Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Takeaways: KJ Adams is Providing Enough Offense + KU Football Has Plenty to Gain

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

Takeaways from Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball's blowout win over Missouri in addition to recent victories against Seton Hall and Texas Southern. Does KU actually have more than enough offense from the center spot with KJ Adams now? Kansas Football talk ahead of the Liberty Bowl against Arkansas: what will Jalon Daniels look like and how much do the Jayhawks have to gain? Plus, Whose Stat Line is it Anyway with Nick Schwerdt.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnCollege to learn more.Omaha SteaksOmaha Steaks is a gift from the heart – a gift that will be remembered with every unforgettable bite. Order with complete confidence today knowing you’re ordering the very best. Visit OmahaSteaks.com use promo code LOCKEDON at checkout to get that EXTRA $30 OFF your order.NHTSADrive sober or get pulled over. Click HERE to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, going to be joined by Nick Schwert, talking some KU basketball takeaways after the big win over Missouri, and if they're hitting the stride right now, a little KU football bowl game, and then whose stat line is it anyway? You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up? Welcome to another edition of Locked on Jayhawks. We're here on this one.

I'm Derek Johnson. You can also hear me from three to six Monday through Friday on KLWN in Lawrence. On reports talk, you can hear Nick as well on the Wave in the Weed podcast and on 610 with Cody and Gold from 10 to 2 in Kansas City. Thanks for making Lockdown Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of the show, we're going to be going over some KU basketball takeaways after a couple blowout wins for them over Missouri and Seton Hall,

most recently against Mizzou. A little KU football bowl game talk ahead of the Arkansas game in the Liberty Bowl, and then finish things off with whose stat line is it anyway? This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Sling TV. Don't miss this week's matchup between Kansas and Indiana. That's happening on Sling. Sling TV, the TV you love for a price you'll love too.

Try it today. All right. Starting out with some KU basketball here with Nick Schwert. What do you think is more meaningful here? Is it that the fact that they have blasted their last three opponents since having their first loss of the season? Or is it the fact that you have your first true road game and it clearly did not bother you at all. Which of those two do you think has longer term reverberations? I would probably lean towards the former,

though I don't think the latter is insignificant. It's tough because I came away from the Missouri game having far less respect for Missouri as a basketball team than I did going into it now that's not to say that uh environment doesn't matter that you can't take anything away from that because even though KU will face better teams than Missouri I'm not sure they're going to play in a more hostile environment they won't all season long but it didn't matter mostly because that was a I mean a putrid performance effort and game plan that we saw from the Missouri team so that's why I kind of pushed that one to a side the side at least for now and look more about the big picture stuff and and where this team is headed because it wasn't just the loss, Derek. They were moving in the wrong direction,

effectively the entire time they were down in the Bahamas, right? Because even in the wins against NC State, where you start to show a little bit and then having to eke one out against Wisconsin, Tennessee felt inevitable. It really did. Even if you didn't think they were going to lose that exact game, it felt like a loss was coming,

and this team was sort of scraping by and trying to find itself but I know we're not going to look back at the end of the season that wins over Texas Southern Seton Hall and honestly Missouri because I'm not sure any of those are tournament teams but if that ends up being the catalyst for when you sort of righted the ship and figured out who you were and got yourself back on the right track, that wouldn't shock me whatsoever because they have looked like a completely different game team these last three games. Well, I think what it is to me is if you are playing a team who's lesser, make them look like they're lesser. You know, the reason that like Gonzaga winds up like number one in Ken Palm every year, it's not because they play like a challenging non-conference schedule and they might beat a Bay Palm every year. It's not because they play like a challenging non-coverage schedule and they

might beat a Baylor or Kentucky. It's because they beat average or bad teams by a lot of points. Right. And so showing that I think is just important. I mean, you're looking at the Seton Hall and Missouri game. Kansas was what? A eight,

nine, 10 point favorite against Seton Hall and against Missouri. I think it was three and a half. So basically collectively you were 13 point favorites and you think it was three and a half. So basically, collectively, you were 13-point favorites and you won by 54 between the two games. That says something, too. Clearly, the big wins, like you have the opportunity to do against Indiana on Saturday, are more important,

but that stuff's important, too. It's hard to blow teams out, man. It really is. Margin of victory does have significance. You said it perfectly. There is value in winning by a lot. Just because you play a bad team doesn't mean there's absolutely nothing to take away from that game. No.

What do good teams do to bad teams? They beat them by a lot. It's what Gonzaga does every single year when they're playing Pepperdine or Pacific. They're not just winning 80 to 74, right? They're winning 97 to 58. And you say, okay, these two teams, they're not in the same stratosphere. Kansas and Missouri, Kansas and Seton Hall, Kansas and Texas Southern, they didn't look like they belonged on the same court together. You asserted your dominance over them and prove that, hey, we're in a different class than you.

You're a team that's figuring it out. We thought we were figuring it out a month ago. Well, now we really know where we're at. We may not be where we want to be yet, but we know we're a few classes ahead of you guys. My biggest individual takeaway, DeJuan continues to do great things. I think Jalen, another game where you just look up and you're like oh he had 24 and 10 which is certainly uh about as much as you could say about being like an all-american candidate but the kj adams game

that's kind of what that one felt like with the 19 points and you know you look at the past few games i think he's scored in double figures in three straight games here he's obviously not somebody you're going to throw the ball on the block and he's going to hit a hook shot or go on a drop step or something. But I wonder if they have figured out how to get five offense with K.J. Adams. And it's not from the traditional ways that we've seen under Bill Self offenses like David McCormick last season. But I wonder if just having him perfect those plays that we know Bill Self is so good at getting angles for where basically it's just about, can you find the right angle and seal the guy off?

You know, you have a good passer to get you the ball with DeJuan Harris. Just having those, just catching dunks, being in the dunker position, making hustle plays. Like, is that enough for you? If the way the cages look these past few games for that center position and for the offense to be good enough now? It's such a tough question to answer because he's coming off a game where how could you say no look at what he did but I know that not every team's going to give that same defensive performance that Mizzou did where it wasn't just KJ like everybody got whatever they wanted there was no point in time where Mizzou like batting down the hatches and said okay finally we're going to lock in and play defense like Like every other possession, it seemed like Kansas had a wide open shot,

especially near the rim. So I've gone back and forth on it. You know I've talked a lot on this podcast about KJ, and I'm a huge fan of him. I think we get so caught up in thinking about the potential and the end of the road that we rush to that conclusion, right? Like this year, for example, when you think about who has the most potential at the five spot, who gives this team the highest ceiling, the highest upside? It's not KJ. I don't know who it is. Maybe it's Ernest.

Maybe it's Zach. Maybe it's Zuby Ejiofor. But I know it's not KJ. I know it's not the six, seven dude who can't score outside of six feet. It's definitely not him yet. He is the only one of that bunch who is earning consistent playing time. And Missouri was the best example of why he's done it, but he's really been doing it all year. He plays harder than anybody on the roster on anybody on the roster, not the bigs. There's nobody who has a motor like him. He is built like a brick bleep house and he jumps out of the gym. He does a few things, but he does them really, really well. There are limitations to his game. There's no question about it. But if you just know who you are, if you have self-awareness, know who you are and know how to maximize that skill set with the players around you, there is value in that.

And if nobody else figures it out, if none of the other bigs come along, I still think I'm going to be bullish on this team because you have a guy. And some guys spend four years and never figure it out, Derek. A lot of guys spend four years trying to be someone they're not right. Big guys who want to stretch the floor or who they want to put it on the deck. Right. Remember Carlton Bragg, Carlton Bragg wanted to be Kevin Durant. It's like, Hey man, you're six, nine. You're a big guy. Like I get it. You can shoot the ball a little bit, but like maybe go down and throw a body into someone and try and get a rebound. That can be a hindrance, not just on yourself, but the players around you. I think we lose sight of that sometimes when saying like,

Hey, let's get this guy some more run that way. He's ready by the end of the season. Well, while he's trying to figure it out, he's hurting the development of the four guys on the court with him. You're not seeing that right now with KJ, which is why I feel like this team's kind of starting to get into a group because it's the same five guys every night and they know who they are. Yeah. Do you think they need, you know, that, that offense from the five position to be successful or has this just kind of been a cherry on top? Well, with how good they play defense, like when they're playing, when you create the fast break opportunities, having a five man who can run and jump out of the gym and get offensive rebounds like that is very valuable. But I mean, you always want it, but you have to

ask yourself, how are you getting that offense from the five spot? Because if if if you're talking about getting offense from the postups, I got news for everybody. That guy does not exist on this team, nor should you like nor should you want that. Look at the NBA. Nobody posts nobody posts up man that is i know that that's sort of like the way that we think about you know yudoka azubuki and guys that came before him but that's just not an efficient way to play offense ideally if i mean if kj was 6 9 6 10 we would not even be talking about this we wouldn't even be having a discussion we'd say wow this guy's an an all-American candidate because if he was 6'9", he would probably be averaging 14 and 11, but he's 6'7", so you feel like there's just going to be times where he gets taken advantage of, but I'm going to answer no for now. It's a long-winded answer, but I'm going to say no. I don't think they need more than what

he's giving them because I'm not going to say no until I've seen it cost them a game. And we'll get a much better sample size once we get into conference play and you're playing twice a week and you're playing top 25 teams virtually every single night. But we're over a month and a half into the season, and I have yet to see a game where not having the post presence cost them. Like the Tennessee game, They didn't get offense from anybody other than Jalen Wilson. That's not a, that's not a big guy problem. That's not a five man problem. There are other guys who can kick into that bucket. Right? So I'm not, I'm not ready

to say that quite yet. I know that my eyes like just going based off history, I would say, yeah, you need a little bit more from that big spot, but just let me see it cost them one game before I'm ready to say that that guy can't do it. Yeah. I think I'm with you. We've seen Bill self adjust so much through the years with lineup. So I think he can adjust as fine. And like, I've used this several times on this show. So I'll probably retire it after I say this one more time. How many years for the past, like three or four years has Baylor been like one of the top offenses in the country? And how many years have they just had like a rim running big man who just dunks and does nothing else, right? Like Flo Thomba and Mark Vital, like those guys aren't doing more than KJs.

So it's very possible. All right. I want to get to some KU football here in a second. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Omaha Steaks. They have cut prices to 50% site-wide to make you give the perfect gift for any one of your loved ones. And the holidays are here. Achieve gifting greatness when you give the gift of perfectly aged, tender, and delicious Omaha Steaks. I've been lucky enough that I've received a package one time with Omaha Steaks. You get a bunch of the steaks, you get the twice-baked potatoes, a bunch

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nice and easy. Go to OmahaSteaks.com and take advantage of this 50% off site-wide offer plus you just code locked on at checkout to get an additional 40 off your order minimum order may be required on to some ku football here this is going to be your last show before um you take off and uh you're going to be heading out out of overseas and whatnot. So one of a chance the week of, or the week before to talk to you, Arkansas and the Liberty bowl,

forget the X's and O's or, you know what this team or that team does well on paper, both teams, good offense, all that stuff. Forget all that stuff. Is there a chance that KU is just way more juiced for this game? And we get the classic,

Oh, sec team didn't want to be here. Maybe because Arkansas, I mean, historically goes to a bowl about every other year. I know they went last year and who did they beat? They, they played in the Penn state.

Yeah. I was about to say, I knew it was a big team. They beat Penn state in the Outback Bowl last year. So this team has been there before. You know what's so funny about that is that's sort of the reason behind the theory as to why Missouri didn't want to play Kansas in the Liberty Bowl. Because, hey, if we're just going to play in these meaningless bowls that nobody cares about, let's just get it out of the way before everybody goes home to get on with their year and get on with their lives. So I do think there are schools that think like that.

And as excited as Kansas is to go against an SEC team, what do you think if you're an Arkansas football player and you see we got Kansas? We're playing Kansas, right? So just to remove yourself from the equation, it would be like if you're an Arkansas football player and they're saying, hey, we're going to the Liberty Bowl and we're playing Rutgers.

You'd say, oh, well, maybe I won't need all those family tickets after all. Maybe my parents are just going to stay home and watch this one with the rest of the family because it's Memphis in December. That's the other part of this. It's not a destination for late December, man. So it wouldn't shock me whatsoever. This is like manifest destiny for Kansas to be in a bowl game for some of these kids who have probably never thought about the prospects of doing it when you signed up to be at Kansas, either because nobody else recruited you or because you're an in-state kid, right?

It's just a little bit different when a program like that makes it to a bowl game versus another team that just expects to be there every year. I think that you have the whatever, three, four weeks off in between when they last played to this one. I'm expecting Jalen Daniels to look like the guy we remember from the beginning of the season. Are you expecting that? And if it doesn't happen, would that be worrisome at all? I am expecting it. I think that when you think about him missing a month and a half, I know it was really easy to just say, okay, well, it was a nice start to the year, a flash in the pan, but ultimately this is probably closer to who you really are.

But I also think that there are potentially guys who wouldn't have came back this year. You're talking about a separated shoulder in your throwing arm, which talking to people who are familiar with that injury, it's a pain tolerance situation. So once you get past the point of just being able to play, right, being able to deal with the pain, you still have to overcome the hurdle of, oh yeah, that shoulder that you chucked the ball down the field 50 yards, it was separated. So

the effectiveness is the next hurdle to get over. And the idea that you weren't playing football, you weren't getting hit, you weren't going through the same reps that you were going through early in the season you took six weeks off and you just expect to hit the ground running in the meat of your schedule mind you what's so funny dude i derrick i go back to that k-state game that was three weeks ago and the way i think about k-state now after seeing them beat TCU and be the big 12 champions, do you view case like in hindsight, do you look back at that K state game? It's like,

wow, we didn't know how good K state was at the time. Like we kind of thought Kansas maybe had a chance in that game. And now looking back on it, I feel like there is a, a chasm between those two programs that I didn't think existed a month ago. So part of it, I look back on and say,

that was a really tough part of the schedule for Jalen to come back and be thrust into. Now he gets basically a month, a month to get right, a month to get reps and a month to game plan for this opponent. So I'm with you. I do think we're going to get closer to that old version of Jalen Daniels than we got when we saw him come back from the injury.

I had a Kevin Flaherty, a friend of both of ours on the show with RCST last week, I think, in 24-7 sports. And I was asking, like, if Kansas wins the game, you know, they bring back a lot of starters, at least you're on paper to next season. Is there a chance they could be preseason top 25? He said, yes. He said that's been like a conversation as they're getting ready to release that once the season goes down.

How much do you think the result of the game will impact the way we view the team headed into 2023? It does. Even if it shouldn't, it absolutely does for teams every single year because it's the last thing you have to hold on. College football offse are long and we fill them with things like national signing day and spring games and fall practices. But the reality is you go about eight months between games.

We take this season that is so wild and crazy. And we talk about valuing the importance of the regular season. And the reason we do that, Derek is because if you don't value the regular season in football, you're really only valuing one month and that makes it seem rather hollow. So we've inflated the regular season to mean that to me, to be this massive thing because it lasts for such a short amount of time. And you know, as well as I do a lot of lying to yourselves going on in the off season, a lot of manufacturing hope. This is what I'm hearing from practice. Oh, apparently coaches love this new guy. Oh, actually they said he's better than the one who left and transferred to the other school. The guy who,

you know, the guy we thought was the best, the left guard from last year? We thought he was the best guy on the offensive line. Turns out the dude who was waiting behind him is going to be even better. They've added new wrinkles to the offense. They figured out what teams were. We do it, man. Every single phase does it. All you have to do is go off of hope.

It's the only thing you can cling on to. So if you win a football game, if you win your last game of the year against a team from the SEC, you have eight months to convince yourself that this is something more than it is, even if it's not, if it is real, then that's great. But it's not because of that one game. It's because of the totality of what we've seen over the last four months. The fact that a two-win football team turned into a bowl team and got to face an SEC team in late December. That, to me, means more than the individual outcome of the game.

But because we have so little to go off of, the outcome of that game goes a long ways towards determining whether or not this team is going to be respected on a national level. All right. Going to finish things off here. Whose stat line is it anyway? First, you got to try this.

What's the record by the way? You're undefeated six. No, right. I'm ready. No, we'll put it to the test. Little harder ones this week.

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Built, you got to try this. Get 15% off your order right now by using code LOCKEDON15. That's LOCKEDON15 at built.com. Whose stat line is it anyway? As you teased, you are 6-0. You have not missed one so far. These ones are going to be a little bit more difficult. The Missouri game did not necessarily provide a lot of tough-to-figure-out stat lines.

The five starters all had incredible stats that were very fitting to their numbers, and the bench didn't really do anything. So I have your favorites per 40 numbers. I should actually do plus minus individual plus minus numbers for games. That would be funny for you. I have a couple per 40s and then a December player. All right. Okay.

I'm not going to complain yet, but I will later. I can already tell. All right. Per 40 number. This is the first one. I'm not going to complain yet, but I will later. I can already tell. Per 40 number. This is the first one. 24.6 points per game. Zero rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks per game. By the way, the 24.6 points per game is second on the team in per 40 numbers.

Can you give me like some can you give me like some shooting splits uh i believe 67 from three is what i can give you michael jankovich by the way i had an alternate spread on that game i had ku 20 to 25 jankovich steps into one from about 34 feet and it's butter dude the net hardly moves that guy and i thought that was my initial instinct was that it was him because i'm like well who only shoots while he's out there but i needed to know how good of a shooter he was because also i don't think i've seen him miss yet. Okay, I have another per 41, but this is the opposite end of the spectrum. Normally, per 40 stats are like that, where it's like, oh, Michael Jankovic is the greatest player of all time

if you extrapolate out with per 40. This does not bode well because these per 40 numbers are not good. 7.7 points per game, 3.3 rebounds per game, 0.7 steals per game. He is shooting well though 65 from the floor 50 from three if i gave you one other stat you would immediately know who i i don't maybe not immediately but you would be between a couple people okay so so the poor 40 numbers extrapolate out at seven points. So, okay. So it's not,

it's not Zach Clements. Cause he still hasn't made a shot. Has he? No, he is not. Can we get an updated running tally on Zach Clements points scored this year? Um, he's over 11,

zero points. Zoobies rebounding numbers would be higher. Zoobies rebounding numbers per 40 would probably be like 50. He hit three rebounds in three minutes against Missouri. MJ Rice's per 40 numbers would be stupid high. Same with Yesifu. Who am I missing? Oh, Bobby Pettiford.

Bobby Pettiford. Yep. Eight and 0. I can't be stopped people are you know what i'm like gina or i'm like yukon women's basketball like they're going to be debating is this bad for the sport is there not enough competitive balance in the whose stat line is it anyway game all right last one this is december numbers for one player on k he's averaging 19 points per game seven rebounds per game and averaging two assists per game in the month of december how many games have they played in december that's a good question um i think i have the schedule right behind me yeah so uh seaton hall in missouri that's it so just two games 19 and give me it's

right there 19 7 and 2 i'm gonna this one's actually tough because i feel like there's like a couple guys it could be but i think it's kevin mcculler it is kevin mcculler and for the kicker i if i were to give you number, it would have been even easier. Four and a half steals per game over the two. By the way, I just want to say one thing. Cause we didn't get to it in this episode. Um, and this is the first time I've said this on any show this year.

So this is groundbreaking stuff. There's like Barbara Walters type insight. Uh, I think Kevin McCuller is the best individual defender that Bill self has ever coached at Kansas. Yeah. That's high praise. Marcus Garrett has ever coached at Kansas. Yeah. That's high praise. Marcus Garrett.

He's better than Marcus Garrett. Jeff Withey. He's better. Jeff Withey is the only one. Jeff Withey is the only one. But what he, like the versatility of his defense, where he, Derek, he makes his defense felt, the impact felt every inch of the floor like the play that he had early in the season where he's he's falling out of bounds he's done that a couple more times too duke it was against

the uh uh the big white guy for duke uh filipowski filipowski he's backpedaling right fast court open court he's backped, rips the ball from him, falling out of bounds, throws it up court for like a hockey assist. And you're right. He's done that a couple of times. There've been a couple where he's just disrupted a two-on-one fast break

where he just jumps in the air and snags it. DeJuan's done that as well. But Kevin, there's a reason why a guy who doesn't seem to be a very consistent shooter is being talked about as a potential second round draft pick. And it's because NBA teams look at Kevin McCullough. They say, wow, you're big, you're long, you're an athlete. You have great basketball IQ and you profile as a lockdown defender.

Like that's who he is. He's going to be an NBA player. I have been so, so impressed with him. I didn't understand the hype before the season because you don't watch defensive players when they're on other teams. You watch the guys who take all the shots and he was never that.

Now that he's on Kansas, when he's on the court, I can't take my eyes off of him because I feel like he is just like such a savvy, high IQ basketball player. I think he's been a joy to watch. Last question before I let you go five Marcus Garrett's verse five, Kevin McCullers.

What's the score of the game? Hmm. Well, McCullers, a better offensive player too, right? And he just kind of is. And I hate to do,

I don't, you know, you see now you're backing me into a corner where I have the final score. Yeah, but you're, you're at, score. Yeah, but in doing so, I'm going to sound like a Marcus Garrett hater, which couldn't be any further from the truth, but I'm going to say final score of 16 to 11. Okay, love it.

Well, Nick, appreciate the time as always. Enjoy your time off in Deutschland. Hey, thanks, brother. That's Nick Schwert. That's going to do go for this episode of locked on jayhawks coming up on tomorrow's show we're gonna get into uh jalen wilson's national player of the year case and could you make the case that there's actually he's not the most important player on the team if you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about hit us up at d johnson radio on twitter on our comment section on youtube don't forget to subscribe to the show.

So you're getting all the latest with locked on Jay Hawks. I'll do it for today. So have a good rest of your day. See you on RCST later today. Deuces.