Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Blown Out by Texas in Big 12 Championship Game + What's Ahead for Selection Sunday

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

Recap of the Kansas Jayhawks losing 76-56 in Kansas City, MO to the Texas Longhorns in the 2023 Big 12 Championship game. What went wrong for KU who was without Bill Self and Kevin McCullar. Jalen Wilson's great game surrounded by not much else in the T-Mobile center. Plus, what's next for the Jayhawks as we head into Selection Sunday and the return of Coach Self.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas, well, it didn't go well against Texas. We'll put it that way. Let's recap the game and look ahead where things stand headed into selection Sunday. You are locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts.

You can also find us on YouTube. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to recap that ugly Texas KU game in the Big 12 championship game. Bad game, not a super fun game to recap, but I told you yesterday that I was going to have a show today, so I'm a man of my word. Here we are. And then we'll finish things up with where things stand for KU headed into

Selection Sunday. First, this episode of Locked On Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On. Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.com slash Locked On today to get started. Kansas falls by 20 points in the Big 12 championship game. Just not a fun game for Kansas. It was actually very similar to the game in Austin last week, both games that you get blown out by a really good Texas team.

And I'll be honest, in my opinion, I think Texas should be the fourth one seed. I think that when you add up them only finishing a game back in the Big 12 as rugged and difficult as the conference was, then winning the the Big 12 Conference Championship which essentially if you think about it this way if you just added in the Big 12 tournament win-loss number to the regular season win-loss number Kansas and Texas would technically be tied for first right they'd both be what at that point 15 and 6-only games, and Texas would be up 2-1 on Kansas. So I think there's a real case that Texas should be the fourth one seed, in my opinion, over maybe Purdue, or I don't know how much Arizona is going to push for that one line.

I don't know that it's going to happen, but I guess the reason I'm saying this is Texas is a very good team, and we've known that all season season long we've really known that the last week or two uh when they've played KU twice still though you know it's it's one thing to lose to a really good team it's another thing to get blown out back-to-back times and I think that when you look at the game the similarity to the game in Austin not just the blowout but it was that you know you you in the first half were kind of in an okay spot. And at the end of the first half in the game in Austin, you were down eight after Joe Yesfu hit a big three. In this one, you had the lead for a little bit of time,

and then they went on that run. Then you battled back. You worked it to a two-, three-, four-point game, and then Texas ballooned it back out to whatever it was, like six at half. But you were still in the game, even though you were down by a couple scores at the break. And then you were just like, okay, well, we've seen this before. Like, clearly they're still in this game.

And then it just never got better in the second half. They hit a rut. They couldn't find a way to score in the second half. At the beginning of the second half, they hit, I think, their first four shots, and the lead got worse. And then they started not hitting any shots, and things just kind of got away from them rather quickly obviously there was no Kevin McCuller no Bill Self those two things

very much hurt you and I think you know Norm Roberts is a great interim head coach to have we've learned that this season over the long haul he did an unbelievable job for KU but the more you have back-to-back games where the scouting reports and uh the adjustments that you have to make get crammed into tighter windows certainly it would help to have Bill Self and certainly it would help to have just another coach on the staff right that would you know allow Norm Roberts to do other things with scouting and and stuff so certainly both those things hurt KU in the game it It's not the end of the world. Like I said, Texas is a very good team. The field is still wide open for the NCAA tournament, but there is still some worry from this, right? Like we can acknowledge this isn't doomsday. KU

could still make a final four. KU could still win the title, but it's concerning because I'll say what I said last Saturday you keep losing by a lot of points in in some of these games and usually that is far from what title teams do now we can point out examples as I kind of did last week of past title teams who have lost by double digits or been blown out in in games like it does happen I'm not saying you know those teams don't ever get blown out again last year's team got blown out by Kentucky, but when it keeps happening, that's something that we don't really see from title teams. You know what I mean? Like, usually it's like a one-time thing, maybe twice, or maybe there's one time where it's like really bad.

And then maybe they have two other like double digit losses or something. This team's when they lose, boy, do they lose big? I don't know what's going to happen in March. Like I said, it's wide open. If Kansas does go out, you almost get the sense that when they lose, it is going to go down in a blaze of glory. They're going to lose by like 15 or 20 points because when it gets away from them, boy, does it get away from them.

And that was the case again in the Big 12 championship game. But yeah, again, no Kevin McCuller, no bill self the no Kevin McCuller thing certainly killed your defense. Yes. Kevin McCuller was a part of the game in Austin last weekend when you didn't have a great defensive effort either, but I think you saw Texas just get so many, like in, in the last game, you played them in Austin, they were hitting a lot of threes and some tough shots. In this game, how many wide open layups did they have to the rim?

And I can't help but think Kevin McCuller, who kind of orchestrates the defense and points things out and covers up for guys' mistakes and does a really good job of kind of tagging the roller inside, wouldn't have helped you a ton there. I think the difference with him defensively versus not was just so many blown assignments and you had a lot of guys who were playing out there like Joe Yesfu MJ Rice Bobby Pettiford who maybe aren't playing in the certain role they were being asked to do or more than they were being asked to do that there were going to be some more miscommunication so you need Kevin McCuller back as you obviously want and hope that bill self's going to be back which we'll get to

that news in a little because certainly sounded optimistic that he will be back for the uh ncaa tournament i mean point blank norm roberts said he will uh but we'll get to that as i said um but i'll be honest even if they had kevin mcculler Bill Self, it's hard for me to say they win the game. I mean, we saw it just last week. They had Kevin McCuller and Bill Self, and they lost in Austin. Now that's different. This is in the T-Mobile Center. You have good home support, and that one kind of got away from you.

Now, I don't know, maybe it changes things a little bit. But when I look at what happens when Kansas wins versus loses games. When Kansas wins games, at least four of the starters, I mean, at least three of the starters, but typically four of the starters end up having good games. And then it's like, if the bench plays well, maybe it could be three starters. Or if they're having their A-plus game,

then all five starters are playing well. Even if Kevin McCuller plays last night, and he's healthy and the back thinguller plays last night and he's healthy and the back thing wasn't the thing and he plays well, that would have only been two starters playing well because all your other starters struggled. You didn't really get much from your bench again. So even if Kevin McCuller plays and the defense is a little bit better and he plays well, even offensively, you just didn't have enough offensive punch in that game and i think there's something to be said about the type of matchup that you're looking to avoid for the ncaa tournament for me it's it's very simple athletic physically strong

teams because you look at the tennessee game you lose by 14 points that is what tennessee is they are an athletic physically strong team there's some teams that are athletic that just use the athleticism in speed and in getting out in transition. That could be a problem too, right? We saw the TCU game in Allen Fieldhouse. That's what TCU is. But it's the teams that are athletic and use that to be physically strong on both ends of the floor and try to impose that will that have caused KU trouble.

So again, the Tennessee game, both games against Texas. And this is not me to say, you know, if you get a physically athletic team that you're guaranteed to lose, because we saw them beat Texas in Allen Fieldhouse, right? We saw them beat TCU in Fort Worth. But it's certainly a tougher matchup, I think, for KU as some of those things would kind of play out. So that's kind of what I'm looking to avoid in the long term for Kansas.

But, I mean, yeah, that was not a fun one because what stinks the most about it is it felt like you shook off last Saturday. You got the bad taste out of your mouth from the loss in Austin. You won against West Virginia and Iowa State, and you won both convincing. And it was like, okay, they're headed in the right direction. Arrows pointed up. You got the bad taste out of your mouth headed into the NCAA tournament and then you lose like that if you lost by four you would have lost by six I think you still would have felt okay headed into the NCAA tournament not that you don't now

but there is a little bit of that sour taste in your mouth now headed into uh the tournament which doesn't mean anything i mean i think uh seven of the last 10 national champions lost in their conference tournament game last year duke who made the final four obviously um they lost by i think 17 points to virginia tech in the acc championship and that virginia tech team was like an 11 seed versus Kansas losing to a one or a two seed so everything can be fine big picture everything can be okay but again if Kansas does lose in the NCAA tournament we're gonna walk this back and be like yeah kind of left some crumbs out there to guide you to the idea that yeah maybe maybe this just wasn't their year but

again I keep going back this year is wide open so why So why not? Why not Kansas, I guess. All right, let's get on to our goats of the first. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel. The midway point of the NBA season is here, and now is the perfect time to download FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook, because new customers get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's bonus bets back if your first bet doesn't win. Just download the FanDuel sportsbook app.

It's safe, secure, and super easy to use. Then you can bet on everything from the money line to points scores, threes drained. You can bet on some of the NCAA tournament futures. You can bet on some of the different college basketball games, the playing games, whatever you'd like. Plus, FanDuel even lets you combine your bets for a chance at a bigger payout with same-game parlays. So don't miss your chance to get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000 you'd like. Plus, FanDuel even lets you combine your bets for a chance at a bigger payout with same-game parlays.

So don't miss your chance to get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000 in bonus bets when you go to FanDuel.com slash LockedOn. That's FanDuel.com slash LockedOn to learn more, make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Goats of the game. Then we'll get to where Kansas is at heading into the selection show here with Locked on Jayhawks. Good goat, Jalen Wilson. Jalen was excellent. He kept you afloat for the longest time.

At one point, I think he had like 17 points. I think this was at halftime. He had 17 and the rest of the team had 16, I want to say. He ended up with 24 points. He had six reb say. He ended up with 24 points. He had six rebounds. He tried to keep you in it, but nobody else was there. Again, it was the same recipe that we've seen in so many games. Jalen Wilson playing well, nobody else playing well. But he was really good.

He did everything he could to try to get KU another Big 12 tournament championship. Outside of that, I don't really have any other good goats here i just i don't know uh i guess you could say like there were some moments from certain guys but i think overall it's it's tough so i guess then we'll go to the bad goats and just everyone else joe yes if we ended up with a solid line here if you would have said coming into the game he was gonna have 11 points and four rebounds you would have been like okay that's a good goat for joe right maybe he doesn't deserve to be on bad here but um he did get two garbage time buckets that expanded it from seven points up to 11 and he also missed when you were i guess more in the game so to speak and when you needed a shot to go down when you were kind of struggling on offense,

he got like two or three. I don't know. He started one of five from three. And I want to say that every three that he missed was like a wide open three, like legitimately wide open. And it's not that you have to make everyone, like you're going to miss shots. You're not going to be able to make every three-point shot.

But when every single one is wide open, you have four make everyone like you're gonna miss shots you're not gonna be able to make every three-point shot but when every single one is wide open you have four wide open shots you gotta make at least two of them especially if that's your role like you just kind of have to right and so when you miss those it's such a momentum killer because it's the opportunity to get back into things so i couldn't put him on good goats even though the line ended up okay for him. DeJuan Harris had as many turnovers as assists. Not a good game for DeJuan. Just some weird head-scratching plays, which that felt like the DeJuan we saw at the end of January when he was in that three-game rut. I don't know what went wrong there, but yeah, that was not too good for KU. Grady Dick went three for 11, just 0 of 5 from three-point range. Kansas

has been struggling with their three-point shooting, and big reason why they're struggling to get Grady Dick going. I did appreciate the aggressiveness. I appreciated the aggressiveness. I think that's good to bear out here, and I think you'd rather him do that for the long term. Keep shooting because you need him to because if you're going to go far in March, you're because you need him to, because if you're going to go far in March, you're going to need him to shoot a good amount and you're going to need him to shoot well. So you don't want him getting into a zone where he doesn't want to shoot anymore. But yeah, that was, that was a tough one for him. KJ had foul trouble. He scored just six points,

a couple of pick and roll opportunities where you weren't able to convert. Texas has not been good defending the pick and roll this year, but maybe it was a bobbled pass or not seeing the guy cutting from the side to pass to whatever it was. Just not a elite game for KU in the pick and roll. And then the bench of MJ Rice, which we saw a little more of. He hit that early three and it was like, oh, is this going to be an MJ Rice game? You had Ernest Uday.

You had Bobby Pettiford. I guess Michael Jankovic played off the bench too and heck even Jank missed a bad three like that's how bad of a game it was for KU usually Jankovic is like if you leave him open for three it is splash city he missed that three bad which like we're not used to seeing from him he's an unbelievable shooter but uh those four guys Rice Uday Pettiford and Jankokovic. They combined for 44 minutes. In those 44 minutes, they had three points, one of six

from the floor. They did have eight rebounds, so I guess good there, but zero assists to six turnovers. They had twice as many turnovers as they had points, plus assists, if you want to add those two together. This is a theme all year with the bench, and it's been really bad of late.

That was the case. So if you add it all up, over the course of the Big 12 tournament, so over the full three games of the Big 12 tournament, the KU bench played 131 minutes. They had 14 points in 131 minutes on 5 of 18 from the floor. That's 28%, 24 rebounds two assists to 11 turnovers if you turned that just to give you a better idea of like you might be like oh i don't know is that good or bad in 131 minutes well if i just knocked that down to a 40 minute for one game

stretch so if you just turned it into a one game player who played 40 minutes for the full game that would be a player who averaged 4.3 points on 28 7.3 rebounds 0.6 assists and over three turnovers per game in 40 minutes per game that is very bad okay you might have the worst bench in the entire country of power five teams i don't know, which is just like head scratching because of all the four and five stars you have kind of coming off the bench. Other bad goat, KU three-point shooting. Since the month of February began, they are shooting 30.9% from three. That, if you ranked it over the full course of the season, would rank 330th in the country.

It's no secret, if they don't start shooting it better, they're not going to go far in March. You have to get that number back up to at least like 34%. Okay. Use defense, a bad goat here, Texas shots, 60% on two point shots.

It was one of your worst defensive games of the season. Certainly no Kevin McCuller hurt you there, but bad defensive outing. I think hustle plays get a bad goat. There were so many hustle balls that they just ended up with. And then taking care of the ball gets a bad goat. 15 turnovers for Kansas. Even DeJuan had four of them.

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On to where KU sits now. We're headed into selection Sunday. KU will still be a one seed. They already had that well clinched up. The talk after they beat Iowa State was, do they have the number one overall cinched up? And there were some bracketologists saying yes. And then they lost to Texas. And if you just look at it as a data point saying you lost to Texas, it doesn't change things. But if the committee was watching the game and there's a little bit of an eye test thing there, especially after you're watching Houston and

that's the edge for Houston over Kansas. Houston has the eye test over Kansas. Kansas has the resume over Houston, and for them to lose by 20, probably not great with all the committee members sitting next to each other, so I don't totally know. It'll be clear Kansas will be one of the top three seeds.

I lean toward thinking Kansas is still going to get the Midwest, whether that means they're the number one overall seed, or that means they're the second one seed just behind Alabama. If they win the sec title over Texas A&M and Bama gets the number one overall Kansas gets the number two that I do not know. I lean toward that, but I'm not, I'm not feeling as confident as I was headed into the game yesterday.

They were lost by six. I would have felt pretty confident. They were still going to get the Midwest for sure. The reason that I'm not is because of that whole kind of eye testing. And we go back to the original selection committee reveal, and Kansas was fourth, Houston was second, and that's when Kansas even had a bunch more quad one wins ahead of Houston. And so if Kansas does end up the third one seed, that also means I have no idea where

they'd send them. Do they send them to the East in Philadelphia, which is technically, I think by mileage a little bit closer than Las Vegas would be in the West or do they send them West? I think on one hand, you'd prefer to go East because in the West, you're going to have either a two seed UCLA or Arizona, maybe even a Gonzaga or I don't know, Gonzaga could even be the three seed. You could have like a four or five seed as like a St. Mary's or San Diego State where you're going to be playing in their backyard and they're going to have good fan attendance. Obviously, Kansas gets good fan attendance wherever they go, but that could be mitigated a bit depending if you're playing there. On the other hand,

I'm sure for a lot of fans going to Vegas, that'd be a lot of fun. So you're probably rooting for the West if it is between those two. Meanwhile, if it's the East though, you might have the better home court or less to worry about with, with teams playing in their own backyard, but probably not as much of a travel destination for certain fans. So I guess Joel Amid could show up and maybe that would be the boost that KU would need. So I have no idea, but they'll be one of the top three. I lean toward them still getting the Midwest, but no idea what the committee is going to do here.

Now, the good news and the biggest news of all here, after the game, Norm Roberts said in postgame that they all expect Bill Self to be back this week. Now, if we're playing the PR machine game, the, I don't know, a little bit of a tinfoil hat game, you could say that Kansas would say this just to make sure that the tournament committee doesn't view this as a situation where, hey, if Bill Self's not back next week, we might dock you, and then it's an easier decision. We're definitely putting Houston ahead of you on the seeding line. But the fact that they would say he's back would make the committee go, okay, it's not something we have to worry about long-term, right? And that it would further maybe even excuse the Texas game. I don't think Kansas would do that just for the sake of that

because this is such a health-related medical issue that I think there's more to it than that i i don't think they would do it just for that reason um but clearly if he is going to be back next week which i do expect him to because i'm going to believe this because i i don't think you would lie about that i think that'd be kind of wrong but um it makes sense to publicize it so that the committee knows about it, even if it is a truth that's going to happen. So that'll be big news that Bill Self should be back this week for the NCAA tournament.

And yeah, we'll discuss that NCAA tournament path. We'll discuss whatever region KU gets on the next episode and plenty more NCAA tournament coverage and talk about KU basketball headed into this week with locked on Jayhawks, but although that'll do it for this episode here on LOJ, I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at D Johnson radio. You can subscribe to us wherever you get any of our shows.

You can hit us up on YouTube and you can also check me out on rock chalk sports talk Monday through Friday from three to six. Have a good rest of your day. Have a good weekend. Happy selection Sunday. Later.