Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas beats Howard. INSTANT REACTION NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKET BREAKDOWN CLIP:

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

The Kansas Jayhawks beat the Howard Bison in the first round of the NCAA March Madness Tournament. We break down the matchup with Derek Johnson, the host of Locked On Jayhawks. Follow Locked On Jayhawks for more on the Kansas Jayhawks and keep track of all the action by subscribing to Locked On College Basketball.Stay up-to-date on the Kansas Jayhawks every day, as Derek Johnson of Rock Chalk Sports Talk on KLWN, the flagship KU station in Lawrence, brings you analysis and the latest on KU with the Locked On Jayhawks Podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network.Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms… 🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOJayhawks?sid=YouTubeLocked On College Conferences, HBCU, Basketball & More🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnCollege #KansasJayhawks #CollegeFootball #CollegeBasketball Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

March Madness underway. We are doing another locked on bracket breakdown. Now, number one, Kansas took care of their business as they should have against a 16 seed in Howard. They were without their head coach, though. So that's something that's kind of been an ongoing story is they haven't had Bill Self with them, but they did just fine. They took care of what they needed to take care of. Is there any information on that in terms of whether Coach is going to be back for the rest of this run?

They're keeping it as nondescript as possible. Everything you hear is day-to-day, and you sort of understand it's not, I guess, like a rolled ankle where it's like, well, this is the definitive date. It really is about how he feels, and I'm sure there's some stress-related stuff when it is something where he had to get stints in his kind of artery-heart area. So I've kind of been under the impression, based on earlier this week,

when Bill Self was supposed to be the one meeting with the media on Wednesday, that it was Norm Roberts, that Norm Roberts coaches today. I'm kind of under the impression, if you're making me make an educated guess, that it would be Norm Roberts again. But certainly it's a little different than earlier in the season

when Bill Self served the suspension and during the Big 12 tournament because at least now Bill Self is still around the team. He's helping them. He's coached the last three practices. He is helping out with scouting and with the film session. He's still getting in contact with the coaches like at halftime, postgame, pregame, all that stuff. So it's a little more than he was in the previous games. And that does make it seem like he's progressing in the right way.

But I'm just kind of under the assumption you're without him this week. Fortunately for them, Kansas kind of operates as a well-oiled machine at this time in the year. What have you seen from the team lately in terms of just being in the right mindset? Maybe obviously they handily got a win in the first round, but just kind of being in that headspace where they need to be to make a serious run. Yeah, the biggest thing for them is just you have to get at least four of the five starters going on a given night. Last year, you had the luxury of having Remy Martin, Mitch Lightfoot come off the bench, who could come in, give you a bucket. And if you really need it to, you could go to Jalen Coleman-Lantz. This isn't a deep team. The bench has really

struggled. They don't play a lot of minutes, and also they've struggled this year. So that means that if you're not going to get a lot from the bench, the starters have to pick it up. Now, the bench played really well against Howard, but you kind of expect that because you're playing against the 16 seed. And with no Kevin McCuller in the Big 12 championship, that obviously made things a lot more difficult when you are so reliant on those starters. But you see the game today against Howard, all five starters end up in double figures. KU ends up winning by 28 points. That's kind of the biggest key there. Outside of that, it's just getting the defense going. When they went through that run last year to win the NCAA tournament as much as you saw big shots by Ochag Baji and

Remy Martin and David McCormick hitting hook shots it was the defense they they had a game where you know I think they had 24-25 points at halftime against Providence in the Sweet 16 and they were up by almost 10 points because of the defense of the Miami game they shut them down in the second half defensively second half against North Carolina they forced all sorts of turnovers and created steals and played good defense. It was led by the defense and their top 10 defensive unit this year. That's going to be something they're going to have to rely on, which at times in the Howard game, you saw some openings for things that the Bison did well against them, but that'll be the key for if they want to make another long run again.

When you're looking forward, obviously, since they won their first round matchup, is there anyone kind of in this section of the bracket that really worries you, or do you feel like if Kansas is playing their best basketball that no one can really touch them? Well, I think the whole bracket kind of worries you when it came out to begin with, kind of the bracket of death, so to speak, if you were having it out there. You looked at Ken palm coming in five of the top 11 teams and ken palm were in this bracket and kansas is the fourth highest team in the ken palm rankings fifth if you look at

bartorvik just in their own region so i i think you kind of look at everyone to be honest but uh if we just want to make this an immediate thing i think the arkansas illinois winner could be really interesting with illinois we've seen kind of all year long they've been this team who has a really high ceiling they've beaten some really good teams but the floor can be a little bit lower but if you're playing them in game you just hope like heck that they're not in one of those ceiling games and actually ku played illinois in one of those secret scrimmage games and illinois beat them by a point it was only a one-half game of basketball, but that certainly is interesting at the beginning of the year.

With Arkansas, they have a couple lottery picks. Both teams in Arkansas and Illinois play really good defense. When KU plays good defensive teams, sometimes they can get into a bit of ruts. So I think immediately you look at both games, and I don't think it's at all automatic advance for KU. I think I saw before the tournament started, there's a chance that KU, if they play Arkansas, would only be like a three, three and a half point favorite, which would be one of the lowest favorites in a second round matchup

for a one seed that we've seen in quite some time. So I think you look all up and down the bracket. UConn is just a really good team who has maybe size inside that could challenge KU. Sometimes KU struggles with tempo. We saw that early in the year with Wisconsin. Well, St. Mary's plays at a slow tempo. Same with UCLA at the bottom end of the bracket.

We saw TCU win in Allen Fieldhouse by over 20 points. So it really is the entire bracket. It really is tough in the West. All right, we're going to have to take a game-by-game then for Kansas if they want to make another serious run. Of course, Locked on Jayhawks will have you the entire way, whether they're facing off against Arkansas or Illinois. The next one we'll have to wait and see on that right now.

Of course, Locked on College Basketball has you covered from top to bottom, the rest of the bracket as well. It's all part of Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.