Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Transfer Portal Target Deep Dive: UTSA Guard Jordan Ivy-Curry

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's Locked On Jayhawks. Kansas has interest in Jordan Ivy Curry, a transfer guard who can light it up from the outside. Deep dive on his fit with KU and scouting report on what Ivy Curry would bring to the Hawks. 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 find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio.

Starting point is 00:00:33 And you can check out the show anywhere you get your podcast. Or on YouTube.com with Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Thank you for every day or tuning in to each and every show. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And on today's edition of Locked On Jayhawks, Thanks for tuning into the show. Thank you to every dayers tuning in to each and every show. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be breaking down Jordan Ivey Curry,

Starting point is 00:00:53 who is a guard transfer who can really score it and really shoot it at a high level, how he'd fit with KU and what's kind of going on there, as well as what's kind of the latest around the world of KU athletics and KU basketball and NBA combine, all that sort of stuff. First, though, today's episode of the show is brought to you by Monopoly Go, the fast-paced game that lets you team up with friends for tournaments to unlock awesome prizes like unique stickers for trading,

Starting point is 00:01:19 cool playing pieces, and hilarious emojis for taunting your friends. So download Monopoly Go now free on the Google Play or the App Store today. Game on. So Jordan Ivey Curry, who is Jordan Ivey Curry? He is a six foot three guard who is kind of a point guard shooting guard type who's originally from Texas. He began his career at University of Texas San Antonio, UTSA, for two seasons there. Then he transferred to Pacific for one season, and then he did the bounce back last season. He transferred back from Pacific to UTSA last year,

Starting point is 00:01:58 which UTSA ended up making the move to the American Athletic Conference and got to play in a better conference last season. I'm sure that's part of the reason why he decided to come back. He probably liked UTSA, just decided to go elsewhere to, I don't know, maybe get some extra money or something like that. And when they made it back to the AAC, probably had more opportunity to come back and everything in a bigger stage. So he's going to be a senior with one year left to play due to the COVID year. And according to John Rothstein,

Starting point is 00:02:19 he's receiving interest from the following programs, Kansas, TCU, Oklahoma, Grand Canyon, UCF, Florida State, Duke, and Texas A&M. And there's also been recent reports about him scheduling a Zoom call with the University of Kansas. So clearly seems to be some level of interest from both sides here. He's averaged double-digit scoring in each of the last three seasons, so track record for him being a good scorer, including last year when he averaged 17.1 points per game. Really good stuff there. And that went along with 5.2 rebounds per game.

Starting point is 00:02:50 So, I mean, for a 6'3 guard, pretty good rebounder, three assists per game and.9 steals per game. And that was while shooting 40% from the field, 38.7% from a three-point range. So not great two-point shooting, really good three-point shooting. That was on 5.7 three-point attempts per game. So good volume from three-point range and 80% on free throws. Good free throw shooter also. For his career, that was kind of a career year shooting. For his career, he's still been a good three-point shooter, but last year was taking that next step. career 35.8 percent from three still good uh 4.3 tries per game from three-point ranges two previous years was closer

Starting point is 00:03:30 to being that mid-30s range which I think it's important to bring up because that was kind of Nick Timberlake like Timberlake his last two years at Towson shot like 40 percent but like three years before that it wasn't there so I I don't know if that means anything, but obviously typically guys get better as they stay in college. And so, you know, you would think that maybe he is more of the true 38%. Who exactly knows to be sure. But yeah, 39th percentile in like two-point shooting around the rim and 33rd percentile in mid-range shooting that according to Synergy. So really good three-point shooter, good score overall,

Starting point is 00:04:04 not as good inside the arc. And he was very much a boom or bust scorer last season at UTSA. He had 10 games last season with 20 or more points, including three games where he scored 28 or more points. So this is going to be a kid wherever he ends up committing, whether it's Kansas or somewhere else, you're going to see fans of whatever school that ends up being, being like, he had this many, he had 33 points, he had 38 points against this team,

Starting point is 00:04:27 and that's the type of guy we're getting. But they're not going to bring up that this happened too. He had six games of single-digit scoring, very high and low. Now, that said, if Kansas is bringing him on, probably wouldn't play as big of a role as he did at UTSA. And to some degree, boom-bust scoring can be okay, because if you're hypothetically coming off the bench, like that's just going to determine if you play more of that game. And if you're not feeling it, that game, guess what? You just won't be counted on as much and won't play as much. But UTSA was not a very good team last year. They ranked 254th on Ken Palm a season ago after going 11 and 21. I don't know if that concerns

Starting point is 00:05:04 you at all, but Ivy Curry did shoot better against better opponents. That has to make you feel a little better that like, okay, how is he going to level up against better competition if he wasn't on a winning school that wasn't at the power level, but he played better against those better teams. 26 of 54, good for 48% from three in his six games that he played against Ken Palm top 100 opponents, which for his career in 25 such games, he is at 38% from three there. Still collectively, he has been on bad teams. And over the course of the last three seasons for Jordan Ivey Curry, His three teams have gone 51 and 72, or I'm sorry, I think that's over his career, and 36 and 61 over his last three seasons. So there is the real question about how much has

Starting point is 00:05:54 he impacted winning and the jump in competition. Here's some synergy numbers of note. 54th percentile as a pick and roll ball handler, which he had to do a lot at UTSA, wouldn't be doing as much at Kansas, but that's about average at a bit of a lower level. Whatever. Not going to have to do as much as Kansas. Here is the one thing that makes your eyes light up and certainly likes this pickup. 86th percentile in spot-up shooting, going 45.7% on 46 spot-up three-point attempts. Now, that's not a huge sample size.

Starting point is 00:06:23 A lot of the other guys who we've talked about with their spot up numbers, it's 90, 100, even some guys like 140 spot up three point attempts. 46 isn't a huge number, but shot them very well. Almost 46%. He was 38% and 37% on spot up threes the two year before. So if you want to add the larger sample size, maybe it's not 46%, but if you add in the 38%, 37% with the 46%, maybe he is closer to being a 40%, you know, spot up shooter, which would obviously be very good in the role he would be asked to play at

Starting point is 00:06:55 Kansas. Only ranked in the 20th percentile in transition, only the 28th percentile in isolation. So wasn't super efficient scoring in isolation, even if you had to do it a good amount. Those two tell me that maybe he's not like super explosive at beating guys in one-on-ones, either that, or maybe it's just bad shot selection. I don't know what would lead to those, but yeah, not, not super efficient there. But again, what are you going to be asking him to do? Shoot the basketball. And he does that very well. Back to that strong shooting. He ranked in the 97th percentile in catch and shoot opportunities, going 46% on 56 attempts from three in catch and shoot opportunities. He even shot 42% on guarded

Starting point is 00:07:33 catch and shoot threes and 50% on unguarded catch and shoot threes. So again, to make this guy a shooter, you're going to profit from it. 48th percentile dribble jumper, that goes back in line with the thing we just talked about before this uh 21st percentile defensively that is kind of the one bugaboo here uh 21st percentile defensively this year utsa he was only 19th percentile synergy the year before at pacific and that is one thing that if you're not playing defense especially if you're a bench player you will get the quick hook after one mistake. Like it's that quick with Bill Self, especially if you have a deep team, which Kansas is kind of trending to be,

Starting point is 00:08:09 at least you would hope. So does that keep you off the floor a little bit, right? That becomes a question. Or can you improve your defense a little bit here? I don't know. Basically, this is a kid who's a really good shooter and he's been asked to be a leading scorer on some not very good teams,

Starting point is 00:08:23 but in a smaller role on Kansas, you would think his strengths play up. And though there are real deficiencies there that I don't know how much he would really be a, like, I wouldn't expect him to be a 25, 30 minute per game guy, but let's get to exactly how he would fit in with Kansas coming up here in just a moment on Locked on Jayhawks. First, this episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. When you're hiring for small businesses, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role, which is why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs.

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Starting point is 00:09:47 Jordan Iagievi-Curry deep dive and how he'd fit in with KU. Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every episode. We're planning on having some other deep dives this week with some other KU basketball news and hopefully some KU football news to get to, so be on the lookout for those upcoming this week on

Starting point is 00:10:03 Locked on Jayhawks, but how he would fit in with KU. So let's start here. I would not expect Jordan Ivy Curry to start. And maybe that would be refreshing in a weird way when you're trying to figure out who's going to be the starters, who's going to play this many minutes, all this sort of stuff. Now I'm not saying that it's impossible.

Starting point is 00:10:20 Like if you're bill self, you're probably telling these kids roll the ball where it may. I don't know where the level of conversation goes does it go hey we're looking for a bench score does it go to hey we'll give you the opportunity to you know fight your butt off and camp and if you end up being the best player you will start like i'm sure that is part of it but i'm sure there also is a part of it of like but that's not going to be guaranteed and like yeah there is chance that you could be you know the the fourth guard on the roster or something like that where, you know, you are buried. So are you open to the competition?

Starting point is 00:10:49 And if you're open to the competition, if you're open to the challenge and you think you can beat out some guys that, you know, maybe wouldn't be the expectation, then good for you. And that's part of the game that I think sometimes gets missing at this point in time. So that would be great. But maybe that would also be refreshing from a standpoint of like if the expectation wouldn't be to start you have so many guys where it's like oh okay well dewan harris and hunter dickinson like those are going to be starters aj store like he's going to be a starter i think rylan griffin is going to be a starter i feel very good about that um so then you're talking about one other spot which kj adams right obviously there's the big crowd that's like is bill self really going to bring somebody who was starting last two years off the bench and that's

Starting point is 00:11:29 a totally understandable argument right and he could be the fifth starter or it could be you know zeke mayo or um one of these other guys that you've picked up we're kind of waiting and seeing on like the riley coogle situation whatever i don't think it would be jordan ivy curry and it is kind of nice that you wouldn't have to i I guess, bend over backwards and be like, oh, but could this be a possible combination? I don't know. I just don't really see that. And the boom bust scoring that we kind of talked about earlier, six games in single-digit scoring versus 10 with 20 or more,

Starting point is 00:11:55 that can be nice for a bench option to have a guy who, yeah, you come in off the bench and you shoot three threes. And if you start two for three, maybe you're getting a little bit more leeway that game and you're going to impact the game off the bench. But, you know, you come off the bench and you start three threes. And if you start two for three, maybe you're getting a little bit more leeway that game and you're going to impact the game off the bench. But, you know, you come off the bench and you start 0 for 3 and you have a turnover and a defensive mistake.

Starting point is 00:12:11 It's like, okay, maybe tonight's not your night, but you can go with somebody else. Like there is something beautiful about being able to do that if you're Bill Self and being able to motivate with the bench, something that he hasn't been able to do here the last couple of years because of the fact that the bench

Starting point is 00:12:23 just hasn't been good enough. And the options you have coming off the bench just really haven't been able to do here the last couple of years because of the fact that the bench just hasn't been good enough and the options you have coming off the bench just really haven't been good enough. I think the ceiling here for what Ivy Curry would bring to the table is he's a gunner from three-point range and he is scoring at a strong rate coming off the bench. I think the big competition you would have to look for here, because in my eyes, like, DeJuan Harris is going to start.

Starting point is 00:12:43 I think Zeke Mayo would be ahead of Jordan Ivy Curryy curry i i think zeke is is just a more efficient you know better offensive player um but i guess you could convince yourself that technically ivy curry was at a higher level uh league than zeke mayo was this past season even though zeke mayo's team was much better and he put up better stats and more efficiency and some of the analytics would point the other way but you could convince yourself that it would be a close enough competition that he could beat him out, and I'd be here to at least listen to that conversation. But I would expect Zeke to be in front of him. So then the competition to me becomes who wins that third guard spot

Starting point is 00:13:16 between El Marco Jackson and Jordan Ivey Curry. And it's easy to see Jordan Ivey Curry putting up 17 points per game last year in the American, and El Marco having up 17 points per game last year in the American and El Marco having all the struggles he had last year. And if you're getting the same version of El Marco this upcoming season as you had this past year, Jordan Ivey Curry beats that guy out. But if El Marco does take that step, if El Marco Jackson does take that big leap of potential into next year, then I think I'm taking that guy over Jordan Ivy

Starting point is 00:13:45 Curry in terms of the rotation. So I think there are a couple of different things that can happen. I guess, hypothetically, you could just say that Jordan Ivy Curry is, you know, beats out Zeke Mayo, both guys that do similar things. They shoot the ball well from three, and maybe he is a little bit ready. Maybe that is the ceiling and maybe he is playing 20 ish minutes per game. I think the floor here though, is that you do end up behind all three of those guys. And maybe this is like a point guard, shooting guard combo. I guess Jalen Coleman-Lanz was a shooting guard version of Jalen Coleman-Lanz, where there are going to be some games where you might play 15 minutes,

Starting point is 00:14:22 or if somebody's hurt or there's foul trouble, maybe you will play 20, 25 minutes that specific game. Or if you are hot off the bench, you might play 15 minutes or if somebody's hurt or there's foul trouble, maybe you will play 20, 25 minutes that specific game. Or if you are hot off the bench, you will play a little bit more, but if you're not hot off the bench or on a game to game basis, if everybody's healthy and nobody's having foul trouble, then you might only be getting five,

Starting point is 00:14:36 10 minutes a game. You might come in for that last three minutes of the first half to give the one extra starter, a little bit extra time. And Bill self's hoping that he can steal a three or two toward the end of the half. Like you would do a Jalen Coleman lands, right? Self's hoping that he can steal a three or two toward the end of the half like he would do with Jalen Coleman-Lance, right? Like that is a real potential here, and that might be even the middle ground. Like the floor could just be you're not part of the rotation.

Starting point is 00:14:53 But me saying all this, that doesn't mean it's a bad thing that that would be the case. Like it's not a bad thing to have depth. It's not a bad thing that if Jordan Ivey-Curry does come to KU, and like I said, there is a real possibility he could come to KU and have a real role on the team and play 20 minutes a game and score off the bench and everything. My worry would be that the defense, again, only ranking in the 21st percentile and then 19th percentile or whatever I said. Yeah, 21st percentile last year at UTSA and 19th percentile Pacific, and that if you're not

Starting point is 00:15:24 doing much else besides three point shooting, like how long of a leash we've seen Bill self play those players, but how long of a leash should they had? That becomes the question. And so then it's like, okay, what, what happens if this doesn't totally work out or what happens if, you know, you do have trouble translating to your specific role where you are getting, cause you saw Nick Timberlake struggle with that, where, you know,

Starting point is 00:15:44 you don't have the green light all the time. You're not going to be playing 30 minutes every night. You have to take advantage of the shots you get. And for some guys, they can't find that rhythm when you only get a couple shots up to kind of prove if you're on or off that specific night. So there are a lot of things that make this up and down. But again, if you're giving me the option of adding a player who scored 17 points per game at, yeah, it's not the power conference level, but it's probably that like next tier with the American in terms of what you're looking at. And you put up real production there and this guy's going to be either your seventh, eighth, ninth man, and he can come off the bench and score in a pinch. It's not the worst idea in the world.

Starting point is 00:16:23 So it's not necessarily a, like, as we've talked about here and doing these different deep dives, we have different levels of takes. We have this guy's a take and you move mountains to make it happen. This guy's a take and you figure the rest out rate later. There's the, this guy's a take, but I would take this guy in front of him, but then he'd be right there after that. Right. This is not necessarily a take for me where it's like, you have to, like, if they move past this one and don't bring him on, I don't think this is going to be like a huge deal for me, but it's also one of those where it's

Starting point is 00:16:53 like, you know, I don't know. I guess this is one where I would, I would wait and see right right now. You're kind of sitting on 11 scholarships, scholarship players, because with Riley Kugel, that kind of is up in the air, what's going to happen there. And then Johnny Furphy, that's kind of up in the air, even if it seems to be leaning towards staying in the NBA draft. Maybe this is one where you just wait it out till the end of the month to see what Johnny Furphy does. And if Furphy does indeed stay in the NBA draft, like maybe being expected right now, then you say, okay, we let's fill that scholarship. Jordan, Ivy Curry, come on. And you can be that Jamelyn Coleman-Rand's role. And in a perfect situation

Starting point is 00:17:30 where maybe you do improve your defense this year under Bill Suff or whatever, maybe it is a bigger role for you. And I guess from that standpoint, like I would be cool with Ivy Curry on the roster and probably being behind DeJuan, Zeke, you know, Marco on the depth chart, but still being good enough to score off the bench or playing in a pinch and have extra good competition and have an even deeper roster, those are all good things to have. So this would be a solid addition if you get it, but I don't think it's one that you just necessarily

Starting point is 00:17:56 move mountains to do with the expectation that he's going to be like, you know, one of your top players next season, I guess the way of putting it. All right, let's continue on what's kind of going on around Kansas right now on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. All right, game off. We got to pause here to talk more about Monopoly Go.

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Starting point is 00:19:11 Game on. All right, finishing up latest with KU. So it sounds like Noah Shelby, who is a transfer from Rice, is going to have an unofficial visit with KU. So we'll try to get to deep dive on that later in the week because that one kind of becomes interesting of, you know, what exactly does that mean? Also, Johnny Furphy and Kevin McCuller were officially invited

Starting point is 00:19:37 to the NBA Combine. Not that it's a huge surprise. From the Kansas perspective, less of a big deal with Kevin because we knew his, I guess he was graduating regardless, you know, from the Kansas perspective, the Furphy one, not a surprise, but now it certainly makes that week, which is coming up here in like a week, more interesting to monitor and see how that goes and see all of that testing goes. Obviously, Kansas has had guys before that, you know, like Ochai,

Starting point is 00:20:06 you look at the message he sent, and then based on just the reporting that came out afterwards, like he was basically intending to stay in the draft, and then kind of last-minute things went back. Kevin McCuller, like that one seemed like he was staying in the draft, and then last-minute things swayed. So who knows? You never know what's going to happen.

Starting point is 00:20:23 I think the expectation right now, though, is that Johnny Furphy stays in the draft, but certainly that combine will be very important. The workouts, how he performs, how he interviews, and we'll probably get a better idea from some Intel and mock drafts and people are plugged in and everything about where he kind of sits after all that stuff goes down. You could convince me that, that because he is somebody who is super athletic and shoots the ball well like he's perfect for that type of situation right because what are you doing in a lot of that you're showing your athleticism and you're shooting open threes and

Starting point is 00:20:53 drills right and then you're playing like pickup basketball where it is all like transition play like you could finish that's perfect for johnny furphy you could also convince me though that um if you get in that scrimmage setting johnny furphy is still figuring out the intricacies of the game i would say the the the iq behind the game and it's i think he's going to get there like it clearly he has a hustle level to him that he's he's working on it but you get into a scrimmage in one of those and you're playing against the 22 23 24 year olds and maybe that doesn't go well i don't't know. You could convince me either way. So we'll see how that goes. The other thing I wanted to mention,

Starting point is 00:21:27 KU baseball coming down the home stretch here, pun intended, just lost two out of three at Kansas state, but good to take one and both tough losses in the other two. We'll see if they can make the NCAA tournament. They're kind of on the bubble right now. They need a strong finish to the season, but certainly that will be one to keep an eye on because they've got a shot at

Starting point is 00:21:45 doing it. And that'd be pretty cool because they haven't made it in a little bit of time. I thought I'd 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 see you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Transfer Portal Target Deep Dive: UTSA Guard Jordan Ivy-Curry

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