Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Looking to Boost Offense Headed Into Big 12 Play

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

Big 12 play starts Saturday for Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball against TCU and with the second half of the year on the ledger, what can and could KU improve the most, led by the offense and some individual players Bill Self is hoping breaks out. What sticks out about the rest of the league, how many wins to claim the title and Whose Stat Line is it Anyway?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, what's most going to determine KU's basketball's Big 12 postseason success in the second half of play here? And we'll get on to some who's stat line is it anyway? And what sticks out to us in a loaded Big 12 conference on this 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 hear me as well, Monday through Friday,

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. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Joined by Nick Schwert

on today's episode of the show. We're breaking down KU basketball as they start kind of the second half of the year. Big 12 play getting going this Saturday. First though, we are brought to you by GameTime. Today's episode is brought to you by the GameTime app where you can create an account and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.

Maybe go to that KUTCU game. So I want to talk about some of the team stuff and maybe individual stuff that can maybe take KU over the top at this point in time and kind of look around the rest of the Big 12 here. Because when you look right now, obviously KU is second in the AP poll. You look at some of the metric sites, Ken Palm, Bartorvik, I guess the net rankings. And KU is more of that like 10 to 15 range right now. So I guess first things first, do you view that as there is still a big room for improvement, that there is still a long way to go? Or what do you kind of make of that

yeah I think if you sort of parse that down and figure out why that is uh the the immediate response is offense right like that's the easy way to describe why the advanced analytics don't really love Kansas do I think this offense can improve and I think the answer is yes what's interesting about this and I've been thinking about this on almost a daily basis for the past two months, is that beginning of the season, what does this team need more of? What is every single person and KU fan talking about with this particular team? And it's shooting. They don't have a threat from the outside. They have a bunch of guys who are great inside. DeJuan Harris, incredible point guard.

Kevin McCullough, all-American candidate. But they don't have that consistent three-point threat. And while there is truth to it in that KU doesn't shoot very many threes, they're at near the bottom of the country in terms of three-point field goals attempted based on how they play, when they do shoot them, they're actually pretty efficient. And I wonder, Derek, at what point, like how far into the season do we need to get where Kansas consistently is ranking in the top 20 and the top 25 in the country in three-point

percentage, where we look at their shooting and say, yes, it is not a strength, but is this really the fatal flaw that's going to keep them from competing for a national championship? And I don't think that is the case. The only reason why we're looking at that is because there's nothing else on offense that they're particularly elite at. If KU, like in the 2020 season with Yudoka Azubuki, or really most of the seasons before 2018, if they were an elite team at getting easy buckets inside, we wouldn't be talking about the shooting, but despite a hundred, a hundred Dickinson, there we go. Yeah. Give me a day.

You need a little whiteboard behind you that says days since Nick got a hundred Dickinson's name, right? If he, but this was like a 70 or the 65%, a 62% two point shooting team. we wouldn't be talking about this. But this team isn't super efficient anywhere. They turn the ball over quite a bit. They're not great at getting offensive rebounds. They don't have that one thing offensively to hang their hat on.

And that, to me, is the key between now and the end of the season. What's that thing going to be? What is your calling card offensively going to be because you gotta have one you don't have to be an elite offense you don't have to be a top five offense in the country but you gotta have one thing that game in game out you can rely on and as of right now 13 games into the season they just haven't found that yet when you're right when you look at the two-point percentage it's it's 45th in the country right now from Ken Palm, 54.8%. But I'm looking at CBB analytics, and it really does, I guess,

get filtered out because KU's been really bad at mid-range shooting, and that's why the number drags down. Because right now they're shooting 34% on mid-range twos, which out of comparison, they're playing TCU on Saturday. TCU's one of the better teams at it. They're at 43%. KU is also shooting 38% on two-point shots that are in the paint, but not at the rim. But then you look at their numbers at the rim specifically, they're shooting 70% on

shots at the rim. That is in the 94th percentile in the country. And so maybe that is the calling card but I think what we've seen here over the past couple games in a couple weeks is teams are basically just sagging in the paint and yes I do agree the three-point shooting's been much better than you expect 38 percent right now I think over the last 11 games if you take out the first two games when they made everything it's still like 35 and a half percent so%. So that's still good numbers to be at. But it's just the lack of respect teams are showing them from that shooting

or having the shooter on the floor that basically they're taking away some of those at-the-rim shots, which is your strength. Which, over the past seven years, what's kind of turned into a talking point in basketball is the elimination of mid-range shots, which is kind of what you're talking about there. Do you have individual numbers, by the way? Because I want to know what KJ Adams is shooting, because I don't know that he's missed more than like two of those little 10-foot, 12-foot floaters this year, which him turning into like a super efficient offensive player is just so fun because I never would have guessed that two years ago.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny because K.J. Adams has been like the one guy who's actually making those shots in that area that, again, you would describe as in the paint but not quite at the rim because that is where that push shot is. So he is 14 of 30 on those shots specifically. That's 47%. And as we just said, he's a team. It's better than you think. 47%. What's the average? 33? It's that puts him in the,

let's see, 61st percentile. So that's like above average, I guess. Well, I think you look at those, you look at those numbers and the thing that comes to mind immediately for me is guards penetrating,

realizing they're not going to get all the way to the rim, having space there, and deciding to pull up. And I don't know if Elmarco Jackson has hit one of those shots this year. He has loved the kid, think he's going to be good, but he is a brick house with those mid-range jumpers. I think Kevin McCullers has taken quite a few of those as well, and even Hunter Dickinson. He'll kind of pull up from wherever teams are giving him space.

They've got to figure something out there because I'm not a believer in that. Never take mid-range shots. They're a low percentage shot. They're the worst shot. What if you're really good at them? Like in the NBA, the Phoenix Suns, the team that went to the finals a couple of years ago

with Chris Paul and Devin Booker, they were great at those shots. And that's how they got to the NBA Finals. So that's a strength of yours. If you are the anomaly that can hit those shots, go for it. Don't think that's this Kansas team. So they've got to figure something out over the course of Big 12 play to just find something that can kind of work. Because right now it's like hey maybe we'll get hot from three hey maybe this is going to be a transition game we can get out and run and score

there maybe we're going to be able to find the angles inside and take care take advantage of the other team's post defense it's kind of something different every night which is fine you're 12 and one like at this point nobody really cares where can palm of the advanced metrics have you there's a lot of time to make up ground there but in order to make up that ground you've got to find something that you can kind of rely on game in game out by the way Elmarco Jackson on twos that are not at the rim he is 5 of 22 Kevin is 7 of 24 on just mid-range twos the one guy who was actually shooting mid-range twos at a very high

level i guess we could have saved this for whose stat line is it anyway but uh 15 of 33 that's 45 and a half percent these are mid-range twos so outside the paint yeah go for it i'm gonna say duane harris no duane is uh let's see he is one for five those float, I guess they don't count because I know he's taking more and more fun. Correct. If it's in the paint, it doesn't count for just the mid-range twos. This is anything outside the paint but inside the three-point line. I guess.

For what it's worth, 45.5% is in the 73rd percentile in the country. So it's good. Hunter Dickinson? Hunter Dickinson is the correct answer. So just more pick and pops is that the answer yeah yeah yeah pick and pop your way to a natty let's go yeah that's right uh I think from an individual perspective though like the one thing that can kind of take them over the top in the second half you don't even need everyone of Nick Timberlake Johnny Furfiel Marco

Jackson to get it going maybe you only need one mean, ideally you'd get at least two going, but do you think if one of those players turns the corner, and if it is, I don't know if you have a thought on which would be the most valuable for KU turning the corner. Maybe it's Elmarco because he's just inherently playing the most minutes, but going back to the spacing conversation, maybe it'd be helpful if Timberlake or Furphy kind of nailed that down a little bit more. how much would that change things if I told you that one of those three

players I guess hit their realistic ceiling here in year one I mean that's what you'd need to do I it's a Bill Selfism but like what he says every single year is you're not judging this team based off of past Kansas teams. And to an extent, in a way, you're not really judging them based off everyone else in the country. Yes, you are if you want to win a title. But ultimately, like Bill Self's job is to get this Kansas team as close to their individual ceiling as they possibly can and then hope that's good enough to compete on a national level. And usually it is because the talent that Kansas brings in year in, year out. So yeah, you need, you'd like to have as many of those guys get as close to their ceiling as possible. It's really

difficult to do. In the case of Furphy and Marco Jackson, these are very young players playing at high level college basketball for the first time. And they're learning on the fly and they're trying to get better on the fly and they're trying to learn their teammates. It's a lot of things happening in a very short amount of time. Nicholas Timberlake, he's a little bit older, but he was playing at such a low level. Like the transition for me, like looking at him, it's pretty similar to what those other guys are going through.

Just because of playing at Towson, you might as well be playing on another planet compared to what you're going to be doing at Kansas. And unfortunately for these guys, I don't know if you, I mean, tell me if you disagree, but I don't feel any better about any of those three now than I did first game of the season. And now the competition is only going to get harder. It wasn't, you played like three or four really good teams in non-com play, but you also played a lot of bottom feeders.

Like if you look at that schedule top to bottom, what did they play? Three, four top 75 teams in the country. And they were all like top 10, top 15 teams in the country. But now Big 12 play starts. You're not going to be playing any of those teams with the exception of like – I don't know, who are the bad teams this year? Oklahoma state. You're not West Virginia. Yeah. You're not going to really play any games where you can kind of sleepwalk your way to a win the rest of the way. So maybe the lights get brighter and these guys turn on, but you need someone,

you need some help because when I watch this team right now, I see four guys who are high-level college basketball starters, and then I see the rest of the rotation looks like some dudes who are like JV high school basketball players right now. They don't look like they fit with the other four. So someone's going to have to figure something out because those four, as good as they are, it's not enough. You need a couple more pieces. All right,

let's keep it going. I want to talk about how this kind of divvies out with the rest of the big 12. Then we'll get to whose stat line is it anyway, with this episode of locked on Jayhawks. We're brought to you by game time, buying tickets, your favorite sporting event.

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Continuing on, KU starts Big 12 play with TCU. I don't know, have you looked at the schedule yet? Because this is one of those, normally I go into a year with Big 12 play and I'm just like, let's just approach it one week at a time. We'll see who's on the schedule maybe this week. Maybe we'll look ahead to a week. But you know who you're playing because you're playing everybody twice. Now it's obviously an unbalanced schedule.

Everybody plays a different one. I don't know if you've looked at KU's schedule from February on, but it is pretty remarkable to say the least. It is versus Houston at Kansas State versus Baylor at Texas Tech at Oklahoma versus Texas versus BYU, who's now like a top five team on Ken Palm, at Baylor versus Kansas State and at Houston. That is their final, what is that, 10 games to finish out the regular season.

When you look at that schedule, I mean, you could go 5-5 in that schedule and it wouldn't be like that crazy. I mean, that would actually be okay probably in that schedule. But if you're going 5-5, that means you've got to go 8-0 in the first part to go to 13-5, which is typically a number that you've probably got to get to at minimum. Some years it's 14. Some years it's even more than that to win the conference.

When you look around the rest of the league, what to you feels like the biggest hurdle? And I guess kind of a second part of that, is even winning the Big 12 as important now when you have this many teams and when you have unbalanced schedules and, you know, like one team could play an easier schedule than the other. At the end of the day, if Kansas goes 12-6 or 13-5 in the conference, even if it's second place, you're probably still getting a one seed.

So I guess how much does this conference race kind of matter now compared to where it did in the past Big 12? It depends what your goal is. You just kind of mentioned seeding, which is always going to be important. So from that aspect, yeah, winning the big 12 might not be as important the flip side is and i think kay you've shown this under bill self the last 20 years is that winning is a skill right and being able to get to the end of the regular season and saying, yes, we played the toughest conference in America and we still won and we hit hurdles.

Maybe we finished on a rough patch. Maybe we started on a rough patch because there's one of those every single year almost. And with the exception of the years when I get like one Big 12 loss, there's almost always going to be a stretch of basketball where fans are inching towards the panic button a little bit. You go two and three in a stretch. You where fans are inching towards the panic button a little bit. You go two and three in a stretch. You go three and four, whatever, something like that where you kind of start to say, hey, is this in jeopardy this year? The biggest challenge to me, though, Derek, is not just the changed format of the Big 12 now with expansion, but the fact that

some of the new teams in your conference that you're not familiar with, that you're not used to playing twice a year, are really good. Houston is one of the best teams in the country. BYU is one of the best teams in the country. That's three of your games right there, and that's not a team that you have a ton of familiarity with. Now, with that being said, this coaching staff, I'm sure by the time those games get here, are going to be very familiar

with those teams. And in the case of Houston, like they've been one of the best teams in the country the past five years. So I don't think KU is going in with like complete ignorance to how this team plays. I think everybody in America kind of knows the style of play with Houston, but it's just, it's a new venture. It's a new venture where you're getting ready for these teams that are going to be huge challenges to you in a season, in a schedule that's going to be a lot different than what you're used to. I think the Big 12, top to bottom, even though the conference is bigger now, like the structure is pretty similar in that there's not a lot of bad teams. There's like two bottom feeders and then a bunch of teams fighting to the middle.

There's probably what? Between Oklahoma, K-State, Texas Tech, TCU. These are all those teams that are going to be like, are they going to make the NCAA tournament? Is the Big 12 going to get seven teams in? Are they going to get eight teams in again? Which just tells you, no nights off. Like we say it every single year, unlike other conferences where you've got these teams that are ranked 200th in the country, 170th in the country, there aren't many of those opportunities. So this team, which is still kind of finding their

identity with a lot of guys who are still trying to fight for roles to establish themselves as like core rotation players are going to have to do it against high level competition. This is not a team that's entering Big 12 play with a really established understanding of who they are, which kind of goes back to what we talked about in the first segment. Like you're learning on the fly now. You may not have figured things out yet, but the competition's only going to get tougher and you're still battling to figure out who you are as a team. And for some of these guys, who you are going to be as a player. Yeah. When, when you look at the number that wins the league, I know everybody has their own form. I think Bill Self says, you know, when out at home, what about half of your games on the road, right? And that usually gets you,

you know, that gets you 13 or 14 right there, which usually is a good number. I think some years we oversell it in terms of what's going to win the league. I remember going into last year and talking about, oh, could 12 win the league with as tough as it was? And I guess technically it would have because KU won it at 13. I think Texas was in second at 12. But when you look at the number this year, I know it is a little bit harder with the incongruent schedules, but what do you think the goal would be to win the – like do you think if you get 13 that that's enough to win the league this year?

Well, what was it, 2021? Was that the year with Dedrick Lawson when Dotson and Grimes were all freshmen? That's right. That would have been 18-19. 21 was, okay, the year right after. 21 was Marcus Garrett's last year. Yeah, yeah. The year they lost to USC.

Yeah, by a billion points. Evan Mobley. Yeah. That team won like 12 games in Big 12 play, and that wasn't enough to win the conference. So to me, it's still 13. Like get to 13 wins. And I doubt this coaching staff is sitting there like circling a number, like this is what we're going to need to do.

This is probably a better question to revisit like in a month to say okay this is kind of how the big 12 shaking out these are the teams that you're really you know posing as threats and circling on the calendar and with what you mentioned before the biggest games are all coming really in the second half of big 12 play so between now now and February, it wouldn't shock me if we're sitting there saying, okay, like this has been a pretty good start to Big 12 play. KU's sitting there at the top. Maybe they only have one loss. The thing that you really have to avoid is that rough patch that you know is probably going to happen, a bad week, a bad two weeks. You can't really afford to have that in the month of January.

Because the way the schedule shapes out, you have to sort of reserve those opportunities to drop a few when the schedule gets really tough. If you're going into February with three losses, that's when I would start to get a little nervous about how many wins can this team get in Big 12 play, because you can't really afford to stack up losses here over the first month. Yeah, I think at minimum you've got to go six and probably seven and one in that first eight if you want to win the league. And maybe you have to go eight and oh with as tough as that is.

All right, let's finish up with whose stat line is it anyway on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We are brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. The NFL regular season is wrapping up, but there's still time to get in on the action by FanDuel Sportsbook the NFL regular season is wrapping up but there's still time to get in on the action with FanDuel America's number one sportsbook right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place a $5 bet that's 150 bucks in bonus bets win or lose the app is so easy to use there's so many different ways to bet you can get in on live same game parlays,

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make the national championship. You can bet on the chiefs to win the super bowl, visit fan dual.com slash locked on and make your first bet a layup. FanDuel, official partner of the NFL. Finishing things up here with whose stat line is it anyway? I'm going to name a stat. Nick's going to try to guess who it is. We're going to go to some of the more advanced individual basketball numbers here.

Per 40 numbers, some of the best numbers, the most accurate numbers, always take per 40 numbers for what they are. Especially players who are up playing like 10 minutes a game. Those are when it gets really active. Yes, like Michael Jankovic leads KU in points per 40 minutes. It's indicative. He's the best scorer on the team. Absolutely.

All right, this is KU's leader in per 40 blocks per game. He's averaging four blocks per game. No one else is even at two or more per game. Who would this be? So I think I actually know this one because it could only be like two guys. I'm going to go Parker Brown. He doesn't get a ton of blocks, but they're loud blocks. You know what I mean?

Does that make sense? When Parker Brown gets one, it's like, can I swap this to the third row? How far into the stands can I send this? Bill Self before the season said that Parker Brown's a better athlete than Christian Brown. Parker Brown's mom and Christian Brown's mom said before the season, he's the better athlete. Is Parker Brown a better athlete than Christian Brown?

Well, about two weeks ago, I was at an airport in Sioux City, Iowa, and I just got off a plane and I saw a highlight of Christian Brown in a game against the Nets, just having one of the most ridiculous dunks a white boy's ever had in the NBA. So haven't seen that from Parker Brown. He is taller. I'll give him that. I'm absolutely not on the train that he is a better athlete than Christian. Yeah, no, I'm not there either. All right, here's our other one for today.

This is among non-big men. So the top three players on KU in true shooting percentage, which true shooting percentage is basically a metric devolved that adds in amount of threes taken and free throws taken, basically comes out with a number to show how efficient are you because you can shoot poorly from the field but if you shoot really well from the free throw line where you're getting free points or if you shoot really well from three but not from two threes are worth more

right there are ways they can kind of add up top three players on KU are all big men who is the first non-big man on that true shooting leaderboard percentage 62.2 percent are we removing like the michael jankovich's of the world here uh it is a scholarship player i will give you that okay uh for what it's worth uh the hunter dickinson is at 65.5 percent out of reference and kevin mcculler uh you would know that it is not him he is at 62.0 percent why do i know it's not kevin mcculler, you would know that it is not him. He is at 62.0%. Why do I know it's not Kevin McCuller? That was going to be my guess. Because I just told you.

Okay. Okay. Well, that was good. So, wait, you just said he's at 62 and this other guy's at 62.2? Yes. So, McCuller, 62.0. Hunter Dickinson, 65.5. So, this guy is between those two.

Okay. And it's not a big man. So, you're really narrowing it down to basically a crop of like four or five guys um i don't think it's dewan i know it's not nicholas timberlake he's got to be like at the bottom of this list for what it's worth nicholas timberlake is at 42.6 yeah that's got to be the bottom of the team. Jamari McDowell? No. He's missed a lot of shots.

My brain doesn't say this is the right answer, but also just by deductive reasoning, I'm running out of options here. I'm just going to go with it. Is it Johnny Furphy? He's had some threes. Is Johnny Furphy 62.2, KJ's at 60.4, DeJuan's at 53.5, Elmarco 51.3. So here's my, here's the thing with, with Johnny, like he's taken like two shots inside the arc all season. Like he's basically been a spot up shooter and he's been pretty consistent,

even though he's not a high volume guy. He's got to be one of the top three point shooters on this team. So I guess that that checks out. All right. Well, he's Nick Schwert. You can give him a follow at Nick underscore Schwert on Twitter. Where else can people find what you're doing right now? Let's just, no, wait,

I don't even care about plugging any of my stuff right now. Let's just, let's just reference the fact I went two for two and whose stat line is it anyway. I continue to just absolutely own this segment. You got me a few times during football season when you're giving me like who's third on the team and tackles for loss and stuff like that. So that's fine. You want to play your games. You want to do your little tricks to try and stump me, but we're back in basketball season.

This is my dojo. And I am once again, establishing myself as an elite whose stat line is it anyway, player. All right. We'll see if we can stump you next week. Maybe we'll dig into some of those like mid range numbers and something like that.

Yeah, there we go. All right. He's Nick. I'm Derek. That'll do it for us today on Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back tomorrow with a KUTCU preview. Make sure you subscribe to the show anywhere you get it or on YouTube.

See you.