Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Guard Elmarko Jackson Out for 2024-2025 Season with Injury

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Kansas Jayhawks basketball freshman soon to be sophomore guard Elmarko Jackson was injured during a KU camp scrimmage and will miss the 2024-2025 season according to the team and Bill Self. Why it's unfortunate for Jackson, what it means for him and his future, what it means for this Kansas team and at the guard position including already adding a transfer portal pick-up in former Mississippi State combo guard Shakeel Moore.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInThese days every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business. That’s why LinkedIn Jobs helps find the right people for your team, faster and for free.Post your job for free atLinkedIn.com/lockedoncollege. Terms and conditions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning GUARANTEED That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – with any winning FIVE DOLLAR BET! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started. eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.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, Elmarco Jackson unfortunately will be out for the season after suffering an injury. We talk about the impact on today's episode of the show. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can give me a follow on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. And you can find the show with Locked On Jayhawks anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show.

And on this edition, we have a bonus episode. Not fun news as Elmarco Jackson, the soon-to-be sophomore guard for Kansas, suffered an injury during a camp scrimmage and is going to miss the upcoming 2024-2025 season. So we're going to talk about that injury, what it means for KU, and what it means for the offseason as they've already also quickly striked from this and gotten a transfer portal guard in Shaquille Moore. So we'll touch a little bit on that, and then we'll have another episode doing a deep dive on Shaquille Moore. So let's start right here with the news on El Marco Jackson.

They're having the camps going on right now with all the kids and stuff. And basically, to recap, like every day of the camps, the KU basketball players do a scrimmage. And this is not new. This is something they do every year. And honestly, it's an avenue for overreacting to things, which can be fun, but also is not super helpful. Because every year there's somebody who performs really well in the scrimmages that it doesn't end up carrying over to anything. And every year there's somebody who performs not very well in the scrimmages and it doesn't carry over because it's not real basketball. Nobody's calling plays.

And the players have just been playing with each other for like three days and yada, yada, yada. Anyway, point being, it ended up happening that El Marco Jackson took a spill and it ended up being they stopped the camp scrimmage from there. Here's what Bill self had to say earlier today in a press release on a tweet was sent out. Our thoughts are with El Marco and we wish him a speedy recovery yesterday while working out in front of the campers,

El Marco Jackson tore his patellar tendon, an MRI conducted by Kansas team health confirmed last night. It will require surgery within the next several days and a full recovery is anticipated. Elmarco will be able to assume non-contact basketball duties in the next several months, but the full rehab process will take approximately 12 months. We are all crushed by this. Elmarco has had a terrific spring.

He has worked so hard and has improved so much. This will be a challenge that he will meet head on and he'll return as good as ever. So again, being out for 12 months, if you just fast forward 12 months from basically we just call it June would be till next June. So you're out the entirety of the season. This doesn't even leave open for interpretation to say, oh, he's going to be out eight months. And it's like, okay, well, you could talk himself into being at the latter part of next season.

No, this means out for the full season there for El Marco. I do want to touch on something because I think this absolutely sucks for El Marco and I'll get to why in a second here. I have seen some people talk about like freaking out about why are they even playing these scrimmages? Like you shouldn't do any of these scrimmages anymore. Can we not do this? Basketball players are going to play basketball. Like they're going to practice playing basketball. They're going to scrimmage against each other to get better at playing basketball because they like playing basketball. They're going to play

against each other. They're going to have to practice at some point. They're going to have to scrimmage against each other at some point. Like you can't avoid every injury. It absolutely sucks that this happens, but we don't need to cancel every scrimmage and every time playing against each other when something like this happens, because sometimes it's just impossible to avoid injuries when you're playing sports. It's an unfortunate side effect of this stuff, and it sucks for Marco. So let's talk more about the injury, what it means for KU on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

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at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. That is linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Continuing on with this bonus episode of Lock on Jay Hawks, what this means for Marco Jackson.

And then we'll get into what it means for KU as a team. I mean, absolutely gutted for Marco Jackson, everything that I have been told that I've interacted with when I was working with rock truck sports talk and, you know, doing more of the press conference type stuff every day, a Marco was seemed to be in, in in every interaction I had, a really good kid

and somebody who – you get different levels of athlete. There's no right and wrong level of things, but there have been some athletes who have come through KU and played basketball, and they are cocky, to say the least. Marco Jackson never really got that type of feel from him that he was more of just kind of a, I don't know, smart, level-headed, kind-hearted person. And so you hate to see this happen to a kid like that. I mean, you hate to see it happen to anybody in general. But especially after the struggles he did have last season.

Like, objectively, last season was not everything that you hoped it was going to live up for. And I'm sure that was from, you know, all parties involved, but I was part of the camp that thought he was going to have a good bounce back season this year. Now what that exactly meant, because KU has Dwan Harris and Zeke Mayo and Ryland Griffin and all these

players, my kind of expectation was 15 to 20 minute per game a night on what could be a really good team, but showing enough flashes in those 15 to 20 minute per game a night on what could be a really good team but showing enough flashes in those 15 to 20 minutes that makes you think that the following year when DeJuan and Zeke graduate that Elmarco Jackson could be like a guy come year three and make some good impacts and kind of the the guy I compared it to was Jaden Bradleyden bradley uh who was transferred from alabama went to arizona this past season and uh he was playing 20 minutes a night basically off the bench is a good athletic point

guard off the bench showed some really awesome flashes that now this year i'm like okay jayden bradley's gonna be like all pack 12 for arizona this year and i could have seen that happening for a marco jackson uh this past season so it's obviously unfortunate for him. And now it's not just like, oh, well, now you'll just, you know, take a year off and then year three, you're going to be ready to still make that jump. You have to overcome some of this injury stuff that, you know, for some guys, they come back fully healthy and they come back better. Some guys, they don't come back the same and you hope that El Marco can come back the same. The positive way to spin this is hopefully he, by, I don't know, getting to sit in the sidelines for a year, basically. We all know that El Marco has the

physical gifts. He has the athleticism. He has the leaping ability. He has the speed and the quickness that you're looking for. I mean, at like six foot two, six foot three, he's on the taller end. I'd imagine he has a big wingspan as far as when you're looking at some of the Bill Self combo guards and point guards that have come through the system. He has all the physical stuff. It was just about the game slowing down for him, which maybe it was going to this year anyway. And the basketball IQ part of the game is something that he had only been playing organized

basketball for like three years that he figured was going to come, but he just needed more reps. Well, maybe a year where he can kind of sit on the sidelines and watch some stuff and watch more tape, I guess, and be almost like an assistant coach for the team. Maybe that'll actually allow his mental side of the game to grow and catch up to some of those physical skills that when he does come back, he'll have the perfect blend of those two things.

Like that's the positive way to look at this, and I think that's the hope of what comes of this. You just hope that the injury doesn't affect that um athleticism that he does have the good news is by being 12 months that would mean he'd be back to full basketball activities if it falls on schedule by next June so then you do have the full off season to ramp up into the season as opposed to it being like oh he's going to be out till next August and then he has to you know start doing uh boot camp like right away or something like, oh, he's going to be out till next August. And then he has to start doing boot camp like right away or something like that. No, that's not going to be the case.

That is the good news. And that would be the positive spin here. And I hope it does have a strong recovery for El Marco because I still am buying into El Marco being a real player for KU at some point down the road. Hopefully this is just a delay and not the stop button. All right, let's continue on what it means for KU on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, this episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

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You can do all that at Fanduel.com slash LockedOn and make every playoff shot count. Fanduel, America's number one sportsbook and official sportsbook sponsor of the Locked On Podcast Network. Finishing up on this bonus episode of Locked On Jayhawks, and keep in mind we will have another episode deep diving, talking more about the transfer edition of Mississippi State Guard Shaquille

Moore. So be on the lookout for that. Thank you to the everydayers who are already going to tune in to each and every one of those. And again, you can find that anywhere you get your podcast or by liking and subscribing here on our YouTube page. So just like that with the El Marco news, all of a sudden Kansas went from feeling like you were pretty deep and everything to feeling like you weren't super deep to feeling like, oh no, how many guys do you really have for the rotation?

You only have at this, 11 scholarship players. If Marco's not going to be able to play, that's really only 10 active ones that you can have. But they got to commit, obviously, in Shaquille Moore of Mississippi State. So that'll add to the guard room for them. That'll add to the ball handling room because without Marco, you were down to just DeJuan Harris and Zeke mayo which honestly those two guys could if they wanted to cannibalize all the minutes at kind of the one and two especially with uh rylan griffin too which

would make you fine but you're kind of a rolled ankle or foul out or a sickness or flu bug or whatever from being way too thin there for a game or stretch of games or whatever it is that you needed more depth and um without omarco you you lose some of that peace of mind. You gain some of it back with Shaquille Moore, which is certainly a good thing for KU. And without El Marco, it's one less guy you could have competing or feel like we're really stuck in that top seven or eight in the rotation if you're KU, which obviously ended up leading to adding Shaquille Moore just hours after the news was announced with El Marco Jackson. But I think elsewhere, this might have the biggest impact for KU on Rakee's pass more. Because if you view it

from a standpoint of, okay, El Marco, to me, was going to be in that eight-man rotation, like the way I view it, you have DeJuan Harris, Hunter Dickinson, AJ Storr, Rylan Griffin, KJ Adams, Zeke Mayo. You've got your backup center position, whether that's Zach or Flory. You could say both of them are going to be the rotation, whatever it is. I feel like El Marco would have been in that eight-man rotation. And so if you're taking that away, all of a sudden you feel like, okay, that's seven

guys instead of eight now again maybe you want to add flory and zach so you have two of them as opposed to just one of them and then that would be eight but still that means there's more minutes available there's that one extra spot available could that be ricky's pass more could that be shaquille moore who you just brought in could you still play a nine man rotation and it'd be both of those guys um i think this just leaves even more minutes open, though, for Passmore, who did seem to impress in the camp scrimmage based on, you know, what people that I read and, you know, whatever were saying. So, again, like take that stuff with a grain of salt

because this happens every year. But it seems like a lot of people were high on Keys Passmore coming in anyway. So maybe this does give the avenue for him to be a part of that rotation in kind of a very real way what a wild turn honestly for LeBaron Phylon at this point because he would I mean KU probably just if they have still LeBaron Phylon do they even bring on Shaquille Moore at this point in time like maybe they still do to add even more depth but like Phylon would be looking at maybe he'd be in that rotation. And now at this point, like he's sitting there in Alabama

and it's like, oh, Mark Sears decided to come back and this guy decided to come back and they added all these transfers. Like he might get less playing time in Alabama than he was expected to get at Kansas. So certainly interesting, but off season decisions still to be had now for KU. They've already tacked on more.

It does bring KU to 12 scholarship players. That means they could still add one more if they wanted to. And there's decisions now with the redshirt, like with El Marco Jackson basically having to take a medical redshirt now. I think already they were planning on redshirting Noah Shelby. They were planning on probably redshirting Jamari McDowell. I don't know that that one was certain, but certainly that one would make sense. Now with the El Marco news, do you not redshirt one of those two? You know what I mean? Just so you have an extra player,

or if you do add a 13 scholarship player, do you continue to do that? Lots of off-season decisions that have to still be in motion now for KU. So you can check out that episode talking about what KU got and Shaquille Moore into the program as well, right here with Locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for this episode of the show. And we'll be back. We will not have a football Friday episode this week. I will be at a wedding and that'll be enjoyable for me, but we'll be back at it next week for another edition of Locked on Jayhawks, barring any breaking news.

We'll see you then with another edition of LOJ later.