Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Point Guard Position Improved From Last Year Led by Dajuan Harris

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we're previewing the KU basketball point guard position early ahead of the years. We're about five weeks away from late night in the fog, so no better time like the present. We'll continue on with this weekly series throughout the years. We head up closer to basketball season in the midst of football season. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:38 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 wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also like and subscribe to our show and find us on our YouTube page. It's still mostly going to be KU football talk for us throughout Locked on Jayhawks, but, you know, Late Night in the Fog is October 6th, so that's like a month away. We're five Fridays away, and I'm going to be previewing the point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, center position as we get closer to late night in the fog.

Starting point is 00:01:09 So today, we're going to be previewing an early look at the 2023 point guard position for KU basketball headed into the 23-24 season. And we'll start right there with the point guard position because, you know, this is obviously a very strong position for KU that has three guys that I would classify here and I'm not going to get into the walk-ons necessarily but for the scholarship players DeJuan Harris, Arterio Morris, and Marco Jackson are all guys that I would classify here Nick Timberlake he's a two three Kevin McCuller you know might handle the ball or initiate a play here or there, but he's a wing, a 3-4. Obviously, everybody else is kind of big men. Johnny Furphy's not a point guard. Jamari McDowell is somebody who, yeah,

Starting point is 00:01:53 at times in the games in Puerto Rico, actually, they had him maybe bringing the ball up as a two guard. So I guess maybe I could count him here a little bit, but I'm going to save him more for the shooting guard. So I'm just going to focus on these three guys today. DeJuan Harris, Artario Morris, and Elmarco Jackson. There will be some crossover for the latter two of these guys in the shooting guard preview as well.

Starting point is 00:02:13 But that means you have three options at the point guard incoming for this season. You go back last year, you had DeJuan Harris, Bobby Pettiford could play there. You could play some Joe Yassafu at the point guard spot. Yassafu was playing a little bit out of position, but he was able to do so. So this year you kind of have the same amount of bodies, but I think you feel better about the room overall. So DeJuan Harris is coming into his fifth year at the University of Kansas, but he'll still just be a junior for KU. Came in, redshirted his first year. His redshirt freshman year was the COVID year. So technically by year three, he was a third year freshman.

Starting point is 00:02:50 Last year was his fourth year sophomore year. And that means he's a fifth year junior this year that could still have next year as a sixth year senior undertow, which is super exciting for KU basketball fans that you've already gotten to know. DeJuan Harris has been impressed with what he can do. He's going to have this year where you expect him to be even better. And then next year where you can expect maybe even more out of him moving forward. So with DeJuan, you know, you're talking about a guy who put up really good numbers last season in terms of the

Starting point is 00:03:15 efficiency, the assist, the turnovers, averaged nine points per game, 6.2 assists, two and a half rebounds per game, ended up shooting really well from behind the three-point arc. A lot of that was buoyed by a couple big games. Ended up shooting 47% from the floor, 40% from three, only 60% on free throws. But the big number there, the 6.2 assists per game compared to just the two turnover per games. He was an elite defender and point of attack guy there and had really good ball handling for you. You expect all of those things this season.

Starting point is 00:03:49 What are the numbers look like this year? I don't know. I've kind of said that I could see him averaging even less points per game this year, still being selective when he knows he has to go for it. But for the overall part of it, I could see him averaging, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:01 seven points where I don't think it's going to be a lot lower, you know, maybe seven points per game. Maybe it is right around eight again, but I could see the assist, you know, seven points per game. I don't think it's going to be a lot lower, you know, maybe seven points per game. Maybe it is right around eight again, but I could see the assist going up to instead of 6.2, maybe it's at seven, maybe it's at seven and a half, which in college basketball is a very high number, especially when that's going to probably be at a two, two and a half turnovers per game. And, and the assist to turnover ratio is going to be really good. You expect them to play great point of attack defense, get a good

Starting point is 00:04:22 number of steals and, uh, you know, shoot well again from three point-of-attack defense, get a good number of steals, and shoot well again from three-point range and from the field because you are going to be more of a selective offensive player. Then you have Elmarco Jackson. Elmarco Jackson is the five-star recruit that you had come over from – well, I don't know. Some places, I don't know if they have him listed as a four-star. But anyway, near top 20 recruit.

Starting point is 00:04:43 I think he was ranked 22nd in the 24-7 sports composite. He looked, I thought, pretty good. You saw the athleticism in the trip to Puerto Rico for El Marco Jackson. He ended up, over the course of three games, shooting 52% from the floor, which I think that's really impressive. He was three for eight from downtown. You'd like to see the free throw shooting be a little better than four for eight. But almost 11 points per game, three assists per game for him in the Puerto Rico games and kind of his first games wearing a KU uniform.

Starting point is 00:05:13 I was impressed with what I saw. And you also take into account that, yeah, he is a freshman. He's going to grow exponentially as the off season goes on, as the season goes on. I'm really high on what this kid's going to be. I think he'll eventually be a first round draft pick in the NBA, whether it's at the end of this season or the end of another season after that, or three years down the road, whenever it is, he has the athleticism and the tools to be just that. The question just becomes, is the role going to be big enough this year? Are you going to have the impact big enough? It wouldn't shock me because I am very high on Marco Jackson, what he can bring to the table. Now, is he going to only be used as an off an off guard? Is he only going to be used when he's on the floor next to Dwan Harris or next door, Terry Morris? I don't know who's going to be the backup point guard becomes kind of

Starting point is 00:05:52 interesting here, but comes in as a true freshman, expect high things from him. Then you have our Terry Morris. Morris comes in as a true sophomore. He spent his freshman year as a five-star recruit at Texas. And yes, he only played 11 minutes per game at Texas to where, you know, some people I've seen kind of say like, oh, why would you have big expectations if he only played 11 minutes per game at Texas? Why is he going to play 2025 at Kansas the next year? Well, some of that's situational. You look at the Texas guards a season ago, you had Tyrese Hunter, who's,

Starting point is 00:06:20 you know, kind of an all big 12 type of caliber guard, or at least adjacent good player, right? You have Marcus Carr who was coming back for his second year with Texas in like fifth or sixth year of college basketball, obviously a good guard at the collegiate level. Serge Ibari-Rice is playing for you at like the two position, which blocks one of the guard spots. He's the Big 12 sixth man of the year, and for my money, he might have been the best of those guards.

Starting point is 00:06:41 He was really good and super efficient from a season ago. So you have those three guys, and that makes it really tough to get on the floor. In addition to having depth at three and four, where it's going to be hard to play, you know, three point guards together. So yes, he only played 11 minutes per game, but it's because there was a lot of other talent kind of sitting around him that it was just hard to crack the rotation in year one. But even when he was on the floor, especially as the season went on, you look at the, you go back and watch the Big 12 championship game, he was hounding KU guards,

Starting point is 00:07:09 and he was somebody who really came on at the back half of the season with his three-point shooting percentage, which makes you think, is he starting to live up to that potential? And he's one of those players who, he's a former five-star crew, this is the year that everything's going to click together. I think the idea from his camp is that he's going to be a one and done. I think Arterial Morris and his camp want this to be one year and then I'm off to the NBA.

Starting point is 00:07:31 Most probably players feel that way. Obviously, if you can be off to the NBA in one year, great. We'll see if that ends up happening. We'll see if the role is big enough or if it has to be a couple more years. But certainly, I expect him to be playing a lot of minutes. I expect that for all these guys. This isn't just a case where you have three point guards and one of them's probably just going to ride the bench the whole year

Starting point is 00:07:47 and be a reserve player who plays spot minutes here or there and is only out there in case there's injuries or foul trouble. All three of these guys I expect to have big roles in the rotation and to not just play possibly point guard minutes, but to play two guard minutes pretty much with the exception of DeJuan because he'll just be, when he's out there, he is the point guard. He's the guy. So all of them are going to have big roles on this team,

Starting point is 00:08:07 and all of them are very talented in different ways. With Artario, you get the defensive pressuring, you get the three-point potential. With Elmarco Jackson, you get the pure athleticism. Artario's a good athlete too, but I think Elmarco, for me, is an even better athlete and I think a better passer. With DeJuan, you get the great passing and the leadership and the calming influence on the offense and just kind of does everything right.

Starting point is 00:08:29 So you get a little bit of everything from each of those specific guys. Maybe you don't have like the Devontae Graham knockdown shooter. Maybe that's the one thing kind of missing from this group. But overall, it's a very good point guard unit from where you were this year. Let's get into if it's better than it was a season ago. Is this unit the best in the Big 12, one of the best in the countries at the point guard unit from where you were this year. Let's get into if it's better than it was a season ago. Is this unit the best in the Big 12, one of the best in the countries at the point guard position coming up in a bit? I also want to get to minutes rotations of how these guys could play out and how that

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Starting point is 00:09:43 Let's ride. eBay guaranteed fit only available to U.S. customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. Okay, continuing on here with Lockdown Jayhawks. What about the minutes projections for this point guard spot? Now, some of these players are going to be playing other roles than just point guard. They'll play the two guard because most of the point guard minutes,

Starting point is 00:10:04 the 40 minutes that you have are going to be mostly devoted to DeJuan Harris. So we'll go through these position by position. As of right now, what I have, I have DeJuan Harris down for 33 minutes per game. And I feel a little uncomfortably low in that regard. He averaged 34.2 minutes per game. It's very rare you see a player go down from minutes per game from one year to the next. There are a few examples where it was like Jamari trailer, Brady Morningstar, went down a decent amount. There are more examples, but still not a, not a huge number

Starting point is 00:10:35 necessarily of guys who, um, went from, you know, maybe like 30 minutes to 29 minutes or something like that, where it's like, it's really not going down, but I guess it slightly is. But if I'm predicting 33, it would kind of be more in that elk. There are two guys that come to mind for me here. So the first of which is Tyshawn Taylor, and this will be a bit of a difference here because a little bit of a difference. Well, I'll get into why. Tyshawn taylor in 2008 2009

Starting point is 00:11:06 that was his freshman year um averaged 26 and a half minutes per game the next year in 29 2010 he averaged 23.1 minutes per game so the minutes went down by about three and a half per game right there's an example of a point guard going down in minutes per game the next year why it's similar is because the idea there is the same. The 9-10 team was a lot deeper and a better team than the 08-09 team. I think this year's team could be deeper than last year's team, so there's one possible reason that could happen. But the other thing that's part of that that's not the same here is that Tyshawn was a little more erratic, especially early in his career,

Starting point is 00:11:40 whereas DeJuan at this point is a veteran, and he is a little bit more steady. So maybe those aren't similar here's one that is Sharon Collins in that 2008-2009 season where it was him and it was Sharon and Cole mostly that carried them to that three seed big 12 title in the sweet 16 Sharon averaged 35 minutes per game that year the next year that 9-10 team that ended up only losing you know two games in the regular season and ends up getting upset by Northern Iowa, but was an unbelievable team. He averaged 33 minutes per game. So that is an example of an All-American player averaging less minutes per game because the team got so much better and deeper the following season.

Starting point is 00:12:14 Maybe part of that minutes per game going down, too, is just you blew out so many more opponents that you get off the court late in games. So I'm kind of viewing this for DeJuan that there is so much more point guard competition and guys you want to get minutes to that actually have it down to 33. I thought about making it 32 even to that notion, similar to the Sharon Collins one, but 33 to me feels right. Again, I wouldn't be shocked if this is 34. Again, if it's 35, it's even 36 because Bill Self loves DeJuan Harris and he should. He's a trusted point guard. He's such a difference maker when he's out on the court for you, but because you are trying to get those other player minutes and because you have an opportunity with other quality point guards and athletic players to give DeJuan maybe slightly more rest and to allow him to be continued a kind of defensive pest and a gnat on the floor that

Starting point is 00:13:01 he'll have even more fresh legs if he's not having to do quite as much than he was last year that is a huge positive for Kansas so for that reason I had him at 33 minutes arterial Morris I had at 23 minutes and this will be easier to describe you know how the minutes are allocated out and why I have this or that when this is all said and done because you know right now you have kind of blanks on well what, what Timberlake and this and that. It's hard to find these other guy minutes, though. I'll put it that way. You have 40 minutes to give out the point guard spot, 40 minutes to give it out the

Starting point is 00:13:31 shooting guard spot, 40 minutes to give out at the third guard spot or the wing spot. And there's a lot of other minutes that have to go around between Nick Timberlake and Kevin McCuller and then your big man at the four and five position and Johnny Furphy in there too, right? To where it does get a little bit more condensed. So Arterio Morse at 23 minutes, wouldn't shock me if this is closer to 25, 26, wouldn't shock me if this is closer to 20 minutes per game too. Kind of split the difference, 23 minutes per game. That's still a good role on a team. And clearly you're in the rotation as one of the top guys. And then a lot of games you're going to be finishing with the

Starting point is 00:14:01 starters, even if you're not a starter, but you might be a starter to begin with. It might be him. And then I have Marco Jackson at 18 minutes per game, which again, like you could convince me if he's making freshman mistakes, maybe it's closer to 15. If not, and the athleticism in there, he's a game changer. Maybe this is 22. Maybe it is 25. If we are just looking specifically at the point guard spot alone, though, as part of this point guard preview, that means if we're given 33 minutes to Dewan that only gives seven minutes of the backup point guard spot to one of these two guys so obviously I have both of them playing minutes at the the two or maybe if there's going to be three all three of them on the court at the same time that that will boost those minutes up um but that'll be an interesting race to see who wins the backup point guard spot specifically when

Starting point is 00:14:43 Dewan's on the bench who takes over point guard? And maybe the answer is that Arterio and El Marco are out there on the same time whenever DeJuan is on the bench so that you can kind of mitigate that with two point guards. But I kind of lean if it was just one of them out there with DeJuan on the bench, I kind of lean right now El Marco. I think Arterio I have been giving more minutes, and that's not shocking. But I think if you're just looking specifically at the point guard spot,

Starting point is 00:15:05 I think El Marco is the better passer, has better vision on the floor and is more of that kind of true point guard. Ontario might be more of a true score and defensive kind of point guard to where that's why I think El Marco could be that guy specifically with the backup point guard minutes. Now this is obviously a regular season rotation that I'm doing these minutes projections on and we'll continue to do these minutes projections on for the different positional previews. Once we get to the postseason, once we get to the end of the regular season, the Big 12

Starting point is 00:15:31 tournament, the NCAA tournament, rotations are going to narrow because I have a, I guess, nine-man rotation right now with Furphy and Parker Brown in there. And I don't know. We'll see how real that is. It might be eight by the time we get to Big 12 play, but once we get to the NCAA tournament, it'll definitely be eight, and it might even be seven, so we'll see what happens, right? What if El Marco is not on the trusted side as a freshman, and some of those minutes get cut off elsewhere? What if Nick Timberlake doesn't end up getting into a trusted rotation, and some of that minutes go elsewhere? What if Johnny Furphy's not in the rotation, and now you have extra minutes that you can give out to some of these guys that in crunch time,

Starting point is 00:16:07 DeJuan's at 35 minutes per game and Arterio's at 27 minutes per game and Omarco's at 22 minutes per game, right? That all these numbers could go up or be shaved off from kind of other spots. So post-season rotation, regular season rotation, early season rotation, big 12 rotation, they're all different types of rotations and trust levels for what Bill Selfs has. But this is just based on kind of an overarching thing and more so a regular season rotation. I don't want to finish up.

Starting point is 00:16:33 Is this position, is the point guard position better this year for Kansas than it was a season ago? And how good is this unit compared to the rest of the conference and the rest of the country with Locked on Jayhawks? Finishing things up with Lock locked on Jayhawks finishing things up with locked on Jayhawks is this position unit is this point guard spot better than it was a season ago for Kansas I think yes you look at DeJuan Harris and you say well okay I don't know if he's going to be a ton better than than last year right like he might be the same guy. I would lean toward him being better.

Starting point is 00:17:08 It's another year of college basketball, but there's a chance he's just the same guy, right? At the very least, that's the same. Now, again, I would lean that he's probably going to be a little bit better than he was last year. How much better? I don't know. I think he'll be a little better, though.

Starting point is 00:17:20 Then you look at the backup point guard last year. I guess it depends which point in time was the guy. We want to talk Joe Yesifu as the backup point guard. You know, by the end of the season, he was getting more of the minutes. I know Bobby Pettiford had to deal with different injuries at different points. Is Artario Morris better than Joe Yesifu? Yes. I think that is a huge upgrade for you. Artario's better defender. I don't think Joe was a bad defender, but I think Artario is even another level there. Uh, Joe in his time at Drake was a really good shooter, but in his time at Kansas was not. So I think arterio will be a better shooter for you there.

Starting point is 00:17:51 And he is more of a natural point guard than Joe. Yes. If it was. So yes, that's a, that's an improvement to go from arterio over Joe and arterio is bigger. It gives you more, you know, not that arterio is like a giant, but he's still longer and taller than Joe is. so that gives you kind of more flexibility there so i think they're better there the better if not the same with the one and then el marco versus bobby pettiford like i think el marco is better than bobby pettiford you know he saw but el marco is an electric athlete

Starting point is 00:18:21 so if you have this electric athlete with El Marco Jackson that adds something to it that I think could be a better defender than Bobby Pettiford and gives you more to his game and obviously has that potential, you're talking about you might be better at all three of your point guard spots this year than you were last year. So I don't think it's just better of a position unit than it was a year ago. i think it's significantly better than it was a season ago now obviously you're not going to be good with the wing position this year to where you were last year when you had grady dick and jaylen wilson obviously you still have kevin mcculler but when you look at having much better point guards guard play wins in march you feel

Starting point is 00:18:57 better about your your big position probably this year than you did last year um that's why this team has a lot of high expectations. They were one seed last year and your point guard position might've gotten significantly better. And your team might've got significantly deeper in huge part because of a couple of these backup point guards. Now, where does this rank among the big 12 in the country? Harder for me to say among the country, but you know, Dwan Harris, because of the stats, probably not going to be picked on like all American teams and stuff like that. For my money, though, in terms of just value,

Starting point is 00:19:27 most valuable point guards in the country, he's got to be one of the top five. So if you have that guy, you start with that, and you have two possible future first-round picks with Artario Morrison or Marco Jackson, this has to be one of the best units in the country. Elsewhere around the Big 12, you know, Baylor has the Ray J. Dennis kid from Toledo. They've got some good recruits coming in. They'll have a good team to watch there. Texas has Max Acemus and Tyrese Hunter at the guard

Starting point is 00:19:51 position, so they'll have a good guard position. Kansas State has Tyler Perry, who I think is going to have an outstanding season for them. Houston has a bunch of good guards with LJ Cryer in there, and I'm blanking on the other kid's name. Who's a Jabal shed. There we go. He's he's awesome. So there are a lot of really good guard teams in the big 12, but I think you go toe to toe with just about any of them and feel good night in night out that at the very least you're going to be just as good as the team on the other side, if not better from that position unit. Uh, that'll do it for this episode of locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:20:22 Please leave a positive review. If you're a podcast platform allows it it or hit the like button if you're watching on YouTube. You can find us anywhere you get any of your podcasts or on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. I'm Derek Johnson. You can catch me as well on Rock Truck Sports Talk. We'll see you next time with another edition of

Starting point is 00:20:37 Locked on Jayhawks.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Point Guard Position Improved From Last Year Led by Dajuan Harris

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