Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Has the Best SF Position in the Big 12 Led by Kevin McCullar

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we are previewing the Kansas Jayhawks basketball small forward wing position. And we're going to get into minutes projections, where this unit ranks compared to last year in the Big 12 nationally on today's edition 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 hear me as well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:46 We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us and like and subscribe to our show on our YouTube page. And thank you to all the everydayers out there tuning in to each and every episode. You are much appreciated. First, though, this episode of the show, before we get into our KU small forward wing position preview, is brought to you by eBay Motors. A championship team is all about each player being a perfect fit. Same with your vehicle.

Starting point is 00:01:11 So for parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit, ebaymotors.com. Let's ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit, only available to U.S. customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. So our KU small forward wing, three-man preview, whatever you want to call it. We're going to go through each player who's in this group. We're going to get to our minutes projections, and then we're going to finish up with, you know, is it better? Is it worse? Is

Starting point is 00:01:34 the same to last year? Where does it rank compared to the big 12 compared to nationally, all those conversations on the show. So first of all, who's in the group, it's obviously led by Kevin McCuller, the six foot seven, 212 pound wing is a-year senior for you. He's in his second year with the program. Average 10.7 points per game, seven rebounds, almost two and a half assists, two steals, 0.7 blocks per game, and then shot about 44% from the floor, just under 30% from three, 76% from the foul line. Now we're talking about Kevin. You're talking about an all-Big 12 third-team player. Can he raise that to being a second or first-team player? I think so this season. I think you'd see the scoring, the points per game, go up to maybe somewhere between 13, 14 per game for him. The rebound number is probably about the same,

Starting point is 00:02:17 same with the assists, steals, and blocks. His defensive impact will be obviously the same. One of the best defenders in the Big 12 in the entire country. Not just only is he a great defender, he's a good help defender in picking up something for your teammates. And also he's multi-positional and versatile with who he can defend on the defensive end. He is a complete defender on that end of the floor. So the big question here is just, there's two, it's the shooting. What is the three-point shooting going to look like? Is it going to be the same that we've seen from him really every year of college over his first five years where it is around that 29% to 31% three-point range,

Starting point is 00:02:49 which Kansas will be able to deal with that, but it'd be pretty ideal if he could get up to 33%, 34% from three-point range. That would be a huge boon to him for his NBA prospects, and it would be a huge boon for KU as a team. Beyond that, it's the health. He's had to deal with missed time really through each and every of his college seasons. You go back to his final year at Tech when he had a couple of bad sprained ankle injuries that forced him to be a different guy when he was playing through it, but he toughed through it. Last year, he missed

Starting point is 00:03:21 a non-conference game. He missed some of the Big 12 tournament with a back injury. He probably had to play through other injuries throughout the season. How healthy is he going to be over the course of the year for a team that's not overly deep and you need guys to stay healthy this season? That would certainly be an issue. Those are the big questions there. But as far as what you're going to get on the court, you know the floor is very high. The Kevin McCullough is going to be a very impactful and probably all-conference player for you.

Starting point is 00:03:44 Then you have Nick Timberlake. He's another sixth-year senior, so a lot of experience at this position, albeit not all of it coming at Kansas. In fact, the majority not coming at Kansas, but he's a 6'4", 195-pound guard, maybe more of a traditional true shooting guard, given Kansas' lack of depth, though, and also that they'll probably play lineups with DeJuan Harris and Elmarco Jackson. That could slide Nick Timberlake at certain times to the three spot he's a transfer from Towson shot 17 or shot a 41.6 percent from three 17.7 points per game 3.9 rebounds 2.4 assists 45 and a half percent from the field that nearly 42 percent from three and almost 85 percent at the free throw line make no mistake this guy is a knockdown shooter.

Starting point is 00:04:28 Now, as far as his transition, though, you're going up in a level. He struggled at times defensively at Towson. I do think you're going to be asked to play a different role here at Kansas where it is more of a spot-up shooter role. Maybe you have more energy to exert on the defensive end to be okay there. Now, with the Artario Morris news, it is even more important that Nick Timberlake becomes a guy on this team that's playing 20, 25 minutes a night and is giving you real impact minutes. And he needs to be aggressive shooting the ball. He needs

Starting point is 00:04:55 to know that he is the top shooting option for KU. He needs to get up a high volume of three-point shots for this team to end up being successful, especially when you look at where they're going to need the most impact is that three-point shooting. And you're kind of playing off a guy like Hunter Dickinson and trying to space the floor. He's going to be very important this year, whether he's playing at the two or the three. Now, if Artario Morris was cleared at some point and didn't end up staying suspended, I would almost include a Marco Jackson in this conversation because hypothetically you could have like three guard lineups of DeJuan, Artario, and Marco all playing next to each other,

Starting point is 00:05:34 where Marco would technically be the three. But at this point, I think it's probably irresponsible to include Artario Morris in any rotation projection minutes. So for that reason, I'm not going to. And our next small forward then would be with Johnny Furphy. Furphy is a sick 202 pound guard slash wing. You'll probably see him, I guess you could, playing anywhere between the two, three, and four positions. I think realistically for KU with how the roster is built,

Starting point is 00:06:07 you probably won't really see him playing at the two, but I just think he kind of can is what I'm saying. You'll probably just see him playing at the three and four, but yeah, I mean, he's a big long wing, comes in as a true friend. He's from Australia and there've been teams like St. Mary's who have had a ton of success with kids from Australia. There have been some Australian kids who have had a ton of success going straight to the NBA or coming from there. He was the late riser, obviously.

Starting point is 00:06:34 He finished number 35 on the rankings for 24-7 sports. He finished number 45 with the rankings for on three. He was seen as a really good athlete. You watch some of his highlights. He's throwing down dunks, plays with maybe a bit of a mean streak to him, like in a good way, that he's aggressive out there and stuff. And also he's seen as being a good shooter,

Starting point is 00:06:55 but I think there were some comments that have been made from Bill South. I think it was in the college basketball almanac that, you know, he's a good shooter, but how good of a shooter can he be, basically, to where, you know, if he's a good shooter, if he's shooting 34%, 35% his true freshman year, which typically that's good for a true freshman, you know, that's going to be solid. But for him to make a big impact in year one, especially with what this Kansas team needs,

Starting point is 00:07:23 do you need that Christian Brown type freshman season at KU where Christian Brown is playing 18 minutes a game and was playing a much different role than he played his next two years at Kansas, but was a spot up knockdown shooter for KU. And that's one of the big things that he provided in basically just being like a three and D wing. Can Johnny Furphy be that? We'll see. Then I think is your kind of emergency three man. You have Jamari McDowell. I do believe the idea was to redshirt Jamari McDowell. That was before the arterial Morris news. Now with that, you have one less possible scholarship player, one less guard player. I think I'm assuming that that would not be the case now this year for McDowell. He's a six, 480pound guard, true freshman, ranks number 88 with 24-7 sports rankings,

Starting point is 00:08:06 number 95 on rivals, and number 100 with on three. So he is kind of a shooting guard, small forward prospect. I mean, at times, maybe he can even handle the ball for you as a point guard, but realistically, more of a 2-3 man. He is kind of your, okay, if there was an injury, let's say Kevin McCullough rolled an ankle and was out of game. Then all of a sudden, maybe you're like, okay, either Nick Timberlake, maybe you start Dwan next to Marco next to Nick Timberlake. And then Johnny Furphy is going to get some more minutes

Starting point is 00:08:33 coming off the bench. And Jamar McDowell is going to have a roll that game playing, you know, 10 minutes per game or something like that. Maybe that would be kind of how you handle that. So those are the guys that are in the group here at the three position. I guess hypothetically, you could play a jumbo lineup, KJ at the three, Parker Brown at the four, Hunter Dickinson at the five. I do not expect to see that all season long, but I guess if you really had to do something crazy with injuries, I guess that would be the way to go. All right, let's continue on with our minutes projection of this position and how this group sits compared to last year in the Big 12. Now, actually all those conversations first though,

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Starting point is 00:10:32 Yeah, it could. But, you know, coming back for a year or two, maybe a slight bump. So I'm going to get it up to 32. And obviously, you expect those 32 minutes to be an impactful 32 minutes and a good 32 minutes for Kevin McCuller then but we're going to give five minutes out to Nick Timberlake this isn't a ton there but you know I have him getting the rest of his minutes at the two which we'll get to our

Starting point is 00:10:58 preview of the shooting guard the two-man spot next week because that's the one that obviously has been kind of most fluid with the arterial more stuff basically though Timberlake would be playing at the three for like a handful of minutes whenever KU wants to play El Marco next to DeJuan with a shooter out there and Nick Timberlake as opposed to El Marco next to DeJuan and Kevin so handful of minutes for Nick Timberlake there at the three. And that leaves you with 15 minutes left. I have the rest of the 15 going to Johnny Furphy. Now, as we talked about with the four spot,

Starting point is 00:11:30 it's possible that Furphy could give you five minutes per game at the four. You compare his size to Sfi Mikhailuk, and it is kind of similar. Like Furphy is even longer than Mikhailuk was, but the weight is pretty similar, and you were able to get away with that. Now, that was obviously with a upperclassman, Sfi, and a Sfi who was one of the greatest shooters in KU basketball or Bill's self-history, right? So with Johnny Furphy, you don't know how that works out,

Starting point is 00:11:56 but could he play a handful of minutes there and then maybe 10 at three or maybe more of his – I don't know, whatever. But I think 15 minutes per game, like for Johnny Furphy, that's just what I'm going to go with right now. This to me feels like the ultimate wild card, X factor, question mark, whatever you want to talk about, about just how much is Johnny Furphy going to play. So I have him getting 15 minutes here, all at the three position. But you could convince me that it's going to be only spot minutes here or there,

Starting point is 00:12:25 that you could just jack up Kevin McCullers' minutes. You could bring up Nick Timberlake, Marco Jackson, and K.J. Adams' minutes. Effectively, it drowns out those minutes that Johnny Furphy could get. That could happen because as much as we heard a lot of good things and high praise about Johnny Furphy, all that was before he actually arrived. And you're coming into a new country. Sometimes it takes time. You're in a new system. Bill self system can be hard to learn for freshmen. Like maybe it takes another year for Furphy to put it all together, or maybe it's the ground running this year. I don't know. Could this be

Starting point is 00:12:59 eight to 10 minutes to where it's your rotational player, but it's, you know, on less of an end than the 15 minutes per game. Yeah, that could happen. Could this be even higher? Could this be because of KU's lack of depth? Could he get 20, 25 minutes per game if he does hit, you know, for what it's worth? I talked about the Christian Brown comparison, which we heard a lot about during the Puerto Rico trip. Christian Brown is freshman year averaged 18 minutes per game. That was on the best team in the country played 18 minutes per game is basically a three and D wing. Okay.

Starting point is 00:13:28 Well, could Johnny Murphy play 18 to 20 minutes per game in that scenario on a team? That's not overly deep. Yeah, I guess that could happen too. So this is a complete unknown for me about how many minutes per game Johnny Murphy is going to play. You can basically convince me anywhere from five to 22 minutes per game. Um, and because of that, I'm going to kind of split the difference a little bit. I'm going to be a little bit on the higher side, 15 minutes per game.

Starting point is 00:13:51 And I will not be surprised if this one ends up being wrong kind of one way or another. And again, the way that would go about is if Nick Timberlake ends up being a 30 minute per game guy instead of being somebody in the 20s that I've projected. Or El Marco Jackson ends up being in the high 20s, 30 range as well. And then you're moving Nick Timberlake more minutes at the three. Or Kevin McCuller ends up being a 34, 35 minute per game guy. That could shave off some minutes. KJ Adams ends up being instead of the 28 minutes that I projected in a 30, 32 minute per game guy where there's less minutes at the four. Now Kevin's playing even more of his minutes at the three, right?

Starting point is 00:14:25 There's a lot of different ways that you can kind of reorganize some of these minutes. These are just meant to be kind of a guideline more than anything else. We're going to get on to where does this position group rank in the big 12 nationally compared to last year, all that and more to finish off this episode of locked on Jayhawk. This episode of the show is brought to you by Jace Medical. Don't be caught unprepared.

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Starting point is 00:15:40 Where does this group rank compared to last year, Big 12 nationally? Well, let's start with where this group ranks compared to last year last year you gave out minutes at the three position and basically mostly to kevin mcculler grady dick may be filtered in there uh at some points there were some secondary minutes for when you ran the three guard lineup with pettiford yesifu and duan harris there were minutes here or there for MJ Rice, but for the most part, it was Kevin McCuller and then Brady Dick might slide to the three position in a given lineup. Well, Kevin, in theory, should be even better than he was last year.

Starting point is 00:16:23 So on one hand, you would say, well, if 30 minutes of your three-man were going to Kevin McCullough last year, maybe it was only 25 of his minutes were at the three. I don't know how much he played before because Jalen was out there so much. But those minutes should be slightly better than they were a season ago. Then again, going back to the health conversation, if there are health concerns or issues of health that cause him to miss games that could lead to you being over the aftermath of the season if he misses more games worse at

Starting point is 00:16:50 the position furphy's unlikely to be as good as grady dick was in the minutes that the grady dick was able to uh get onto the court um but also grady dick didn't play a ton of his minutes at the three. He was more so being used at the two position, right? So it's kind of hard to compare. I do think this position, you could argue from that standpoint, if you're just looking at it from your top two, McCuller plus Grady Dick versus now McCuller plus Johnny Furphy or Nick Timberlake or whatever, you would obviously go with last year.

Starting point is 00:17:23 But because McCuller is playing such a big chunk of the minutes and we're giving him, I don't know, a big chunk of the minutes this year at the three and he could be better than he was last year, I guess I'd be comfortable if you wanted to say that it's the same as it was last year and where you are in this position. Maybe you even have more ready bodies. Maybe you could say that you're three deep at the three this year with Timberlake and Furphy, and last year you were really only two deep

Starting point is 00:17:53 because you didn't really trust MJ Rice. I'd be okay if you wanted to make that argument that they're the same this year. As far as the top minutes, you are better, but yeah, it's the secondary minutes that I guess will kind of remain to be seen. Now, how does it rank in the Big 12 and in the country? Well, let's look to this. So, obviously, in the Big 12, there are some good small forwards.

Starting point is 00:18:14 We talked about Kansas State. Like, if you're looking at Arthur Columa or Naquan Tomlin, one of those is your small forward, probably Columa. They're very switchable. But, you know, that's obviously a team with a good small forward. Baylor will probably be playing a guard, kind of a 6'4 type there. Maybe it's like Jacoby Walter, and he's obviously very talented if you consider him a small forward, which technically wouldn't be, but in their lineup, if they're playing a third guard like he might be.

Starting point is 00:18:40 Texas, like Dylan Mitchell's very talented former five-star, so that could be kind of interesting, but he doesn't really shoot the ball well, at least hasn't to this point necessarily. Houston just has good players all around the basketball court. There are some interesting three men, but I think this is interesting. The Almanac, the College Basketball Almanac, which is a really good preview across the country, they put out a top 100 players.

Starting point is 00:19:04 And in the top 100 players, Hunter Dickinson's ranked super high up there. DeJuan Harris is ranked in the top 40. Kevin McCuller comes in at number 51, so just outside the top 50, which to be honest, I could argue is too low for Kevin McCuller. But nonetheless, it's not like it's an unfair ranking, so whatever. Here's players that I could consider playing the small forward that are listed ahead of him on those top 100 rankings, just for a nice little, I guess, comparison tool. Tyrese Proctor at Duke.

Starting point is 00:19:32 He may be shooting guard, small forward. I think in the Duke lineup, he'll be playing shooting guard because he'll probably have Mark Mitchell at the three, Kyle Filipowski at the four. But for Duke, if your three men are basically Proctor and Mark Mitchell, that might be the best in the country. That's a very good three spot. Justin Moore at Villanova is going to be playing the three. He's really good, and they've got a couple different kind of shooting guard wing types that could play there, so they're really good. Terrence Shannon

Starting point is 00:19:56 Jr., he kind of runs point at times for Illinois, but you can also consider him a wing or a small forward. He comes in at number 23. He had an excellent season. Bryce Hopkins for Providence, excuse me. He was a transfer from Kentucky. Had a great year last year at Providence. He's going to be playing a lot of three. He comes in at 28. Baylor Shireman at Creighton, really good shooter, six foot seven. He's kind of a guard, but he plays a three for them with their two guards in front of him. He's in at a number 34. And then here's where I think you could really argue Anton Watson in at number 38. I there's, I'll be honest, like there's no way in my mind that Anton Watson is better than Kevin McCuller. Anton Watson, I think is a very valuable player. He's a very useful player. He's a kind of Swiss army. And honestly, Watson maybe is more of a four man than he is a three man, but he is kind of forward. That's very switchable and versatile

Starting point is 00:20:44 and a glue guy and does a lot of things. Well, it's just the Kevin McCuller is Anton Watson, a better version of him to me. So I don't know why Anton Watson is rated higher than Kevin McCuller there. Uh, Justin Edwards is ranked 39th. He's like a five-star freshman for Kentucky. Oliver and calm was ranked 49th, also more of a four, but I'd also argue Kevin McCuller ahead of him. Tyler Burton is ranked 50 of it. I would be comfortable putting him in the top 40 there ahead of some of those guys. So if you're talking about nationally, yes, there are some other guys that are probably in front of you for a small forward spot, but if you have a top 40 overall player in the country, at the very least based off this, the top 50-ish player overall in the country there, you are one of the best in the country.

Starting point is 00:21:25 And as I was going through that list, you might have noticed I didn't mention another Big 12 player. So theoretically, Kevin McCuller is probably the best small forward in the Big 12. And then if you're looking at that and saying Kevin McCuller might be the best small forward in the Big 12, how many of the other teams that are close to you in having the best small forward have better backups than Johnny Furphy and Nick Timberlake at the three I don't know it's probably not many if any so you probably have actually the best small forward position even after losing Grady Dick and Jalen Wilson who played two in the four for you but could have played the three if you needed

Starting point is 00:21:59 him to you still might have the best small forward position in the big 12 I think you have the best point guard you have the best center in the conference. So, yeah, that's why Kansas is loaded, and that's why Kansas is expected to be very good this year. We'll have our shooting guard preview next week. We'll have our KU Texas preview later this week. Nick Schwert will join us later this week. We're also going to have a crossover episode.

Starting point is 00:22:19 So plenty of content to come here with Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. Like and subscribe to the show and hit us up on our YouTube page. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Has the Best SF Position in the Big 12 Led by Kevin McCullar

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