Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks at BYU Cougars: Can KU Salvage the Season? Will KJ Adams Defend Egor Demin?

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Can the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team bounce back after their tough loss to the Utah Utes? As they prepare to face the BYU Cougars in Salt Lake City, this game could define their season. With Kansas... barely holding onto their ranking, a win is crucial for their NCAA tournament seeding.Explore the unique dynamics of BYU's lineup, featuring a towering point guard, Egor Demin, and sharp shooters like Trevin Knell and Richie Saunders. Discover the keys to victory for Kansas, including energizing their defense, minimizing turnovers, and reigniting Hunter Dickinson's offensive prowess.Will KJ Adams step up to guard Demin, and can Dickinson return to his double-double form? What will the status of guard Zeke Mayo be? What impact will David Coit and Rylan Griffen provide? Tune in for an in-depth analysis of these pivotal matchups and strategies. Don't miss the chance to gain exclusive insights into Kansas' path to success against BYU.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Turbo TaxReady for stress-free taxes and the most money back, guaranteed? Head over to TurboTax.com today and get matched with your Expert. Only available with TurboTax Live Full Service. Real-time updates only in the iOS mobile app. See guarantee details at TurboTax.com/guarantees. 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)

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Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we preview Kansas BYU. Jayhawks really need this one. 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 here. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thank you to the everydayers catching all our episodes. Your team every day. I mean, this is kind of a season-defining game for KU. Then again, it feels like we keep having these season-defining games, and that's not a bad sign that you keep having to have that kind of happen. Anyway, we're getting into the headlines of the game. KU barely hanging on ranked.
Starting point is 00:00:54 Opponents scouting report of the Cougars. Keys to the game for the Jayhawks and players to watch. Today's episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Right now, new FanDuel customers can get $150 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. And certainly, I know there's a lot of KU fans that have already been interested that BYU has only given up a point and a half against Kansas. I know a lot of people feel good about one side of the equation there,
Starting point is 00:01:21 and I will leave that up to you to decide which one you think that is. Okay coming to this one for ku and byu obviously a tuesday late night game in mountain time can kansas bounce back and find a way to win on the road from whatever that was on saturday because you keep having these moments as i alluded to where it's like okay you lose this bad second half against baylor and you come out and you beat Iowa state where it's like, okay, you need to show something here. And you did against Iowa state, but then you can't show something on the following Saturday. And I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's, they can't play on the road,
Starting point is 00:01:53 which they continue to struggle at. I think six and 13 on the road in the hundred Digginson era. I don't know if it's right now. They just can't play on Saturdays. Like it feels like the weekday games have gone better. So maybe that's a good sign for tonight. I guess we'll, we'll figure out if it's a road thing or a weekday thing here in this one.
Starting point is 00:02:09 But you add to it that BYU is a good opponent and you add to it that you're talking about the second game of this mountain trip to where, you know, that time in between. Like, is this going to be a good thing or a bad thing for KU that you you've hung out kind of in the Utah area are you going to be more adjusted are you going to be more ready for the altitude and how that can affect you coming into this game or is it going to be you know you were already lacking for energy now you're coming off a game in mountain time your body isn't recovering like it normally is when it's not at altitude and you're going to be even less lethargic if that's even possible for this kansas team right now i i don't know that's going to be interesting kansas did come in 23rd in the latest ap poll so they keep their their ranked streak alive i mean it's it's not nearly as long of a ranked streak as when they last snapped it back in 2021 when it was dating back to 2009 for the
Starting point is 00:02:58 ranked streak to keep going but you know it obviously does raise alarm bells anytime kansas is not ranked and if you lose this game if you lose either of these next two games this week, you're going to be unranked next week. I feel confident in saying that. So from that standpoint, you know, you want to avoid negative history. This team has already had the bad history of losing your conference opener for the first time in over 30 seasons, right? I don't know how confident people are that the senior day streak
Starting point is 00:03:20 is going to continue at home against Arizona, but we can get to that down the road. The other part of this, does a win at Provo make you start believing again? You know, because I feel like probably not because of the standpoint of how inconsistent it's been all season long. And because the Utah loss is probably going to be worse than even if you do get a win here at BYU. So I don't think it's going to cause people to believe. But at the same point in time, there are people that are going to keep the hope going. And that's part of fandom, right? That you hold on to that ever inkling of hope. And so if you can win this game, of course, there's going
Starting point is 00:03:52 to be some people that, you know, start believing again in this team. But I think beyond all of that, we just had Graham Doran on yesterday's episode. And thank you to everybody who's catching that. If you haven't, check it out because it talks a lot about the potential seeding that kansas could get based on how they finished the season kind of best case and worst case scenario and this game is very important to figuring out what kansas is going to be right if you lose this game you might be talking about this team being a six or seven seed right if you win this game maybe you can get back on track and and you know you go two and one in that final three game stretch which is going to be pretty tough and maybe you can get back on track and, you know, you go two and one in that final three game stretch, which is going to be pretty tough. And maybe you can start talking about yourself being back in that top four seed scenario. And if you can win this game and go on a hot
Starting point is 00:04:32 streak, maybe you can work yourself back up to a three seed or something like that. So you look at the importance of this one on the NCAA tournament seeding, but you also look at this one, the importance of the big 12 tournament seeding. Right now're outside uh two games of the top four seed which is the ones that get the buy in the first week i mean that is crazy that kansas uh they've expanded the big 12 tournament and and now you know with the new schools being added in everything um to where now it's no longer 10 teams in the tournament and basically you are in a situation where you're probably going to be playing on a wednesday back-to-back years in the big 12 tournament, which is nuts for so long. Kansas would be the one or the two seed.
Starting point is 00:05:09 BYU scouting board, they come in with a very similar record. They're also 17-8. They're also 8-6 in Big 12 play. So they have the same record as Kansas. And that also means the importance of this evening and this one that if you lose this game, you're going to be looking at possibly a 6 or 7 seed in in the big 12 tournament maybe lower depending on how you finish the season right so you look at byu they just beat kansas state handedly on saturday by 15 points that's a really impressive win for the cougars kansas state's been playing as good of basketball as anyone in the conference and overall byu has won six of their last eight games uh they're ranked right around the top three on
Starting point is 00:05:43 ken palm at this point in time kind of a bubble team for my money. They should be an NCAA tournament team. And this is also one of the tougher places to play in the Big 12. So this becomes a very difficult game. It becomes a difficult game because it's a solid opponent. It's a difficult place to play. And it's also a difficult game because I don't think this is a good stylistic matchup for KU. And we saw that a little bit last year when BYU came in Allen Fieldhouse and pulled off the victory. Let's get into why here in a second. So you look at the personnel for BYU.
Starting point is 00:06:10 It's a very weird, like, normally when you say, okay, is this team big? You know, do they have a lot of height? You're referring to, like, their big men. You're referring to, oh, you know, they have a 6'9", 3-man at the wing, and they have a 6'11", 4-man, and they have a 7-foot four man and they have a seven footer at the five and you look at it byu's 23rd in the country in average height according to ken bob but they don't do it the normal way it's almost like inverted like their centers the two main ones they play are six foot eight and six foot six but the difference is their point guard yegor demin
Starting point is 00:06:40 is like six foot nine and the other guards that they're playing at the 2 and the 3 and even the 1 are like 6'4", 6'5". They have like 6'7", and 6'9". So it's a very interesting roster and how it kind of comes together. And that makes it difficult because Kansas has a lot of small guards, and they're going to have the size advantage with the guards. But then Kansas can have the advantage with the size of the bigs, but BYU is able to space you out. And we've seen Kansas struggle with teams who can you know pace the court or space the court and you'll shoot threes really well so you look at them uh six foot nine freshman point guard jaguar demin probably a lottery pick 11 points five and a half
Starting point is 00:07:13 assists per game he's an even better passer than those assist numbers show really good passer 3.6 rebounds 1.2 steals has been inconsistent shooting the ball so it'll be interesting to see how kansas defends him 28 from three but a really good player overall. Dallin Hall is just kind of your commanding point guard, 35% from three, good facilitator, so both those guys will get time running the point. Traven Nell is one of the best shooters in the conference, 42% from three for his career, over 500 three-point attempts at 39%. He's a 6'5 guard.
Starting point is 00:07:42 They have Dawson Baker, who's a 6'4 guard, scores about eight a game, 38% from three. You'll see the theme, a lot of good three-point shooters here for BYU. 6'5 wing Richie Saunders, he's been their leading scorer this season, 15 points per game, also four and a half rebounds, but his shooting percentage is very good. 50% from the field, 42% from three, 77 at the foul line, and he's had 20 or more points five times in big 12 play then among the wing spots like at the three and the four they'll use i don't know the proper pronunciation may want mog mag um he's a six seven wing 50 from the floor 34 from three off the bat like you know again like even if you're you're less lower percentage shooting players are shooting
Starting point is 00:08:23 34 that's a good place to be. And then Cannon Catchings is a really interesting player. Six foot nine freshman. I think he's going to be a really good player down the road here. Lengthy wing, 8.2 points per game on 35% from three. So he can shoot a little bit. He can score a little bit. Doesn't really do much else in the stat sheet,
Starting point is 00:08:38 but he has been a strong defender according to some of the metric numbers. So if you're talking about basically kind of a three and Dean, six foot nine freshman wing, like he's probably going to turn into something pretty good down the road but he's been a very useful piece for them and then at center is a rotation of a six foot eight 231 pound center in kiba kata he's uh mostly rebounder 7.6 rebounds per game 63 he'll shoot it when he gets open um but you know good very good defender on the inside good rebounder and then fusani treore who is the bowling ball big man six foot six 240 pounds 8.8 points 5.7 rebounds better scorer than kata um i think kata is definitely the better defender though but
Starting point is 00:09:16 treore is difficult because he's he is that bowling ball he will charge into you 63 but he also when he gets fouled which when you have a guy that big who's good at using his momentum and mass he's going to go to the free throw line and he's shooting them at 82 percent um then they might use a little bit of their uh six foot ten who kind of a stretch five and high low uh boscovich now what they do well this is a top 15 offense in the country they are third in offensive efficiency in big 12 only games. By the way, I should probably mention, Kansas is only two and four this season when they play teams with top 20 offenses on Ken Palm's adjusted offensive efficiency. So that would be good for BYU there.
Starting point is 00:09:55 But BYU is top 10 in effective field goal percentage and two point percentage in the country. They don't take like a super high volume of twos, but the reason why they're so good there is because they really space you out from three-point range. And so they really open up driving lanes. They open up cutting lanes. A lot of times you put all this emphasis on guarding the three
Starting point is 00:10:15 and then boom, they get a wide open layup as part of it. But they're also top 20 in three-point rate in the country, 36.5% from three, which when you're shooting on that volume becomes very impressive and difficult to stop. They a good passing team uh they're solid offensive rebounding unit too right a lot of those long shots you're getting offensive rebounds defensively this is uh an elite defensive rebounding unit too so they're doing a good job there and they do a good job of avoiding sending teams to the free throw line now where they've struggled there's a BYU team that's turned the ball over too much on the offensive end of the court which is a little
Starting point is 00:10:44 weird because you would think a team that's shooting a lot of threes, you know, a lot of times the tighter passes are the ones where you're driving and kicking or driving and trying to find somebody in a tight window or throwing a post up that somebody's getting fronted. And a lot of times those can lead to more turnovers. Usually the teams that shoot a lot of threes turn it over less because you're just on the exterior and shooting it or passing it around the horn, which is a higher percentage of passion. But they have struggled a little bit with the turnovers. They don't shoot many free throws.
Starting point is 00:11:09 And oddly enough, as good of a three-point shooting team as they are, they haven't been a good free throw shooting team, weirdly enough. But they rank outside the top 70 on defense. So even though it's been one of the better offenses in the league, it has been one of the worst defenses in the league. In Big 12 only games, they are 12th of the 16 teams in defensive efficiency and the reason why they've kind of been hurt from three-point range and then they're kind of middle of the pack from two on defense and on turnover defense enforcing them or kind of a lack thereof so we'll see how that impacts
Starting point is 00:11:39 the game let's get to our keys to the game for kansas players to watch next. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Episode of the show today is brought to you by TurboTax. This is a message from a sponsor into a TurboTax. Taxes was dealing with piles of paperwork and frustrating forms and then waiting and wondering and worrying if you were going
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Starting point is 00:12:27 Only available with TurboTax live full service. Real-time updates only in iOS mobile app. See guarantee details at TurboTax.com backslash guarantees. Continuing on in this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. Thank you that every day is catching each and every episode and we will have a KUBYU postcast after the game. It'll be
Starting point is 00:12:49 a late one, so you might tune in on Wednesday morning, you might tune in after the game, Tuesday night, whatever. We appreciate you joining us. Okay, keys to the game for KU. Number one, play with energy and poise. And this was a key I had for the Utah game, and honestly, I think I've had it a couple other games too.
Starting point is 00:13:06 But it's a pertinent one. Because, okay, first of all, I could just make this key number one for every game for Kansas moving forward. Because when this team does play with energy for a long period of time, I'm not saying they're the best team in the country, but they're a better team. And yes, there are more problems. Even if this team does play with energy, they can still lose. They still do have problems, right? They still have the best offense in the Even if this team does play with energy, they can still lose. They still do have problems, right? They still have the best offense in the world, even if they play with energy. They still don't have the most spacing in the world, even if they don't play with energy.
Starting point is 00:13:31 They still don't, you know, and haven't figured out getting some of the transfers accustomed to playing Bill South basketball. Like some of that stuff, maybe it doesn't change without the lack of energy. But here's the thing. Whatever version of yourself you are, what do you think is the better version? The one that's trying hard and going all out or the one that's not? Whether you think Kansas is a poorly fitting team or a bad team or a good team or a mid team, wherever you think they are on that scale, ask yourself the question, do you think they would be a worse team? Or do you think they would be a better team? Excuse me. Do you think they would be a better team if they played like junkyard dogs? The answer
Starting point is 00:14:11 is absolutely yes. Now, where that ceiling would be remains to be clear, right? Is it the difference between Kansas being, I don't know, a top 30 team in the country to being a top 15 team in the country? Is it the difference between being a top 20 team in the country and a top 10 team in the country? Is the difference between being the 16th best team and the 14th best team? I don't know, but you're better if you play with that energy, right? You just are. And for Kansas team that isn't that good on offense, don't you think the identity would need to be being junkyard dogs, winning all these small margins and being a good defensive team? Because at this point, it's pretty clear the offensive talent just isn't there for this team based on the personnel they're playing right and if that's
Starting point is 00:14:48 the case you need to steer into the energy thing because there is no way if you're going to be the lesser talented offensive team in a lot of these games like against byu you have to find other ways to win and part of that is the energy thing so that's part of it but the other like you see this in the way ku defends too right you think of the utah game how many of those threes guys i think utah had what eight in the first half how many of those were just wide open shots because ku wasn't rotating hard enough they weren't hustling fast enough they weren't and part of it is both mental um energy and physical energy right sometimes you can run all out but if mentally you're not there don't know where you're going
Starting point is 00:15:24 it's not going to help either so you need to be there and play with that poise on the road here byu ranks in the 98th percentile for the percentage of their shots that come from the corner during conference play so you've got to be able to get out on those shooters right and for the season byu shooting corner threes at a 44 clip that is in the 97th percentile nationally so you have to be able to get on out on these shooters they shoot them from everywhere They'll shoot them from deep. They have a bunch of different guys who can take it. Everybody better be on their game for KU and play with energy. Number two, hold on to the ball if you're Kansas. BYU, as we mentioned, not a great
Starting point is 00:15:55 turnover defense. They're 13th in Big 12 only games in turnover rate on the defensive end of the court. So again, they're not forcing them a ton, but when they do, they become pretty deadly because they do a lot of other things well that when they start forcing these as well, it becomes very difficult to beat them. When BYU forces an 18% or higher turnover rate, and for comparison, on the season, they're 16.3. So this is playing, you know, for them a good game
Starting point is 00:16:21 in terms of forcing turnovers. They're 11-0 when they force an 18% or higher turnover rate. You might be doing the math. Okay, the record's 17-8. That means they're 6-8 on the flip side when they don't. For Kansas, they're 5-4 this season when they turn the ball over 18% or higher compared to 12-4 when it's under. So it's not as divisive a split as BYU, but it still is a difference in split there for Kansas. And unfortunately, here's where the road game comes into time. And this is something where you would think Kansas being the most experienced team in the country, this stuff wouldn't phase them, but it clearly does.
Starting point is 00:16:53 Played on the road clearly phases this team and this core of players, because in four of Kansas's last five road games, they have been at 18% or higher on that turnover rate. The magic number here that we're kind of alluding to. So can you avoid it tonight against BYU becomes a big question. Number three, get Hunter Dickinson going. He was just four for 12 in the game at Utah. And did you know that the last time Hunter Dickinson had a double-double was January 11th? This dude was a double-double machine. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:17:27 I would have thought it would have been sooner than five weeks ago, and that was against Cincinnati. Now, this one's a little bit of a higher bar, like 20 points and 10 rebounds. It's a very good game. But he hasn't had a 20-10 game, which, I don't know, again, it feels like we would see those semi-regularly since the NC State game, which you have to go back all the way to December 14th. So it's been over two months since we've seen a 20 and 10 game from, you know, 20 points and 10 plus rebounds from Hunter Dickinson. He had nine games a season ago.
Starting point is 00:17:55 So, I mean, if you think about it, basically one in every four of KU's games last year, he was getting a 20 and 10 game. We haven't seen one in over two months for this Kansas team. And Kansas doesn't have enough offensive options right now, right? The AJ Storr, Ryland Griffin thing just hasn't really worked out for differing reasons, which we don't need to get into right now. But because of those things and because of the fact that Zeke Mayo might be questionable for this game, right? I mean, regardless of Zeke Mayo plays or not, we do know that Zeke has struggled a bit more
Starting point is 00:18:23 on the road. And if he does play, he's going to be probably playing through an injury at that point in time but regardless if he does or not you still need another offensive presence and for Kansas to win a game when they're not a particularly great offensive team you need Hunter Dickinson to kind of carry the offense you just do and you know it's it's it's tough for him because the spacing isn't always there and stuff but like you you look at what happened in the Utah game. That wasn't about the lack of spacing, in my opinion. Sure, did it make it a little bit harder? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:49 But there were shots he was missing that he normally makes. And you have to make those in this game against BYU. In wins, Hunter Dickinson is averaging 17.6 points per game on 55% shooting. In losses, Hunter Dickinson is averaging 13.9 points a game, so almost four less per game. He's averaging less rebounds, less game, so almost four less per game. He's averaging less rebounds, less assists, less steals, less blocks, more turnovers, more fouls in the losses. And he's shooting, instead of 55% in wins, he's shooting 46%. You can see there's a clear difference there. And the good news is Dickinson does have a nice size advantage.
Starting point is 00:19:18 I'm definitely worried about him getting exposed defensively with the way that BYU plays and spaces the floor on the offensive end. But that just means to me, he has to be a focal point of the offense, right? Because the way I view it is it's almost like a, it's a matchup of, hey, this is our strength. You might have trouble defending it. And this is your strength. We're going to have trouble defending it. And so you just need to emphasize your strength and hope that you can do a good enough job against theirs. Let's get to our players to watch and who's high on the go off meter for KU that on the other side. Thanks for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks.
Starting point is 00:19:52 Again, we'll have a postcast episode later this week. We're going to rank which KU basketball players most need back or Bill South needs the most get back to surround Darren Peterson in 2025 to 2026. So we're going to take a look at the guys who can come back and where they would rank in terms of needing them to come back to surround Darren Peterson in 2025 to 2026. So we're going to take a look at the guys who can come back and where they would rank in terms of needing them to come back to try to be the most successful team you can next season. Okay. Players to watch for KU in this one. The matchup for me, I'm going to go with who guards Jaeger Denham because I think it's going to be really easy. He's a 6.9 point guard. Are you going to really put DeJuan Harris on him?
Starting point is 00:20:25 Maybe in your mind, you're thinking, okay, even though this guy is way bigger than DeJuan and that might scare us on drives or if they post him up or something like that, or that he can get shots off over and stuff. Maybe you also view it from like, well, DeJuan can just be a pest and poke the ball free. Maybe if the dribble's high or something.
Starting point is 00:20:42 I don't know. That could be one interesting thing that they could do. I actually kind of want to see kj adams defend him right i think this would be this would be great you put six foot seven versatile kj adams on jaeger denim and you know even though i do think kj has been a very good defender this year for ku probably k who's best defender this season the one area that that sometimes you might notice when kj gets scored on it's when he's matched up against a guard who can shoot threes and can operate off ball and get open there well denim he's a 28 three-point shooter and he's the guy with the ball in his hand most of the time so i would like to say say uh kj adams on him and then that would
Starting point is 00:21:21 kind of put like i guess you put to one harris on their two or three and you kind of figure it out from there down the line. So I'll be interested to see what they do though. But to me, that would be kind of be where I'd be pointing to. And I guess beyond that, Richie Saunders versus whoever the KU three man is in this game, that could be problematic on the defensive end for KU. Can whoever it is for Kansas step up and match it on offense, right? So that could be if Zeke Mayo does play that could be Zeke Mayo at the three you know he's struggled a bit at times on the defensive end can he find a way to match up or if Zeke doesn't play what does that mean for the lineups for KU does that mean you get you know more of Ryland Griffin or AJ Stewart three where you're matching up with Saunders does it mean we see more of the the three big basketball
Starting point is 00:22:03 where KJ's in at the three, playing next to Flory and Hunter? Do we see more of Shaquille Moore? Who ends up being that guy for KU? And then can you try to make him work at least on the defensive end when you're on offense? High on the go-off meter, when you look at it,
Starting point is 00:22:17 over a third of the shots that have come against BYU this season have been above the break threes. By pure total, we'll round up here just to make a round-even number. They're basically giving up 20 three-point attempts per game BYU this season have been above the break threes by pure total we'll round up here just make it round even number they're basically giving up 23 point attempts per game that are above the break that puts them in the 11th percentile for preventing them so point being they're giving up one of the highest totals of above the break threes in the country well teams have shot a 34% clip against them there so fine but you know nothing excellent but they'll be there point
Starting point is 00:22:42 being well in big 12 games Zeke Mayo is taking 4.8 of those three point attempts per game he's shooting them at a 43 percent clip so like in theory you would think this would be a good game for zeke mayo but is he gonna go and even if he does there has been the the home road splits and also again if he does play like how does playing through an injury possibly if it is bothering him how does that affect him right so that becomes a question well who's second on the team for kansas and above the break threes that would be one diggy coit in three point attempts above the break but here's the problem he's only shooting on 26 in big 12 play on above the break threes now last season he did shoot him 33 which obviously lower level and everything but maybe that means that there's at least a little
Starting point is 00:23:22 bit of a reversion of the mean coming and diggy coit's gonna have a game where he goes you know three or four on above the break threes to kind of equal that out the guy third on there is rylan griffin for what it's worth but i don't know it feels like right now with uh rylan griffin you don't know where he's gonna sit in the rotation with bill self so i i think i'm just gonna play it safe right here i think i'm gonna play it safe and i'm just gonna wind up with going with the size matchup and the bounce back matchup too for hunter dickinson right uh the beauty of hunters he's usually very consistent with his production and so if he has a bad game like he did against utah i think you can most often count on him to bounce back it doesn't always work that way and i haven't always liked how he's performed
Starting point is 00:23:57 in some of these road games for ku but i don't really know what the other option would be and when you look at trey or a when he's out on the court he ranks only in the eighth percentile so it's not very good in d or a pm that's basically that cbb analytics uh defensive you know all-encompassing rating and then boscovich their other you know center has a negative rating there now kata who plays 20 minutes per game at the center position too he uh has been a really good defender so far this season but he's also 6'8 facing a 7'2 center so i think hunter digginson can have a good game and like i said earlier he kind of has to because you're going to be giving up some stuff on when you're on defense to their offense because they can space the floor when you have hunter digginson out there but at
Starting point is 00:24:38 the same point in time you need to be able to take advantage when you're on offense like i think back to that first half of the kuU-Gonzaga game. I know that didn't end well for KU, but in the NCAA tournament last year, like, try to forget the second half. First half was a back-and-forth game. Both teams were scoring high numbers. The reason why was Hunter Dickinson was taking advantage of his matchup on the offensive end, and then Gonzaga was taking advantage of him on the defensive end.
Starting point is 00:24:59 Can you find a way to do that, but maybe with a few more stops in there if you're Kansas? All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. We'll be back at you next time for another edition of LOJ. See you then for KUBYU Postcast.

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