Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Bullied by Baylor, Lose 3rd Straight Despite Efforts from Jalen Wilson & Gradey Dick

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

The Kansas Jayhawks fell 75-69 in Waco to the Baylor Bears last night, giving KU its 3rd straight loss for just the 4th time in the Bill Self era. What went wrong for Kansas, from some defensive woes to rebounding that prevented the Jayhawks from winning despite the efforts of Jalen Wilson and Gradey Dick. Some Big 12 talk.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.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet to get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Free Bets – win or lose! Visit Fanduel.com/LockedOn today to get startedFANDUEL 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, we recap KU's loss to Baylor in Waco as they've now lost three in a row for just the third time in the Bill Self era. 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 going to be a man. day. We're free and available wherever you end your podcast. So you can hear my voice continues to get worse, but we're going to power through today on today's edition of locked on Jay Hawks. We're going to recap the KU Baylor game. KU's now lost three games in a row, but first, this episode of locked on Jay Hawks brought to you by FanDuel sports book, official sports book of locked on make every moment more visit FanDuel.com slashed On today to get started.

KU falls to Baylor 75-69 and in a vacuum you look at this loss or the loss at K-State and it's like, ah, whatever. The TCU loss is why this loss kind of stings a little bit more. And now you are in a very difficult position. You've lost three strike games for just the third time in the Bill Self era. You've never lost four, so we'll see because it doesn't get much easier. You've got Kentucky and then you have Kansas State and Iowa State,

the two frontrunners right now in the Big 12 after that. So not going to be easier to pick this up. But if you look at it from a standpoint of what this means for the Big 12, if you think 14-4 gets it done, which is what it did last year, that means Kansas has to go 9-1 down the stretch. I don't know that you're confident that's going to happen after this three-game stretch, and even when they were 5-0, winning a lot of close games. If you think 13-5 gets it done this year, which is very possible, so they've got to go 8-2. That feels very difficult from where this Kansas team is right now.

But we've seen past Bill Self teams, KU teams, reel off a bunch of wins in a row. That's kind of what they're banking on at this point. Who knows? Maybe 12-6 gets it done this year, and you have a little bit more leeway. And we just saw Baylor lose three straight games, then win five in a row, including last night. So it's not entirely impossible,

but Kansas is just going to have to start playing better. The slow starts continued to plague KU as it did last night. I think you get down 18 to seven in the early going. And it's just over and over again. It's a little disappointing when the slow starts keep happening and it's like, you can't do anything about it. And you expect, Hey, we just lost last game. Kind of got whooped.

Like you expect them to come out with a bunch of energy and effort. And it just wasn't there right off the bat. So I don't know what you do if you're Bill self to try to shake things up, but it's tough because, you know, they're kind of in this, in this weird cycle right now of a bunch of guys have been dropping off. You're not really getting anything from the bench to supplant that. jaylen wilson's been great grady dick was great last night but you're just not getting a bunch of other you know contributions from all around the team

and so you keep getting yourself into these holes and then you spend so much time and effort crawling back into the game and maybe you get a lead or like the tcu game you spend so much time and effort getting it back to 10 and a half and they had no energy left in the second half the game against Baylor you come back and eventually you take that quick lead off the three ball that gives you a one-point lead and like a minute or two later of game action you're down by like six or seven again you've just gotten yourself in such big holes by the time you use your energy to get back into it, it's just gone. And it's not sustainable to keep having to come back in these games.

And that's what we're seeing in a lot of these lately. Now, you saw a little bit of everything that's been hurting KU lately at different moments. Bad defense in the first half. Giving up too easy of drives. Maybe switching too much. Like, Bill Self has always been, at least lately, like, they've done a switching defense,

but he's still been a proponent of, like, don't just automatically switch if they let you. Like, try to fight through the screen, you know? To where, switch if you have to, but try to fight through it. And we haven't seen a lot of that fight lately. And we saw that a lot in the first half. Bad defense, giving up a bunch of open shots. There was like a three-play stretch where Ernest Uday was just like running around,

didn't really look like he knew where he was going. And it led to a couple threes for Baylor, including Jake Meyer, that there's like a screenshot of. It looks like it's supposed to be Kevin McCuller's man, but it's not. Kevin McCuller has two guys because Uday is up running somewhere else, and one of them is the center in the paint setting the screen for LJ Cryer, but if Kevin McCuller goes out on LJ Cryer, it's just a wide-open dunk, which as much as a wide-open three, you don't want to give up. It's still less percentage than a wide-open dunk, which is

like a 95% shot, probably 99 or 100, right? So just little things like that continue to plague them defensively. Bad three-point defense. Like, yes, teams have been going off above their weight in terms of their three-point shooting against Kansas, but a big part of it, too, they've just left guys wide open. Like, you're going to give up a higher percentage if that's the case. Obviously, there have been in these last couple games a lot of threes that have fallen where you actually have had good defense and that's unfortunate, but that continued

on in this game. You had a long stretch of not scoring. There seems to be one stretch every game where it's like three to seven minutes for KU where they just can't score. That happened again. Inability of other options to score. Jalen Wilson show continues. He's been fantastic again.

Grady Dick was really good, but DeJuan Harris really on the struggle bus. I don't know what's going on there. KJ Adams, foul trouble, and just kind of struggling in general. Kevin McCullough I thought was good, but the shot's still not falling, and the offense continues to be a bit uglied up there,

and then nothing that you're getting from the bench. You get two points from the bench, which that's kind of just what you pencil them in for every game it's like zero to two points which one you're picking um and that's part of it too and then the bad defensive rebounding like that was kind of a theme all night long we have seen games where ku has actually done a good job on the defense class early in the year like the duke game, the Tennessee game. Those were clear problems. Against Iowa State, it was a clear problem. Last game against TCU, it was a clear problem. And then this game against Baylor, clear problem again.

And that just continued all game long. They had a couple big offensive rebounds down the stretch and really through every moment of the game. And that allowed them to be in a situation where, you know, they didn't shoot well in the second half at all. Your defense actually played well in the second half at all. Your defense actually played well in the second half after struggling in the first half, but because they got so many offensive rebounds and because they, you know, forced a bunch of turnovers and you didn't force any, it led to them having a bunch more shots, a bunch more

possessions, and that's how they ended up winning the game. Now, where this leaves KU, they can still win the Big 12 like i said you you've seen other past ku teams lose three straight and win the big 12 um you've seen other past ku teams you don't have stretches where they struggle like the uh 2015-16 team lost three straight road games and three of five overall and a lot of those teams were fine but it just gets you behind the eight ball at this point and i think what we're seeing is like when i because i saw a lot of people last night be like this is this is the 2020 to 21 team the the team that got the three seed and got bounced by a billion points to usc

in the second round or this is the 2018-19 team the dedrick Lawson team that has um you know I I guess um kind of lethargic in certain ways like there was some talent there but you could just tell like it wasn't classic Bill's health team and uh they lose in the second round by a billion points to Auburn and I saw some of those comparisons I think this team's better than that there's more talent man like Grady Dick is going to be a top 20 pick in the NBA draft. He's really good. Jalen Wilson is a first team All-American. Kevin McCuller and DeJuan Harris are still very good defenders. Now, I don't know what's going on with DeJuan. He's certainly in a rut right now, but KJ has his deficiencies as like a defensive rebounder, but he still has a lot of pluses

about him and still has a lot of talent on that bench. I think this team is better than those. The ceiling is better. I think just what we're seeing is that you have a good team here, but clearly this is not a great team. And so when you have a good team, not a great team that is playing a bad stretch of basketball and you mix all that together with being in the toughest conference in the country, and this is the deepest that the Big 12 has ever been,

there's no opportunity to just reset, and you get punished if you're not playing well in this version of the Big 12. You can't go back like 10 years ago when it's like, okay, we're getting punished, but hey, we have Nebraska. We'll just beat them by 20 points. That's not the case this time around. So I think this team is better than those teams. I expect it to finish better, and I expect them to bounce back from this, but to what level does

that mean they're going to win the big 12? I don't know. Cause there's a lot of good competition there. Um, and maybe we should just stop focusing on that. Like, I think we stopped viewing it from the lens of, can this team win the big 12? I'm not saying that you don't leave those expectations that they should, or that they should try. Absolutely they should. But I think right now you just look for internal improvement. Can you just win games? Can you just get better? And in turn, that would help you win the Big 12, but forget the thoughts on can this team still win the Big 12.

Just focus, can this team get better? Because right now they're in a rut and they're not playing well. All right, we're going to get on to our goats of the game but first this episode of locked on jayhawks is brought to you by fanduel the nfl playoffs are here we're really excited about our new sports betting partner for locked on because they're the number one sports book in america that is fanduel and if you're new to fanduel that's even better there's so many great features that make betting on sports fun and easy new customers join today to get started with $150 in free bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. Just sign up at FanDuel.com slash locked on.

Locked on. You can see it if you're watching on YouTube. FanDuel has all your favorite bets from the money line to point spreads to player props. Plus, you can even combine your bets for a chance of bigger payout with same game parlays. One of the things that I really like to do, you can do this on FanDuel, they have winning margins and it's great for the big 12. You pick which team you think is going to win. And instead of picking that money line where it might be like minus 105 or plus 120 or something, you pick them to win by, they have this margins thing between one to 10 points. And then it ups the odds like plus 160 to plus 200,

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Basketball fans don't miss out. Place your first $5 bet to get $150 in free bets, win or lose, at fanduel.com slash locked on. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sportsbook partner of the NFL. All right, getting on to our ghost of game. It was good to get a dick. He had 24 points. He was awesome.

Eight of 13 from the floor. Goes 2 of 5 from 3-point range. And I think that was a perfect game to show his diversification and what he can do as a scorer. I thought that was his best game as a diversified scorer because we've seen other games where he maybe has, like, a transition play or he has a nice cut and catch and you know reverse layup finish but we haven't seen it as much where he's done it off the dribble and driven off his own accord

and gotten to the rim so that was really important to show because it's going to be tougher for teams to face guard him or if they keep taking away his threes that's your counter to that and that's going to be very crucial for him to do down the stretch but he was great 24 points also had four rebounds even had to deal with the early foul trouble that kept his minutes down to 31 maybe if he stays in there early even ends up closer to 30 points jaylen wilson gets a good goat he had 23 points he went 10 of 16 from the floor he was three of seven from three point range really good overall once again he had five rebounds two assists one block um. He just continues to be the guy for this team. Whenever they need something to happen offensively,

he kind of carries them to that. So Jalen and Grady, and again, it sucks because this is some of the best ball Jalen's played, three straight games. You've lost all three, unable to take advantage of it. Good go for Kevin McCuller, actually, minus the really bad, noticeable offensive stretch. So if I take out that really

bad offensive stretch that he had for that like one or two minute stretch it was a really good game unfortunately that happened so if we're looking at Kevin McCuller overall I don't know I still lean toward him being a good goat um but it would be a little bit more different so um the bad offensive stretch I'm talking about if you remember he had the play where he tried to take like a jumper it gets blocked to him and then he tries to lean through and shoot again and it gets blocked again so that's two blocked shots on him then moments later he misses a layup and then moments later he misses two wide open corner threes back to back that was a really tough offensive stretch and it was very noticeable in how it happened.

So everybody remembers that and is like, oh, Kevin's still broken. And because of their recent struggles, it's easy to pile on. But I'm here to tell you, he actually played a good game. It's just those plays were so noticeable. But like he had 14 points, which was third on the team. He had 12 rebounds, which led the team. Nobody on Kansas had he had 12 rebounds which led the team nobody on kansas had more than five rebounds he had 12 he had four assists he had two steals and a block he filled up the stat sheets he led you in rebounds he led you in defensive rebounds he led you in offensive

rebounds he led you in assists he led you in blocked shots and he led you in steals he was eight for eight at the foul line, too. So, yes, the offense wasn't great, but also 14 points on nine shots. It's not the worst thing in the world, especially when you combine all those other things that he led you in. Obviously, yes, you still need his shot to improve to be better, but he actually played kind of well. It's just that one stretch where it was very noticeable that he was struggling offensively

that I think kind of dilutes a lot of people's minds. The last one I have for good goat is free throw shooting. As a team, big reason why, Kevin McCuller. very noticeable that he was struggling offensively that I think kind of dilutes a lot of people's minds. The last one I have for good goat is free throw shooting. He was as a team, a reason why Kevin McCuller, there were 16 of 16, actually a very good free throw shooting game for KU team. That is, I don't know,

kind of been up and down in that regard this season. Okay. Onto the bad goats, Dawn Harris, two points, just one of five from the floor. I think he's two for 18, his last four games from the floor.

He had four assists to four turnovers.'ve seen the turnover numbers skyrocket the one play he had where kansas has a chance to i think they were down five at the time and they throw the the full court pass to joe yes fu through stolen and that was uh certainly uh i don't know gut punch to you i again go back to when he hit his head against Kansas State, and they cleared him of concussions. I don't know if just – I don't know how the concussion tests work and everything, but I don't know if there was some other residual effect. I don't know if he suffered some other injury,

but, like, it's been a struggle for him since then, and it's hard not to go back to that moment and wonder how that affected him like even the first play of the game he drives straight to the lane and he has a wide open layup and he dishes it off to jalen wilson in traffic and it gets stolen away something's just not right with him and they need him to get right because he has been that steady force all season long and this has been a really unsteady stretch for him from a guy you don't expect that to happen like with with Grady Dick, okay, sure, there's going to be ups and downs because he's a shooter. Sometimes you have nights the shot isn't falling.

He's a freshman too. With DeJuan, that's not supposed to be the case. But here we are and it's happening. So they got to get him right. KJ Adams, bad goat. Four points, just one of five from the floor. Just three rebounds getting worked on the defense glass. Just one assist.

Just kind of removed from the game. It was tough for him. So back-to-back games where I think he's two for 11 the past two games combined. They got to get him going again because that's certainly been something missing here. The bench gets a bad goat. 30 minutes combined from the bench in this game from Bobby Pettiford, Joe Yesifu, MJ Rice, Ernest Uday. MJ came in very briefly.

Uday got lost a couple times defensively. Bobby didn't really make an impact on the game. It's tough because you see a play where, like, Jalen Wilson catches it, and he has Bobby Pettiford wide open in the corner, and so he makes the extra pass, but then Bobby can't shoot, so he tries to drive it, and he runs into a turnover. But combined, all those players i thought joe played the best pressure the ball well it four rebounds but still wasn't like a big score

but combined all those guys had just two points in 30 minutes of play they went one of four from the floor they had six fouls and they had five turnovers at least joe got those four rebounds but outside of that yuck from the bench. Rebounding gets a bad goat here. 18 Baylor offensive rebounds. KU had 25 defensive rebounds. That's not going to get it done. A lot of them felt like they were getting a lot of 50-50 balls. You were getting out-efforted and out-hustled.

Baylor came in a very good offensive rebounding team. That's always a Scott Drew thing, so you know you're going to give up offensive rebounds, but if you have 18, you can't do that. It's got to be a number that's closer to like 9 to 12. And that kind of combined with the six more KU turnovers than Baylor, which KU has been unable to force turnovers lately, Baylor ended up taking 10 more shots and nine more free throw attempts. And part of that was, I guess, bad goat for Doug Sermons.

Not the reason KU lost. They had plenty of other reasons. But Doug Sermons stunk in that game. He just did. Nonetheless, Baylor just out-muscled you on the glass and really took advantage of you. And because of all those extra possessions, even though you played well on first shot defense, it was unable to get the job done in Waco. We're going to finish up with kind of a look around in the Big 12 for some

stuff happening here with Locked On Jayhawks. So K-State takes on Iowa State on Tuesday night, which is tonight. They have recording. And that's the biggest game in the Big 12 this week. Kansas State, your Big 12 leader at the moment. Iowa State right behind them. kansas state wins this game it's going to be hard for them not to win the big 12 it'd be in the absolute driver's seat they would be at seven and one um everybody would have three losses or more except texas at that point who would have two but k state already won in austin so they take care of home against texas too you, it's going to be hard for them to fumble down the stretch.

Now, if Iowa State wins, that would be huge for Kansas. Because at that point, you're just a game back of everyone at the top. Part of the problem, though, is that even if that's true, it's not as simple to be like, oh, if Iowa State wins tonight, it means that their loss last night to Baylor doesn't matter. No, because it's not just about who's in first. It's that there's so many. It's like whatever the, gosh, you know, in Hercules fighting like the dog with three heads or the snake with three heads.

I forget what it is. And he cuts one off and more heads grow back, right? So if Iowa State beats K-State tonight, it does get you closer to the Big 12 leaderboard and keeps you around. But it's almost like the next time the first place team loses in the Big 12, two more heads grow back.

Because now all of a sudden, there's so many teams muddled together at the top here. Like think about it. If Iowa State wins tonight, you got K-State, Iowa State, assuming Texas wins tonight, assuming TCU wins tonight, Baylor and Kansas,

all six of those teams would be between five and three and six and two. So you start scoreboard watching and you root against the team who's in first and they lose. And it's like, OK, great. The team in first loss. And then you're all of a sudden like, wait, those two teams are in first now and they won. So it's like it's it's getting very difficult and you have to root for so many teams to lose that it's almost not possible. So that's the problem here with what KU has set themselves up with that loss. But certainly you need Iowa State to beat K-State tonight.

Otherwise, it's going to feel like K-State has kind of the red carpet laid out for him the rest of the way. And it doesn't mean they would win the Big 12, because we've seen other teams feel like it's gift-wrapped for them down the stretch, and they blow it down the stretch. So you never know what's going to happen. But it would put them in a very firm driver's seat at that point um and for iowa state if they win this game then i don't know maybe they're in the driver's seat but um i guess either

way it's going to kind of come down to what you do next week if you're kansas k state at home that's a non-negotiable win and then iowa state on the road where if you can win that that would be the most massive win you could have probably this season. Also get TCU hosting Oklahoma tonight, Texas hosting Oklahoma State. I would imagine both the home schools are going to win that one and both are in the Big 12, but if even one of those gets upset at home, that's

a good thing for Kansas. That's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back tomorrow. Talk a little KU football. They've made conditions here lately. We'll get to that on tomorrow's episode. If you have anything you want to talk about, hit me up at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. You can find us wherever you subscribe to your podcast

or on YouTube. Have a good rest of your day. See you tomorrow. Bye.