Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Jayhawks Portal Target: Moustapha Thiam Could Boost Kansas' Rebounding & Inside Presence

Starting point is 00:00:00 Mustafa Chom certainly gave Kansas the business in some of the recent matchups. Would he make sense for Bill Self and the Jayhawk? 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? And on today's episode, Locked on Jayhawks, we're breaking down Mustafa Chom. I've had a lot of people reach out asking me to do deep dive on Choms. We're going to break that down on this episode.

Starting point is 00:00:34 his scouting report potential fit with KU, all that and more. He is a 7-foot-2, 250-pound behemoth. It does sound like Kansas has certainly at least kicked the tires here and has some level of interest. Now, to what level remains to be seen? What is the money asked? Certainly, you look at some of the upcoming opportunities for Chum. If you're listening to this today on Tuesday, he has a visit scheduled for St.

Starting point is 00:01:01 John's, and I have certainly had a run of recent. videos get released that later the guy committed to a different school within that same day. So maybe it ends up happening with with Chom as well. But Travis Brannum from 24-7 reported the St. John's visit also mentioned that he is hearing from Kansas along with a long list of other schools. But this is one of the higher rated transfers that's available in the portal for anybody. You stop 25 pretty much everywhere you look that has some sort of a transfer portal list. He goes to UCF as a freshman.

Starting point is 00:01:34 and the only freshman in the power five to average 10 or more points, five or more rebounds, and two and a half blocks per game. It's an incredible first season. He transfers then to Cincinnati, stays in the Big 12 for year two, and he puts up even better averages, 12.8 points, 7.1 rebounds, 1.6 blocks per game. He shoots 53% from the floor, 29% from 3, 63% at the foul line for a Bearcats team that, you know, obviously didn't end up making the NCAA tournament, but still finished top 45 on Ken Palm.

Starting point is 00:02:06 And, you know, we saw a full brunt of when they were playing well in Lawrence when they kind of kicked KU's butt. But he wound up with seven games of 18 or more points. He had seven games of double-digit rebounds. He had six games of four more blocks and a season high of 28 points, which that was the game that came in Lawrence against KU. He also had 16 rebounds and five blocks. Those are his season highs in the same game.

Starting point is 00:02:31 It came against UCF in the big, tournament. So a little bit of, I don't know if you say it's revenge because he's the one who left UCF, but certainly given, you know, a big performance to his old school. Interestingly enough, he's actually been a player who has gotten better when he's played better opponents and in bigger games. So he's played 28 career games against Ken Palm top 50 opponents. His two point percentage drops two ticks, so a little drop up there. But his free throw shooting rises three ticks and his three-point marksmanship rises nine percentage points in the games against top 50 opponents. So he's played well against better competition.

Starting point is 00:03:10 Metrics-wise, good stuff here, 82nd percentile, RIPM. He was actually a slight negative on offense, interestingly enough, but a big boost for the defense. 87th percentile, windchairs per three, which included being in the 98th percentile in defensive winchairs per 40. 85th percent down P.E.R. 87th in Winds above replacement player. And the odd-off numbers are strong to Cincinnati was almost six points better per 100 possessions on just offense when he was out there. And they were over seven points better on defense per 100 possessions when he was out there. So the overall net rating for him was plus 13.4, which again means Cincinnati was over 13 points better per 100 possessions.

Starting point is 00:03:52 And he was on the floor that put an 8th percent down nationally. And the other thing that was interesting to me, it wasn't just the team overall got better. When he was on the floor, their defensive rebound rate skyrocketed. When he was on the floor, Cincinnati boasted a 94th percentile defensive rebound rate. So for a Kansas team that needed to be a better defensive rebounding team this year, Chom would help you kind of solve that. Now, there's a couple big questions here. One is with all this interest from these other schools, from schools like Duke,

Starting point is 00:04:21 from schools like Louisville or not Louisville, St. John's, who he is, again, if you're listening to this on Tuesday, visiting today, and who knows what happens there. again, by the time you listen to this, who knows, maybe he's picked another school. But what is the price tag going to be on a kid who is very clearly a high level transfer target? And if KU wasn't willing to pay Flory Budunga, you know, and let's say Flory got $5 million, okay, if Chom gets $3 million, sure, maybe Kansas ponies up the money. But what happens if Chom's price tag comes to four, four and a half? At that point, if you're Kansas, are you like, we let Flore go for five, why would we get Chom for four? You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:04:56 The other part of this question is everywhere he's gone, he has been with his guy as assistant coach, Mamadu Injai, who I believe was, I'm trying to remember where he played college, but I think he played in the NBA for like a cup of coffee. Now he's an assistant coach and UCF hired him to get Chom. Then it was Cincinnati bringing him on to get Chom. I mean, to me, you could probably carve out a position for somebody. And Kansas has some assistant coaches they could probably cycle through. but like, I don't know, that's obviously one question there.

Starting point is 00:05:28 And then overall, though, this is just the dude who we've seen play well against Kansas multiple times. We've seen play well in Allen Fieldhouse. He's a huge body. He would give you rim protection. He would give you rebounding. He got better from freshman and sophomore year, making you think he can get even better headed into his junior year. KU needs a center. Why not Mustafa Chom?

Starting point is 00:05:45 Let's get more into a scouting report next. Our episode of the show is brought to you by TurboTax. It is tax time, but for a lot of us, the old way of doing things is a lot. trying to book an appointment that's not the most convenient, sitting in a waiting room with a stack of papers, emailing back and forth, wondering if they really get your situation. But this year, you're getting a major upgrade. Into a TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. You can meet face-to-face with a real tax expert and your documents get uploaded straight to your TurboTax app on the spot. And just like that, you're done. Your TurboTax expert works to get you every dollar you

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Starting point is 00:06:45 That is locked on jhawks. That supercast.com. Okay, Mustafa Chom, again, this is somebody that I'm very interested in that I've had a lot of people reach out to me that are interested in. And again, hopefully the run doesn't continue of me posting one of these. he commits to another school. Anyway, strengths for chum, length is one of them, right? It's not just about the seven foot two height, which it is, but it's also the seven foot six wing span. And even more than that, it is the nine foot six standing reach. Now, that's kind of some of the report. I don't know

Starting point is 00:07:16 how full on those measurements are, you know, like how official are those? I don't know. Nine foot six standing reach is elite territory. For instance, Zach Eadie. Everybody knows Zach Ead. J. J. Giant human. Nine foot seven standing reach. You're only an inch off of that. So think about the potential of what you could do with that, right? And one of those things that that carries over to is rim protection for Chom. He was in the 88th percent on block rate. And just in general, teams had a two percentage drop in effective field goal percentage just when he was on the floor. It makes it more predictable because, you know, they're not going to want to take shots at the rim when they are. They're getting blocked more. So yeah, he would be a point for your defense. Also, rebounding. He was an above

Starting point is 00:07:57 average offensive rebounder, but it's not a weakness. He is an elite defensive rebounder, 86 percentile defensive rebound rate. But again, when you look at the team wide impact, Cincinnati was such a better rebounding team on the defensive end when he was on the floor. So really good defensive rebounder, above average offensive rebounder, good rim protector. He also, interestingly enough, doesn't really turn the ball over. Sometimes you think of, you know, bigger big men as maybe being a little bit more, I don't know, clumsy or loose with the ball or or whatever. Not the case for Chom, who during Big 12 play was in the 92nd percentile and turnover rate for

Starting point is 00:08:34 Biggs. So that's a really nice number to see there, right? He can also shoot the three. It's not super efficient. He hit 29%. It's not like a great number or anything. But he's also not taking a giant amount of them that it's going to like shoot you out of a game.

Starting point is 00:08:46 And it's at least in his bag to bail you out of a situation or to at least space the floor here or there. And who knows? With another year of practice, what if he gets up to 33%. You know what I mean? He's also solid at the rim over 65%. Another site I was looking at had him at 67%. The differences of some of the different sites,

Starting point is 00:09:05 some count within two and a half feet is at the rim. Others say it's within three and a half feet or four and a half feet. So it just depends where you look. But mid-high 60s and at the rim, he's also really good on short mid-range at 57%, which is like those long hook shots or those little six, eight footers where you either bank it in or hit a little short floater, right? Like Bryson Tiller in that range was 32%.

Starting point is 00:09:26 So it would be nice to have a player who has really good touch in that area. Synergy has him at 50% for percentile, sorry, on post-ups efficiency. So more average there. Hoop Explorer actually has him in the 81st percentile. And I think that's interesting because, again, you look at some of these different sites, value or include different things. With Synergy, it's just the straight-up post-ups. And I think that tells you something.

Starting point is 00:09:52 He doesn't have the most diverse post-up game. But what Hoop Explorer includes is, seal ins as part of those post-ups. So he's really good at sealing off his defender and getting an easy basket out of it, not great out of traditional post-ups. But here's the good news for KU. The bad news is that you're probably looking for post-up scoring after not really having a ton of it this year. The good news is, you know who's really good at getting seal-ins for his big men and has always been in his entire time of Kansas is Bill Self. So with Mustafa Chom, he's really good at getting those duckins and seal-ins. That would probably get him a lot of easy.

Starting point is 00:10:26 points at Kansas. Some of the weaknesses, though, even though he doesn't turn it over, he doesn't really play make much for either, which, you know, you could just say, okay, I don't really care if my center, you know, is getting a ton of assists. It's nice if they can, but it's not like a requirement. He does a very low assist rate. I do think that matters in not all the time, but there are sometimes, like teams who are going to double the post. It's nice if your guy can, you know, hit the cross court pass, right? He's also not very good on long mid-range shots, only 35 percent and you kind of have to live with him taking some of those and taking some threes that aren't always the most efficient. Obviously, you hope that he shoots better if he comes to your school

Starting point is 00:11:04 and with another year, you know, under his belt. He's also not the quickest or the fastest in the open floor. I'm definitely not a player like Florey that you could switch with. You probably have to run more of a drop coverage scheme. I'll be completely honest. I kind of would prefer to you to do that right now anyway. Like we saw them get, you know, beat on some switch stuff too often last year that I certainly wouldn't hate that for KU. But, you know, that is something you kind of have to adjust to. So some interesting things. Overall, I think this is clear, like this is a take for KU.

Starting point is 00:11:35 But what are we talking about here? Like, what's the level of money you would go to? What's the debate between some of the other setter talk about? We'll get to that next. This episode is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. The NBA playoffs are here where every possession matters, every matchups magnified, and every game can swing a series. Fandals giving new customers a great way to get in on the action.

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Starting point is 00:12:34 Play your game with the official sports with partner of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Thanks again for joining us here on the show. Don't forget to give us follow on Twitter at D. Johnson Radio or at L.O. underscore Jhawks. And if there's a certain player you want us to deep dive on, hit us up either on our Discord channel, which you can join on the Everyday Air Club, or hit me up on Twitter on one of those two spots and we'll try to work it into the rotation, hopefully before they end up committing somewhere. Okay, so in general, I think Chom would be a great fit.

Starting point is 00:13:03 Like, that's obvious. You would have to run more of a Dickinson-style drop coverage defensively for KU, but I think Chom is a better rim protector than Dickinson. Now, Dickinson obviously had more offensive pop than Chom, but, you know, those Dickinson teams were top 15, top 20 defenses. So if you have Chom running that style, you're, still going to be good defensively. I think Chom gives you more offense than Florey did. I think that's pretty clear. Like you have a little bit more jump shooting. You have a little bit more touch in the short

Starting point is 00:13:32 mid-range area. Even though he's not a great post-up player, there might still be more there than Florey. Also really good at those ceilins. He has real size, gives you flexibility about how you want to approach the four spot. Like, do you go with a power forward who's more of a score? Or do you go with a wing option at the four? I think both of those would be available to you if you had a giant like Chom Manning. five. So it gives you different options of what you want to do with. Because Chom can stretch it out a little bit, it also allows you to play two bigs if you wanted to. You know, we saw Cincinnati kind of do that. Boba Miller is, at times he plays like a wing, but is kind of a big and they were able to play those two guys. I think the big question here is how much are we talking? And I guess, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:16 if you want to lop it on, like how much is the salary too for the assistant coach you're going to have to hire with all of this, right? Because you do have to factor that in. And, and I guess. And I guess, you know, if you have to factor that in. If the assistant coach is going to cost you an extra 500K, it's not just a three and a half million dollar deal or whatever it is for Chaum. It's not four million, you know? And I don't know what those numbers are. But again, I go back to the idea that for Kansas, there becomes a certain number where you're sitting there going, you know, okay, why would we pay if we didn't want to pay Flory 5 million, why would we pay Chom four and a half million? You know what I mean? Like at that point, at that point, if you were saving money by,

Starting point is 00:14:53 by not retaining Flory, it's to save money at the center position to impact your roster in other areas. And I think that's where the biggest question comes. So if Chom wants $3 million, I think it's a home run and you do it right away, right? But once you start creeping up in that $4 million range, maybe you start having a conversation. We did a deep dive on Anton Pank on Monday. And I don't know what the cost of Anton Pank is, but I'd imagine it's cheaper than Chom. And so then you get into the conversation. Again, like this is something you didn't have to work with before. years ago was just do you like this player or that player better? Now it's do you like Chom at 4 million or do you like Bonk at 1.5 million where the extra 2.5 million can go to a better guard

Starting point is 00:15:37 or a better wing or split between two players or to building a better bench? Those are questions you have to figure out for yourself. And so I think to me like if it is one and a half for Bonk, again, this is just me throwing out random numbers and four for Chom, I would take bong in that situation and build out the rest of the roster. But if Choms three, like I'm taking Chom, you know, so I think that becomes the biggest conversation here of what is the cost and with all these really good schools interested, is it going to boost that cost to a level that's too much for Kansas? But just in a vacuum, I would love for Mustafa Chom to find his way to Lawrence because I think he'd be a really good fit and a really good player for Bill Self.

Starting point is 00:16:14 All right. That'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find her show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Jayhawks Portal Target: Moustapha Thiam Could Boost Kansas' Rebounding & Inside Presence

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