Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Is there ENOUGH 3-Point Shooting for Kansas in 2026-2027 and Can Leroy Blyden Lead the Jayhawks?

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks may have finally solved their three-point shooting woes—will this new roster reshape the Big 12 basketball landscape? Derek Johnson highlights how Leroy Blyden, Taylen Kinney, Keanu Dawes, and Tyran Stokes could provide the floor spacing Bill Self’s squads have desperately lacked, comparing their shooting outlook to past KU teams stacked with reliable perimeter threats. The show also spotlights KU’s top ten transfer departures of the decade, with Quentin Grimes, Zuby Ejiofor, and Bryce Thompson leading the list of players who found success elsewhere. Updates on KU baseball’s latest addition, Jamie Palmese, promising outfield depth, and volleyball recruiting shake-ups round out the conversation. Can this new combination of shooters and roster moves push the Kansas Jayhawks back into national contention? Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!   Odoo Great organizations win because operations matter. And that’s why you should get Odoo. Try for free today at https://Odoo.com/lockedon.  RugietGet 15% off your treatment → https://rugiet.com/lockedonnhlRugiet. Performance medicine for men. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast   FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. From the opening whistle to the final kick, Let There Be Goals on FanDuel.Visithttps://FANDUEL.COMto get started now.   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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

KU hasn't had enough floor spacing the last couple of seasons under Bill Self. Do they have enough on the current roster for this upcoming season? 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, today's episode's brought to you by Odu. Great organizations win because operations matter, and that's why you should get Odo. Try it for free at Odo.com slash locked on. That is ODO.O.com slash

locked on. And on today's episode of the show, we're going to be breaking down some of the latest news, KU Baseball, getting a big time transfer. We'll get into top 10 players that got away from KU basketball. And we'll start right here with a little KU hoops talk of why I'm actually not worried about KU's three-point shooting this upcoming season.

I mean, this has been a thing for KU. Obviously, it was probably the biggest problem. the 23, 24, and the 24-25 seasons for KU, the lack of floor spacing, the lack of adept three-point shooters on the floor at a given time, the lack of spacing it created for your offense. This past year, I think, you know, obviously Trey White shot really well from the corner. Darren Peterson was a good shooter, though the numbers dropped a little bit as the season went on. There were still moments where it felt like KU needed more floor spacing and that that was hindered.

during Darren Peterson's playmaking and passing ability that you still didn't have enough shooting because, you know, really after the North Carolina game, Bryson Tiller wasn't really giving you much from the three-point shot. Trey White was a little inconsistent with it. Melvin Council had some outburst games, but also had a lot of games where you weren't getting much. And so then you look at the guys coming off the bench, Marco Jackson actually had an okay season from three, but it was low volume. Jemari McDowell was only hitting them at home. It was just inconsistent. And again, it was better than the previous two years in the three-point shooting, but I still don't think it was enough of what you're kind of hoping for here. But I actually do have optimism about the current roster that KU has constructed here in having enough three-point shooting for this upcoming season.

Let's start here. When you break down the roster, I think the three-point shooting conversation has to start with Leroyd-Blyden. I mean, I view Leroyd-Blidon as being a good shooter, right? This is a guy who was shooting them extremely efficiently at Toledo. He was shooting them at high volume at Toledo. I mean, you're talking 41% for Leroyd-Blyden on 5.6 attempts per game. He was a good free-throw shooter, 85%, which that can show good touch and show, you know, how reliable is the three-point shooting. And he was just a freshman.

And so, yes, he's going to have to, you know, jump up in competition to the Big 12, but he's also allowed to get better to going into his sophomore season. So like I, and that's one of the things like when you look at certain stats that do and don't carry over, there have been some good articles posted on this at basket under review and some other different places about numbers and stats that carry over. I think Michael Swain even did kind of a deep dive on some Mac guys. And a lot of times the like the free throw rate does not carry over. That's one thing that might not carry over. Sometimes the defense might not carry over, right?

But a lot of times shooting will carry over. Now, we saw an example like Nick Timberlake where it didn't carry over for KU necessarily, but I don't know. To me, that was more like of a mental thing, you know? With Blyden, I expect him to be a good shooter for KU, right? Then from there, you look at Talen Kinney, you look at Keanu Dawes, you look at Tyrant Stokes.

I think all of those players can at least be average to above average three-point shooters, right? Like if you look at it case-by-case, Taylin Kinney was like a 34% three-point shooter at OTE. I believe they play at the NBA line. I could be wrong with that. So that would help you there. Obviously, college basketball is going to be harder than playing in OTE,

especially with some of the disorganization of defenses there. But he's allowed to continue to get better at it too. So, like, I view Kinney as being somebody who should shoot, you know, 33, 34% plus from three point range. I don't think it would shock me if he shot like 38%. Wouldn't shock me if he was at 33%, but I do think he'll at least be decent at it. When you look at Keanu Dawes,

you're looking at a low 30% three point shooter, but that doesn't tell the whole story because he shot 37% from three in Big 12 play. Now, is that something he can carry over into the season? I think it is because when you look at one of the conversations over this off season. He was working with the same coach who works with a lot of like NBA guys. Worked with O-Tagbosje between his junior and senior season was like Damian Lillard's guy. That makes me think that Dawes is going to be the best three-point, you know, shooting version of himself. And we just saw it with Trey White, like guys coming into Kansas for their fourth season and having a glow up from three.

So I do think Dawes is going to be a good three-point shooter for KU. And then you look at Stokes. Like I know the rub on Stokes is he's this. really good power athlete who can get to the rim and everything and his good passer, driver. But he can also shoot threes. You go back and look at some of his highlights at high school level. He's hitting stepback threes. He's hitting tough threes to get off.

Now, maybe his three point percentage ends up being a little lower because he's taking more of the higher difficulty ones with some of those stepbacks and because he is the go-to option that he's going to be forced to, hey, the shot clock's winding down, get the ball in Stokes' hands, and he has to take a tougher shot. But I think there's a real chance he could be at least 33 percent on the season. right then you've got guys coming off the bench in col risario and dennis parker junior who i think also like do i think parker's going to necessarily shoot high 30s again no not really but do i think he can at least be again 33 34 percent decent yes with col risario he struggled last year but when you look at what he did

at the previous level when you look at him being a streaky shooter when you look at him being somebody who i expect to get better i mean i expect that that number to improve this season right to again be kind of at least in that low 30s from three. Now, obviously, if you play Luke Barnett, I mean, there's a chance Barnett is the best shooter on the team, legitimately. I don't know how much run he'll get, you know, if not, it's Blighton, but that would just give you kind of another option that you can go to there, right? But I wanted to take a look in some comparison.

Of the most 33% or higher, three-point shooters that a Bill Self team has had in the same season at KU, I also wanted to, you know, we're going to take into account, have to be taking at least some per game. So the way I was looking at it is, okay, I envision Tainlin Kenney. I envision Keanu Dawes, Tyron Stokes, Rosario, and Parker, all qualifying as being 33% plus three-point shooters. Dawes, will he get to three or more attempts per game? I don't know, use it 3.2 per game at Utah and seems to be working on it more. now will the KU system allow him to take that many? We'll see, but let's say he does get there.

You know, I think Kenney should be taking three or more threes per game. Obviously, Bliden would be Rosario. I would think that would be one of his main contributions. So he probably would. Stokes probably would. And if you look at it and say, there's a chance that KU could have five different players this upcoming season, shooting at least an average percentage,

taking three or more threes per game. How many times in the Bill Self era has he had a team where he's had, you know, a good amount of shooters taking three or more attempts per game and shooting 33% plus? So basically average or better on three or more attempts per game, right? So you look back to 2005 to 2006 and there were three players. There were three players on the team that took three or more per game, shot 33% or better. Same for, if we just go for the March Madness year, 2007, 2008, 2009,

2012, 2026, 2017, or 2016, not 2026, excuse me, 2016, 2017, 2021, and 2025. So it's happened before three. And some of those years, they had some incredible numbers, like 2006 to 2007, all three of the players who were above 33% weren't just above 30%. 33% they're above 40%. 0708 national title team. Again, you only had three who were 33% or higher, but all were 36% or higher.

2015-16 and 2016-17-17-17, you have three, but again, all three of them were 38% or higher. And then the Cremdel Crem season is the 2017-2018 season. That's the most that Bill Self has ever had at Kansas in a single season.

He had four shooters who were taking three or more threes per game, and shot 33% or better. And in fact, all of them were 37% or better, which makes sense because that was the crux of that team. It was going to be a three-point shooting team, right? So it's only happened one other time they've even hit four, and albeit those were elite shooters of the four,

but also that team relied on that, I think, even more than this team would, right? I think of it like a baseball lineup. Obviously, there are certain lineups that are star-studded that have the, you know, incredible three, four-five hitters or two, three, four hitters or whatever. there are teams like the Dodgers who have incredible lineups like one through nine right but a lot of times the teams who find success who aren't the super high spending teams or whatever it's because they have like eight dudes in the nine man lineup who are at least average hitters if you can go you know seven eight guys deep of having average hitters or better and then some of those are above average some of those

are good hitters um it becomes like I think back to there was a san francisco giant team in 2021 that won like 107 games. And go back and look at that team, it just had like a line, no matter what lineup they're thrown out at you, it had a bunch of guys who were at least average batters. There was no easy out. And that's what I'm kind of wondering if this Kansas team could be.

I don't think they're going to have the situation of three guys shooting 40% or better, right? That probably isn't going to happen. But I think they're going to have a lot of average or better from a lot of different places that makes it so where it's not really a weakness here. And, you know, if you can have three guys at 36% or, better. That would put you in a really good spot with some of those other teams. I think if you were to look at that, you would probably say if that would happen, it would

probably be Leroyd-Blyden would be the number one guy you would look to. And then maybe like Rosario and honestly, Dawes for me would be in that conversation. But I just think they're going to have at least proficient enough three-point shooting from enough guys to a level that we haven't really seen before to where it's going to make it so that KU is a good enough three point shooting team by just the sum of the parts. And I think that's an okay way to go about it and will make KU difficult to defend in a different way. All right, let's continue on the top 10 players that got away from Kansas over the last decade.

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Slash-Lock-on. That is O-D-O-O-O-com slash locked-on. Thanks for joining us. You can check out the Everydayer Club where you can get the ad-free version of the show at locked-onjahawks.com. Our continuing on is the 10-year anniversary of Locked on the other day,

so we're going to try to throw some other top-10 lists at you throughout the week. The top 10 players that got away from Kansas over the last decade. So the criteria here, like players who transferred away from KU, we're not counting guys who left early or were booted off the team, just guys who transferred away from KU,

a combination of what they did at Kansas, but also more probably importantly, what they did after they left Kansas. Honorable mention here for Diggy Coit, who had a pretty good year at Maryland. Not very good, though. Latrell Giselle was bomb in threes for some mid-majors. Bryson Tiller, we'll see what happens there.

And then AJ Store, who, like, from a stats standpoint, he should be on this top 10 list. He just put up 15 per game in Ole Miss, but it's just like, but he was never a fit for Bill Self. So I don't know. That feels like best for both parties. All right, number 10 on the best players that got away from Kansas via the portal. Silvio DeSosa, and again, this is just over the last decade when locked on has been here.

Silvio went on to average 11 points and seven rebounds per game at Chattanooga, team that made it to the NCAA tournament, had a good year, you know, and that was a Kansas team that wasn't overly deep. The center position didn't have a ton of guys they could throw out there. But KU also wound up winning the national title, so they ended up being fine without him. Mitch Lifefoot was more than enough is your backup center behind. Dave, but he comes into number 10.

Number nine on the list is Tristan and Aruna, went to Iowa State after Kansas, only four points per game, but then he goes to Cleveland State, and he's a back-to-back All Horizon League pick, 17 points per game, six and a half rebounds per game. Now, again, what does that translate to for Kansas?

We saw him kind of more as like a ninth man for KU. How much better than that would he have been? Like, clearly he was playing his best ball at the end of his career, which makes sense. he was getting better. Would that have ever been a starter? Would he have just stayed a quality backup, but maybe even more like a sixth or seventh man?

But I had a good career after that. And was a player that was always enticing because of his length and an ability to kind of be a slasher as a player who has, you know, power forward height. Okay, number eight on the list is Chuck Moore. And I've actually deemed the Charlie Moore syndrome, so to speak, for players who were actually like pretty good basketball players, which I think Charlie Moore is a pretty good basketball player, right?

He puts up 15 points per game over two seasons at DePaul after Kansas. Then he average us 12 points per game and was all ACC defensive team for an elite eight team in Miami that Kansas faced in the elite eight. It was a solid college basketball player, but he was not, he was really bad at Kansas. Like we can call a spade of spade there, right? For some guys, it's just the pressure, the moment is too big at being at a school like Kansas and you can still be a good basketball player that just doesn't fit at that specific environment. And I think that's kind of what happened there. But yeah, ended up having a good

career after he left Kansas. Number seven on the list is Rylan Griffin. Again, not a great fit with Bill Self, but 11 points per game on 40% from three for Texas A&M. And you look at this past year's roster. If you have Rylan Griffin to help space the floor around Darren Peterson's, is that help at all? Maybe, right? Number six on the list is Ernest Uday. And You know, this is one where you can't really blame KU. Like Ernest left on his own doing Kansas. So when Kansas landed Hunter Dickinson, Kansas wanted to bring back one of Uday or edge of, I mean, they would have, sure, loved to bring both back, but they definitely wanted to bring at least one back.

And they were basically told that Uday was going to stay and be the back up to Dickinson and then be the heir apparent after that to the starting center spot. Uday told him he was staying. They told Zubi. Zubi didn't want to be the third string center because at that point, Uday was in front of Zubi, even though Zubi ended up being better. So Zubi transfers. And then on the last moment, Uday transfers too, when they could have just been like at that point, shoot. If they knew Uday was leaving, maybe Zubi stays in Kansas.

Who knows, right? At least for another year. But anyway, you know, Uday never really like grew too much from what his role was at Kansas. He just got kind of better at it. Like at Miami, seven points, nine rebounds over a block. per game. Good defender rebounder, not really much of a score, but, you know, that still can be valuable in some way. I don't know. Would an Uday and Flory Frontline, like defensively, that would be monstrous? What would that do offensively? That could be a disaster for KU. But I don't know.

That's in a number six. Number five is tie on Grant Foster. Two-time all-wack players scored over 1,400 points after Kansas was a really, was the best player on Grand Canyon team that went to back-to-back tournaments. It was more of a role player at Gonzaga this past season. And that's one where he had a, you know, like a heart thing. And there was a lot more than just the basketball side of things. It seems like that was always on, you know, good blood with him leaving and why he had to leave and stuff like that. But it would have been nice to see some of that develop at Kansas. And they could have used a wing score in some of those years that he was going off at Grand Canyon.

Number four, speaking of needing wing scoring and wing shooting, Bryce Thompson really struggled his one year at Kansas. Goes to Oklahoma State. and he never broke out into being, you know, he was a McDonald's All-American top-20 recruit. He never broke out into being that guy who was like an All-American or an All-Big 12 player, but he just gave four solid seasons, Oklahoma State, of double-digit scoring 34% from three.

And yeah, like, that would have been a nice compliment to what Kansas had over some of the recent years. Number three on the list is Quinton Grimes because he became a third-team All-American and a first-round draft pick at Houston. He averaged 15 points per game over the two. seasons there, shot 38% from three. The tough part about this one is Quentin Grimes came into Kansas. And if you remember, like, he was on the under 18 U.S. 18 that Bill Self coached. And Bill Self

was very complimentary of him in the offseason. Like, was, you know, very high-level praise about him being one of the most complete freshman guards that they've ever had at Kansas, like legitimately had quotes like that. Didn't work out of Kansas. And I think part of the reason why was at that point in time, Quentin Grimes was more of a combo guard who needed the ball in his hand. But KU had Devon Dotson. Devon Dotson had the ball in his hand. And so Grimes was learning how to be an off ball guard. And he was not ready for that yet at Kansas.

And so he goes to Houston. And I think the irony in all of this is that that's exactly what he turned into. He turned into at Houston exactly what Kansas needed him to be, which was a kind of wing, off ball guard who could knock down threes. Again, 38% from three to Houston, be a three and deep place. player and be an extra ball handler if you needed it. That's what Kansas needed from him, but the irony is that they wanted something else, and then you go somewhere else and end up doing just that and fulfill everything that

you would have hoped to be. Number two on the list is Florida Bedunga. We'll see because he hasn't played. He could end up number one on this list, or if Louisville flames out with all the money they spent, maybe it drops below Quentin Grimes, right? But obviously it feels like a big loss right now, though, you know, you couldn't afford him and Tyron Soakes if you're Kansas. And then number one on the list is Zubi Adjafur, two-time.

Big East, 26, Big East player of the year, takes you out of the NCAA tournament this year, basically a 15 and 8 guy, the last two seasons on strong St. John's teams. That would have been interesting. Like, if you had Zubi, do you ever land Florey to begin with? Or would that have been a front court that could have worked with Zuby next to Flory potentially, right? Could Zuby have played next to Hunter Dickinson even? What would that have looked like in two big basketball?

That could have actually been pretty fun if you think about it. But anyway, let's get to some of the latest news next because KU baseball landed a stud out of the transfer portal. Thanks you for joining us here on Lockdown, Jayhawks. We'll get to some of the latest news. KU volleyball recruiting, Darren Peterson drama continuing. But starting right here, KU baseball landed a stud out of the transfer portal. Jamie Palmice is a transfer from East Tennessee State, which has been kind of a pipeline for KU over the recent years in terms of the transfer portal. And KU.

obviously continues to recruit the Jucco kids very well. They've got some really interesting players that can come back here. But Paul Mice comes in and what could be now kind of a, even if you lose Brady Ballinger, kind of a crowd and outfield a little bit for KU in a good way. Obviously, you can find time for these guys because you have a DH position. You can kind of rotate through or lefty-righty matchup with platoons and stuff. I don't think KU will have that problem. But point being, Paul Mice was an all-so-con freshman team pick in 2024.

then he was a first team selection in the conference in 2025, and then he was a second team pick in 2026. It's a player with over a 900 OPS, which in the MLB level, that would be elite. At the college level, it's really good. Like in the MLB level, like a 700 OPS is around league average, at the collegiate level, an 800 OPS is around league average. So 900 is still good, but he's also an incredible defender,

which is why I expect him to play center field, which is inching because Tyson Owens coming back for his junior year, was your primary center fielder. Maybe you move Owens to one of the corners for this upcoming season because this comes from college splits. The top defensive D1 center fielder's in the transfer portal, according to their defensive plays above average, Palmice tied first with a plus 5.7.

So this is a player who I would expect to come in and give you really good outfield defense. But again, 900 OPS tells you that he can hit. He's had 12 or more steals all three of his seasons, He's going to give you a little speed there. The difference of whether Paul Mice will be a good edition for KU versus being a star-level edition for KU, it just comes down to the power because he has the speed, he has the fielding, he has the contact.

So 2024 and 2026 combined, he hits seven home runs. 2025, he hits 17 home runs. So if you get closer to the 17 home run output with everything else he does, this is a all-conference star. If you get the lower home run totals, but you get the speed and the defense and the average, then he's still a really helpful starter for you, right? So either way, a really good addition for KU. And like I said, you look at it now, like you have Palmese potentially in centerfield. You can move Owens to either left or right.

We'll see what happens with Brady Ballinger. I think the expectation is he's going to go pro, but again, we'll kind of wait and see there. And then you have Aidan Muton, who's a big-time transfer from the Juko ranks. You've got other guys from the juco ranks who can play in the outfield if you need them to. So, yeah, I like the way the outfield's shaking for KU at this point. I mean, all the Darren Peterson drama continues from the season. I mean, we have the creotine thing. And now we have the, that he's not doing a workout for the jazz who have the second pick

and that his camp is trying to get him to be the first pick or the third pick. And just like, man, the more and more of this happens, like, it's not even a Darren Peterson thing for me. It's his camp. His agent, the Matsu, what is it, Matsumara, whatever, Mots, I guess he goes by. His agent isn't, I'm sorry, his agent's an idiot, man. His, I don't know if he has like a PR team or anything like that. It's bad, man. It's really bad.

Like, I don't know, man. Whatever. I'm past, like, I'm past caring about the drama stuff and I don't have to anymore because now it's like, it's like, I dropped the problem child off at college and was like, it's your problem. now world i don't have to deal with it um that's probably not a great way of parenting but anyway like point being i don't have to deal with that anymore all i got to say is like his camp sucks okay uh k u volleyball recruiting here um so k u loses marissa jones who's like a really good setter commit in the class of twenty 27 she flips to ohio state is not as big of a deal as it sounds though probably a bit of a mutual decision because KU lands the big setter from USC who's just a sophomore and a five and five

happens. That's four years for to play right now. It blocks Marista Jones in front of her. So probably a bit of a mutual there. But KU does add a 2028 setter in Ava Lane from Springfield, Missouri. And then they get a commit from a LaBaro in the class of 2028 in Harper Broils, who is an all-state pick from the state of Tennessee. All right. That'll do it for this episode of Lockdown, Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page, or you can like and subscribe to the show. On tomorrow's episode, we're going to break down some of the top international big men available for KU if they decide to go down that route. This has been locked on Jayhawks.