

just too raw? I mean, he just started practicing again, with the team. So you end up in this situation, or if somebody gets hurt, or somebody gets in trouble, like, what do you do? Wouldn't it be nice to have even more insurance in case of that? And that's the beauty I think of Demir specifically, the ceiling might not be as high as a guy like Mbia. I mean, MA. might have a very high ceiling. I mean, he can touch a very high ceiling because of that high wingspan, right? But with Demir, the floor is certainly higher. That Demir, I feel confident if he comes into a college basketball team, I would feel pretty good that

Demir would come in and be somebody that is going to be a solid player. Whereas with M.B.A., it's like, I think he's going to have a good impact for Kansas this year and do specific things. Maybe the role is like what Silvio de Sousa was in that 2018 season where it's just like, hey, there's going to be times you make mistakes, just be an athlete. And Silvio obviously wasn't nearly as long as Paul Mbija is,

but we're going to have to live with some stuff. And then maybe that's where Kansas is, but maybe you wouldn't have to if you were able to bring on an Ege Demir or Kareem Konan. More so in Demir's case. Now who would I choose if I was picking between the two? If I had to pick one of the two, like let's say Kansas was able to make it work money-wise with the limited funds they had left and they said okay you can bring on Ege Demir or Kareem Konan who maybe would give you better opportunity to play the two big basketball since he's kind of a mobile four or five man. Let's get into that next and also some of the Rock Track Roundball Classic

and a little Imbia versus Tiller. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of LOJ is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Summer sports are in full swing and whether you're all about baseball under the lights, golf on the green, which the open is coming up, or high-stakes soccer action. FanDuel is the best way to make every game even more exciting. You're already following the action. Why not make it a little more exciting, more thrilling? With FanDuel, you can get in on the game

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and get 150 in bonus bets. If your first bet wins, open the FanDuel app today or visit fanduel.com to get started. FanDuel, official sports book partner of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Thanks for joining us on today's edition of locked on Jayhawks. Don't forget you can make lockdown college football or lockdown college basketball your second listen every day. Okay, let's say Kansas was able to make this work and I'm skeptical that they're able to.

But you know, like I said, if you can, if you can move mountains to make it happen, great, that'd be awesome. And you are choosing between Ege Demir and Kareem Konan. Who would I go with and why? So when you're looking at Demir, he's more of the traditional, I called him kind of a smaller version of Utoka Azabuka. He even dunks kind of the same way with kind of the cocked out elbows

and throwing it back over his head. He's a big dude. Conan is a little more lighter of weight, but he's also much more mobile center. So Conan, maybe you have a better opportunity to play too big basketball with or you play him in the four. But if you used Flory at the four where you did last year, or sometimes Flory was the floor, Hunter was the five. I guess you could do that. So Demir average, and it's interesting, the cool thing about comparing these two players

with Demir and Konan, both of them played in Turkey last year for the top professional league in Turkey. So it gives us an opportunity to not, okay, we're comparing the Chinese basketball league to the German basketball league. It's like, I have no idea how good the competition is, one versus the other.

This one, you're getting the same level of competition. So Demir 5.1 points per game, more than Konan's three. Effective field goal percentage close to 60% for Demir, close to 50% for Konan. Free throw temporary though, interestingly enough Konan gets the free throw line a lot more. I think the reason why being a mobile big,

he's able to dribble a little bit for a big man and get other bigs defending him into an awkward position where they end up fouling him. Whereas with Demir, sometimes it's just like, I'm just gonna dunk over you and I'm not gonna get a foul, you know? The rebounds per game favor for Demir, the rebound rates favor for Demir.

Both of them though, very good rebounders. Conan, 88th percentile O rebound rate, 72nd percentile defensive rebound rate, but Demir is 96th and 88th respectively respectively in those two. Demir not a good passer at all. Conan has him beat in the passing area, which makes sense when you think of more the mobile big. The steal rate, like neither one really jumps off the page. Blocks per game, Demir averaging basically double the amount of blocks at Conan, nearly a double block rate than Conan, so a better shot blocker, the Hakeem rate,

the total up of, I guess, the steals and the blocks, definitely better for Demir, led by the blocks. When you look at the on-off D rating, Demir better than Conan. Neither guy was actually, interestingly, a positive impact. But again, you're saying Demir was basically a net even, and Conan, they were about three points worse when he was on the floor per 100 possessions. That's

actually pretty good when you adjust for the fact that they're young players playing in the professional league, kind of put on a scale there. When you look at the shooting difference between the two, as a fuel percentage much better for Demir than Conan. The in the paint numbers, better for Demir, though that one is a little bit closer 61% to 59%. Demir actually hit a couple mid-range. Interestingly enough, Konan being the more mobile big did not, but Konan does have some three-point shooting. It's not pretty, 18%. He did shoot 40% from the corner, but that's only two for five,

so it's very low volume. So you get a little bit more stretch out for Konan, but actually a more reliable mid-range game even though that's only 12 attempts for Demir. So again, very small sample size. Free throw percentage, much better for Konan. 62% to 34%. Again, it's a bit low volume for either guy. But overall, the effective field goal percentage, true shooting percentage, and PER are better for Demir.

I think it's easy when going through some of these things. Like to me, Demir is the better option. But again, you're at a point where I'm not really expecting them to be able to take either guy. So if one is cheaper than the other, and that's what makes it work, and you're able to go through this eligibility process and get them to come aboard, and you're able to kind of tell them that, hey, listen, like maybe you even make it kind of a two-year, like there's no rules against what you pay a guy in one year versus the next, you know? And if you view like for instance, Ege Demir as being somebody who can be a game changer

for you and could possibly be your starting center a year later when Flory Budunga is gone, or at least would be in competition with Paul and Bia, you could say, hey, listen, we only have, I don't know, $500,000 to be able to give you for this year. But what we're going to do is we think you're worth $1 million per year. So next year, we're going to overpay you, we're going to give you one and a half. And we're going to it's going to be a two year $2 million contract just back loaded to the contract. So there are ways you could kind of make it work. And yeah, I'm a big A.J. Demir guy. So I would still be

all about it even after the Paul and Bia and Corozario additions for for KU. All right The other pieces that I wanted to get to was in line with the centers was Paul and Bia versus Bryson Tiller You know, I seem to think Paul and Bia is gonna get the backup center minutes But are we so sure on that because Tiller was somebody who I think by reclassifying He finished around 40th or something in that class. In his previous class before reclassing, he was around 20th, 25th in that class.

And Embia, you see his recruiting ranking, it comes in just outside the top 200. They're both freshmen. Now Embia is 20 years old and Tiller is a red shirt freshman who got to spend a semester around the team, but neither has played in a real game for Kansas. Are we so certain that Paul Embia will be ahead of Bryson Tiller in the rotation? Now, I do think if Billself is looking to continue to play the way that they'll play

with Flory Bedunga as the starter and Bia makes the most sense, Tiller is more of your skilled big man, right? And maybe to that notion, Billself views Tiller more as a future four. I mean, we've heard comparisons to the Morris twins, for instance. And maybe it makes more sense to play him there where it's not as much of a competition. It's more of how many minutes is Kay going to play a too big ball with Tiller at the four?

And how much is Mbea going to be as the backup center? But is there a chance that Tiller is just, you know, that much better and Mbea is raw and does have some errors, that Tiller is ahead of him in the back of big minutes and you end up playing, I don't know, a flurry 26 minutes per game and tillers getting 10 minutes per game is the back of five and Embia is only playing, you know, spot minutes here.

They're getting four minutes per game. Is there a chance that could happen? Again, it's not something that I'm expecting to happen. And I do think because Kansas certainly has kind of a lack of big men, whether or not in a situation where it's like, oh, they do have all these options, they do have all this depth. I do think you end up in a little bit of that situation

like that 2018 team with Silvio Di Soso, where it's like, okay, we have to play you and we're gonna have to live through some growing pains, but just be an athlete, grab rebounds, rim run, throw down dunks. And I think that can work for Paul Mbia, especially in a limited role that I still am projecting him to do that.

But it certainly is on my radar, especially now Bryson Tiller cleared, gets back to practice. There were some pictures of him practicing the other day. Like it's not something that I'm totally discounting for a very talented guy, even though again, they are very different in how they go about it, even though they could both wind up being in competition for that backup center position. Alright, let's finish up here with a little bit of a deep dive on the Rock Drop Round Ball Classic. It's a charity basketball game with all sorts of former KU star basketball players, and I highly recommend attending. It's for a great cause. We're going to talk about it next. This is Lockdown Jayhawks.

Thanks for joining us on this edition of Lockdown Jayhawks. And again, you can check out Lockdown College football and or Lockdown College of basketball for your second and or third lesson every day here. And we will have an episode coming at you tomorrow here on Lockdown Jayhawks talking about areas that Kansas football has to improve in 2025 from where they were in 2024. We also recently on the show talked about why Kansas basketball I think is being a little bit disrespected by the national

media. Another episode talking about why we think they'll be better than last year that was last week. You can check out all those episodes and more and think of the everdayers already doing so again right here with Lockdown Jayhawks. All right so the Rock Shock Roundball Classic. It is that time for the weekend. So it's coming up tomorrow night. I guess depending on where you're listening to this, I'm airing this. This is a Wednesday when this comes out for you, but it's coming on Thursday, Thursday, July 10th. And that is the actual game.

It's happening at Free State High School where it's been for, gosh, a while now at this point in time. And then you have the celebrity dinner on Friday. The celebrity dinner, awesome if you haven't attended. Let's see if tickets are still available as of now. Well, it looks like some tickets are still available for this possibly,

but maybe just an MVP game ticket. I don't know, the celebrity dinner might be sold out, but the Rock, Rock, and Truck Round Ball Classic still has tickets. And where you can get tickets to the Rock Truck Round Ball Classic, again, the game itself is at 23rd Street Brewery in Lawrence. If you're in Topeka, the Johnny's Tavern on Fairlawn. If you're in the Kansas City area, there's two options. Johnny's Tavern at Corinth Square.

And for the Alafa side, Johnny's Tavern and Aletha on K10 and Ridgeview. So there's your options for being able to get tickets to this event, and the money is going to go to a good cause. If you don't know, I mean, obviously you might see all these players coming back, and you see the fanfare and the stardom of these former players, and it's cool, and it's a fun, you know, game. They've thrown out dunks. It's a good time. But the idea of this, so Brian Haney,

voice of the Jayhawks, started this. And it is now raised, I mean, this year, they're gonna get over 2 million career raised for basically, it's families who have a young child who gets diagnosed with cancer or some sort of disease that it's not just the mental and physical toll that it takes on you. It is the financial toll, the financial toll of driving to Kansas City if you live in Lawrence or Topeka or whatever, driving to the hospital every day, the gas mileage that racks up, the meals you're getting on the go, the medical bills that

are just insane in general, you know, and it's helping these parents afford them so that they can give their kids who are already going through awful stuff, the best life that they possibly could. And so this year, it's taken Tenikek, I think is the last name, Oliver Combs, Tania Parker, Ezra Talkington, Tyson Barnett, and Jackson Kress that are joining here. And those are going to be the kids whose families are the recipients here. Please get involved and you can go to the game. It's a fun time. It's a cheap ticket.

They also have like auctions going on. They have cool t-shirts and hats and again all this proceeds go to the goods To this good cause there's the dinner on Friday You can just if you can't make it to any of this But this is touching your heart and you're just like you know what I'd like to have something you can give five dollars You can give five dollars and give 20 you can give 100 whatever you can do that as well rock shock round ball Classic calm and you can donate there if whatever, you can do that as well. Rockchalkroundballclassic.com, and you can donate there if you'd like to do that as well.

But right now they're announcing some of the players that are gonna be participating on the teams. And as always with Brian, it's a star-studded cast. I mean, Yudoka Azobuke is gonna be there. They've got some cool KU football guys who are gonna be there. I think Jared Casey is the one some cool KU football guys who are going to be there. I think Jared Casey is the one of the KU football. I love you BMAC Brandon McAnderson,

but Jared Casey is the guy I'm most excited for because he was a good basketball player in high school. So he's going to have an opportunity to, you know, lace him up with some of the KU basketball player. Sean Collins is going to be there. Jordan Haas is going to be back. He'll be coaching this year. Brandon Rush is there.

And Nick Timberlake, David McCormick, that's a big one with him coming back. Jeff Graves. I mean, it's all sorts of former Jayhawks coming back and playing in this. And then afterwards, the players are great with the kids. They'll give out autographs and stuff. So highly recommend going or at least donating

or reading up on the cause because it is an absolutely awesome thing that happens in Lawrence and that Brian Haney undergoes here in Lawrence. So please do if you have the time or the resources to make something you know happen that can help somebody in a very long way. I don't know for this episode of locked on Jayhawks, you can find our show anywhere you get your podcast

including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time on LLJ.