Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Transfer Portal Deep Dive: Duncan Powell + New Assistant Chase Buford

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Duncan Powell deep dive if the offseason isn't quite done for KU, Chase Buford, a new assistant coach, and plenty more. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can give me a follow on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. And on today's edition of Locked On Jayhawks, we're doing a deep dive on Duncan Powell.

Starting point is 00:00:33 I don't know if the offseason is done for KU. Feels like maybe leaning that way, but there was some at least reported interest here, so we will get to a deep dive on this. And the latest around KU, Chase Buford, new assistant coach. Mass Street TBT is coming back and some more with the latest news that we'll get to on this episode of LOJ. So we're going to start with Duncan Powell, get into some information on him, scouting report, what his potential fit would be with KU, and then we'll get into that kind of roundup of all of the

Starting point is 00:01:00 latest there. So it does feel like, I guess we'll start here, KU is probably done with the off-season movement and the transfer portal, but they still do have one scholarship open. And sometimes things pop up out of nowhere. It could be a late international crew, right? We saw that with Johnny Furphy, for instance, last season. He was kind of a late riser, and eventually you bring him on after your trip down to Puerto Rico, right? It's entirely possible, Kate, you could do something like that and bring on an international kid. It's entirely possible that, you know, somebody rolls an ankle and Bill Self in some of these

Starting point is 00:01:37 summer games and Bill Self says, you know what, let's go out and get one extra guy. The fact that you have one scholarship open, even if the intention right now might be to be done, and I don't know if it is, I don't know if it's not, certainly it feels like there hasn't been a lot of movement or rumors and noise lately, which would maybe lean toward that being the case. But as long as you have one open, there remains possibilities and I guess assumptions that you can be made. So anyway, who is Duncan Powell? Well, this is why we're doing this today. This was, I don't know, a is Duncan Powell? Well, this is why we're doing this today. This was, I don't know, a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, Tobias Bass of The Athletic tweeted this out. Since re-entering the transfer portal, Duncan Powell has heard from the

Starting point is 00:02:13 following schools, West Virginia, Kansas, Florida State, Virginia Tech, Texas, and NC State is what he tweeted out. And so who is Duncan Powell? Well, he is a six foot eight, 240 pound power forward who is transferring from Sacramento state. As we've discussed before, and I'll say it again, this will check off your locked on bingo, I guess. Sometimes these lists aren't totally accurate or display to what level of interest. So even though there may have been heard from Kansas, it could have been, you know, sometimes you get schools who you hear from, who it's a full scholarship. Some you hear from it's scholarship, but it's based on only if this other thing does not happen.

Starting point is 00:02:56 Sometimes it's just checking in. Sometimes it's not even there. Sometimes, I mean, I remember there was one kid a couple years ago who had kansas liking his final three and picked some random school and uh kansas didn't even like talk to the kid at all right sometimes that can happen because the school is not going to come out bill self isn't going to like host a press conference to be like we did not offer this kid it's just you know bad business from there and anyway uh this is a pretty wild story for Duncan Powell to get to where he has gotten. He was actually the original number 84 recruit in his high school class, according to ESPN, and he was committed to Arkansas at one point as what at the time became Eric Musselman's first

Starting point is 00:03:40 high school commit in Fayetteville when I think Powell would have been a junior in high school. He later decommitted though that April. And I don't know if that was a case of maybe being over-recruited or I don't know if something else happens or Arkansas backs off or you back off. You want to, I don't know what happened there, but like several months into his senior season of high school, he announced he was foregoing his senior season of high school to focus on his future basketball career, which that couldn't have helped recruiting. I don't know. That's just me again, speculating because this whole story is very weird. But his other offers weren't as strong after that. And he wound up committing to North Carolina A&T. So like, that's a pretty big fall off. But you go back to that story there. I don't know if it would lead to because I think he continued to do high school.

Starting point is 00:04:28 I don't think it was a situation of like grades. Maybe it was. I don't know. Probably more of a situation of, hey, now we don't have this high school tape on you. Now we have some questions about like what's going on here. So he ends up going to North Carolina A&TT which was the highest ranked recruit that they had ever gotten um but he didn't play a ton as a freshman only played one game as a true freshman in 2021 and 2022 and then he redshirted I don't know if that was a situation where he got hurt I don't know if that was a situation where again the fact that he played in one game tells you that okay it wasn't like a I guess Ben McElmore type situation where it was like they

Starting point is 00:05:05 were just, or DeJuan Harris, where they were, you know, getting all the academic stuff right for him to play because of what happened to senior year of high school. No, I don't think that was the case because he did play in a game. So I don't know. Maybe it was just getting reconditioned to the game of basketball. Maybe it was just reacclimating to a team after not playing your senior year of high school. Again, I don't totally know. But then as a redshirt freshman in 2022 to 2023, he played 30 games with eight points per game and 5.7 rebounds per game. So, you know, solid production in his first season of college basketball really playing. But then he bounced from North Carolina A&T to Sacramento State where he was this past year as a redshirt sophomore,

Starting point is 00:05:46 which, by the way, means that he would have two years left to play for whatever school he would end up with. And he wound up with over 12 points per game on the season, 12.1 points per game, to be exact, for Sacramento State. And seven rebounds to go with it, two assists per game, so good passer for a big man. The defensive stats, not totally there, 0.5 steals per game and only 0.3 blocks per game, which is obviously not a huge number for what Duncan Powell, you know, you're hoping for from a big man who was a former top 100 recruit

Starting point is 00:06:25 would have. So anyway, you have all this. And as far as the efficiency, 49% shooting, 28.6% from three, 68.5% at the free throw line. And that was before missing the final five games with an injury. Now, Sacramento State was not a very good team. They went 10-24 this past year. They finished ranked 314th in the country on Ken Palm, but he at least was the team's leading scorer and rebounder, so at least you had good production there. He did have five double-doubles. He was also in their league, which again, this isn't a power five league, but at the very least, if you're going to be in it, might as well take advantage of it. And he was third in the league in offensive rebound rate, top 25 on the defensive side

Starting point is 00:07:10 of the glass. He was top 25 in block rate in the conference, only games and in drawing fouls and in free throw percentage. So productive player, even if he wasn't on the best team and obviously has a big prospect pedigree at one point in time. So then he entered the transfer portal again this spring and he actually committed to Louisiana, the Ragin' Cajuns. Okay, so game over.

Starting point is 00:07:33 Well, he ended up decommitting, I guess, re-entering the transfer portal. So I don't know what totally happened there, but basically free game once again. So you end up with a very odd situation here, I guess, to kind of say the least. And now he is in the portal again. He is not committed to a new school. We go back to the Tobias Bass tweet and there's some really interesting schools there. I mean, it's not like West Virginia. That's a big 12 school like Florida State, Virginia Tech. Those are ACC schools. Texas, that's an SEC school. NC State, ACC, Kansas, right?

Starting point is 00:08:09 If that list is to be believed and is accurate, those are all power level schools. So clearly there would be some level of interest there. But again, who knows what the exact motive is behind all of this stuff that's kind of happened because it's a very weird up and down story. But if you're Kansas and maybe you're looking for that one final scholarship player, just adding another big man to give you a little bit more big man depth. Somebody who could maybe play a little bit of four, more so be a five and just give you more, I guess, competition for Zach Clements and Flory Badunga for who's going to win out on the backup center. That you feel like whoever wins out on it earned it to a higher degree. Maybe that could make some sense.

Starting point is 00:08:50 Let's discuss that coming up on the other side. Get to some synergy numbers of note and what his fit would be with KU on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by eBay Motors. Passion, drive, and patience. The formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive. eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to peak performance. Superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights, and more. Whether you're into speed, power, or style, eBay Motors has got you covered. With over

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Starting point is 00:10:12 So the synergy numbers of note. Powell was in the 83rd percentile in post-up scoring this past season. And again, these are at a lower level conference. And synergy numbers are more raw in that way. They are not weighted to adjust to what competition you're going up against. Right. So take that into account. But still, that does show you that he clearly has some post skill, which makes sense given his background and everything like that. So really good post-up player. He had a 56 true shooting percentage, which is really strong in those situations. And he was

Starting point is 00:10:51 also 89th percentile with his hook shot. So if you're specifically looking at what is he good at in terms of, you know, why is his post-up game so good? Is it that he's, I don't know, got really good footwork, this or that? Well it that he's, I don't know, got really good footwork, this or that? Well, it might be a multitude of those things, but he has a really good hook shot and that's what kind of gets it done, which that can be useful coming off the bench. We saw Mitch Lightfoot make a living at Kansas. His final year is a, you know, playing eight to 15 minutes on a given night as the backup center where he would come in, he'd be a decent rim protector and had a lethal hook shot, right?

Starting point is 00:11:26 So there's that. He was in the 40th percentile on spot up shooting was Powell. So slightly below average and spot up shooting. He was 12 of 36. That's 33% on spot up threes. Again, those aren't numbers that jump off the page. But if you're talking about it, it's a it's a positive if KU has big men that can shoot threes because it allows you to play them next to KJ Adams a little bit more. The KJ Adams-Hunter Dickinson pairing, it worked a lot better when Hunter Dickinson was making threes in the first, whatever, two and a half months of the season.

Starting point is 00:11:59 When they ran into more of their offensive troubles, it coincided with Hunter Dickinson not making as many threes. He went on that cold stretch, and now he can't play him next to KJ Adams as much. If Zach Clements is hitting threes, that'll be a boon to being able to play next to KJ Adams as possibly back up five. He at least has it in his game. He was in the 34th percentile in jump shots. Again, not ultra efficient, but at least had a little bit in his game. 32nd on catch and shoot. He was 12 of 41. That's 29% on catch and shoot threes. He was 40th percentile in dribble jumpers. So he even showed a little bit

Starting point is 00:12:36 of being able to shoot a jumper as a big man off the dribble. I don't think that would be something that Bill Self would like though. And then then there's 48th percentile off cuts. So he was about average in being able to cut off the ball and get a bucket. 42nd percentile on offensive rebound putbacks. But again, as you're kind of going through here, a lot of this stuff is below average in a smaller league. 15th percentile, so not great there on pick and roll as a role man but that's just 22 attempts you give him a better point guard i'd imagine that number goes up because again the team he was on wasn't great uh he was in the 48th percentile in transition so again kind of right around an

Starting point is 00:13:14 average number there and then the defense side of the ball was not pretty 13th percentile on defense and that was in the big sky which again big sky, not super known for being this unbelievable conference. We mentioned the steel and the blocks. That's not very good. The synergy numbers didn't think it was very good. He wasn't the 51st percentile defensively his year of play at North Carolina A&T. So at least it was average that year. Not sure if this is more of an effort thing where you were on a bad team and you feel like you're way more talented than some of the guys, the former top 100 recruit. But either way, that's not really ideal. If you're not a good defender at the big sky level, what does that mean to you kind of coming up if you did come up to the power five level beyond that? So basically, this is someone

Starting point is 00:13:58 who is he's a five man at a lower level, or he can be a four or five. His biggest strengths are posting up and rebounding. He is a good rebounder. The rebounding would help KU. They need more rebounding from where they were last season. But the posting up would kind of be a bit of a redundancy based on what they have, unless he would just come in to be a backup to the backup, be a break glass in the case of emergency big man. And maybe if you're Duncan Powell and you're sitting there going, you know what, I'd rather

Starting point is 00:14:30 than averaging 12 and seven at Sac State, I'd rather go play at Kansas. And even if I'm only playing 10 games over the course of the season and mop up duty, I'm going to get a bigger NIL check than I would. And, you know, I can compete with Zach Clements at Florida, but doing good. And if I end up beating them out, then I'll get rotation minutes. But if I don't, I'm still going to be living pretty in Lawrence and doing all these things. Right. Then, then you can kind of understand that. Um, but I don't think the expectation would, uh, like I, I would be, if he did transfer to KU, I would be assuming Flory and Zach would be able to beat him out to make him the fourth big man.

Starting point is 00:15:05 So if the point is to bring in more depth in case of emergency and for spot minutes and foul trouble and injury and just for practice and just to give you that added last piece of depth, then great. Cool. And he has multiple years left. So then come his second season at KU, maybe he can be a rotational big by the second year. But if the idea is to bring on someone with this scholarship, who's a for sure rotation guy, or like a more long-term high ceiling developmental guy, or just not use it at all for to use up the punishment, then obviously this doesn't make sense. And for what he's worth, he's listed as the number 411 transfer on 24 seven sports. I kind of view this one as like Noah Shelby level line. Like if he was coming as a walk-on, sure. On scholarship, to me, I don't really think it's a take, but again, who knows the validity of where that kind of offer list was and where Kansas sits among all of that with Tobias Bass. All right, let's continue on the

Starting point is 00:16:03 latest for KU. They've got a new assistant coach in Chase Buford. Mass Street TBT is back. We're going to talk about those on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. The latest with KU, let's start here. Chase Buford is the new assistant coach for Kansas. Brady Morningstar is moving on. So Chase Buford was actually part of the 08 championship team for Kansas as a walk-on. And he has a really – okay, so we did our if Bill Self retired today, earlier this offseason. Thank you to every dayers tuning into that. You can go back and find it if you're subscribed to our show,

Starting point is 00:16:41 where if Bill Self retired today, who would be the top candidates to look at? Right? And that'll be a list we try to update every off season just because, you know, Bill Self might not retire for 10 years, right? That'd be great. But just to have that locked and loaded for when that time comes. So anyway, we had a tier of the in-house guy and we kind of talked about this that like, okay, Jock Vaughn might make some sense if he was interested, he's coached at the NBA level. He would probably run a pretty fun style of play. If you just talk about him running the Roy Williams style play, which is objectively a very fun style of play, right?

Starting point is 00:17:15 How would he recruit? I don't know, but KU seems to be set up based on the program and based on how well run their NIL situation is with that. It'll almost recruit itself. At least that's what you'd kind of hope that that would make a little bit of sense, but there hasn't been that like clear in-house candidate. Right. And you know, both your lead assistant coaches are older guys. Like they're

Starting point is 00:17:38 not going to take over when, when Bill's off retires, stuff like that, who would be the next guy? Well, I'm not saying that is for sure the case with Chase Buford, but it certainly intrigues me that it could at least be a possibility. I don't know in-house if that would be a thing for KU, but I'm sitting here looking at it. I'm like, okay, he's 35 years old. He's a younger guy. Let's say Bilsauff coaches another five years.

Starting point is 00:18:01 You're still only 40 years old. That would be a plus to get a bit of a younger coach, as we've seen with John Shire and stuff like that, where you have a guy that can possibly be there for two decades, for 25 years. He obviously played at KU, which I don't think that should be a requisite. And it's not to me, like just get the best coach you possibly can. But I think this guy is a really good coach is part of it as well. So it doesn't hurt that he played at Kansas. He, uh, so after his, his collegiate career, he started off scouting in the NBA, and then he went on to be coordinator for player development for the bowls for a couple of years. Um, then he was named an assistant for the Delaware blue coats in the G league,

Starting point is 00:18:41 which is the affiliate of the 76ers. That was in 2018. He eventually became the head coach of the Wisconsin Herd, which was the G League affiliate of the Milwaukee Bucks in 2019. And in 2020, so I guess that would have been his second year, he led them to a first place finish. They didn't, I don't think, have like the rest of their season in the playoffs in it, or I don't know if they normally do playoffs for the G league, but because of the pandemic, but they were in first place. And then in 2021, he ended up having another good year at the G league and then went off to the Sydney Kings in the Australian league in the NBL. And he won the championship in 2022 and 2023. Also his, his dad is RC Buford, who has a good relationship with Bill Self. He's, RC was, is the CEO of the Spurs. So point being Chase Buford is,

Starting point is 00:19:37 is like a really good coach. He, I mean, the NBL is like a very high level league in Australia and he was winning championships there. This has my attention. Would he be grooming to eventually be that guy? Or is this just, hey, he wants to get back to America and start coaching back in America. He's proven what he can do. He just needs kind of a stepping stone job in America to get to a college head coaching job or back to the NBA

Starting point is 00:20:05 with an NBA assistant job or something like that. I think it'll be very interesting to kind of watch. Other news is Shaquille Moore still has to take some classes to graduate, but apparently he's going to be able to do them online. So he'll be here for the summer for KU. That'll be good. So he can get acclimated with everything. And then TBT team is back for KU with Mass Street. So KU's had different iterations of teams that have entered the tournament. They had, well, I guess they had the self-made team for a year. Before that, they had like Team FOE, which wasn't actually a Kansas alumni team, but it had a lot of Kansas alumni because it was run by like the Morris twins.

Starting point is 00:20:39 And, you know, you had like Tyshawn Taylor and Mario Little and some of these guys that were on the roster. And then last year, Mastery, the NIL brand for KU, put together a TBT team, which was awesome. I love the TBT. It's an awesome summer event. I've always loved it, even when KU hasn't had a team or hasn't had a team that's gone very far. I think it's just a fun event that happens every year. But it's so much cooler when you do have a team to kind of tie on to. And it was cool to see T-Rob like dominating and beating Missouri last year. Right?

Starting point is 00:21:08 Like that was a lot of fun. Well, it, at the same point in time, it was successful, but it was still like, man, but could you imagine if we would have had this player or that player?

Starting point is 00:21:17 And it's a little bit hard with, I'd imagine for the people who build the roster, I know Travis Relaford's the GM, and I'm sure that people from mastery and IL have have a hand in helping put everything together. It's got to be hard to put this together because you have certain guys who will sign contracts over the offseason, whether it's overseas or G League or whatever. And it's like, hey, you can't play in this as part of the contract you're signing. You know what I mean? Or certain players might not want to get hurt, or it might just not be the right time. A player might just want to spend time with

Starting point is 00:21:43 his family or might be having a new kid, right? There are a lot of things that can go into why a player would or wouldn't play in this event. But the guys they've announced right now, whoo, I watch this event every year and I will tell you the roster they currently have is good enough. Now they still have to gel quickly. And, you know, that's always the key in an event like this. They're as talented as any team in the, in the tournament,

Starting point is 00:22:07 Frank Mason, Thomas Robinson, Dedrick Lawson, Silvio De Sosa, Mario little Malik Newman, Jamari trailer, Gerald, Vic,

Starting point is 00:22:14 Kevin young. I mean, they could even add more guys that are possibly out there. Like imagine if you got like a Devon Dotson or something like that. I don't even know, but that roster is elite. And I'm super excited to see Frank Mason playing in KU uniform again. That's probably the biggest thing among all Frank Mason, a KU well-beloved figure to say the least. I mean, Frank Mason and T-Rob,

Starting point is 00:22:34 if you're pulling KU fans, most beloved KU basketball players in the Bill South era, both of those guys are in the top five, right? I mean, if you're just most beloved, I don't know who else would be out, like Devontae Grant. Sure, a long list of players. There have been many great players under Bill Self, but like those guys beloved, beloved, you know? So I think that'll be really cool, and I'll be looking for ways to watch and support in whatever way I can with the Mass Street TBT team.

Starting point is 00:23:02 That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. We'll be back on Friday for a Football Friday episode of the show with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Transfer Portal Deep Dive: Duncan Powell + New Assistant Chase Buford

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