Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Get by Harvard Despite Poor 3-Point Shooting

Episode Date: December 27, 2022

The Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team were able to defeat the Harvard Crimson 68-54 in a sluggish victory. Why you shouldn't be concerned about a closer than expected win and how it boiled down to a poor 3-point shooting night for Bill Self's squad besides Gradey Dick. Jalen Wilson and more GOATs of the game. Plus, Kansas Football adds two high school commits and another Minnesota transfer in defensive end Austin Booker.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!NHTSADrive sober or get pulled over. Click HERE to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we recap the Harvard game finally back in action after the time off. So, game a while ago, we're going to recap it today. 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 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.

And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be recapping the KU-Harvard game. It happened last Thursday. wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be recapping the KU Harvard game. It happened last Thursday. We didn't have a live show Friday. We released something Friday that came out on the day that was kind of going over KU football, but with the Christmas break and holiday season, whatever, I've been off.

So finally back now. So we're going to kind of recap that game. Tomorrow's show, we're going to look ahead to the Arkansas game in the Liberty Bowl with all the crazy stuff that's happening down in Memphis with a lack of water. But it sounds like the bowl game is going to be okay. Knock on wood, I guess. But on today, yeah, we will recap the Harvard game

and kind of take a pulse on where this team is at now, headed into Big 12 play. So Kansas takes down Harvard 68 to 54 on Thursday. They moved to 11 and one with Big 12 play starting next. They get Oklahoma State on Saturday for a day game on New Year's Eve. And it's kind of a nice little start to Big 12 play for Kansas. Oklahoma State is a good enough team that it wouldn't surprise you if they made the NCAA tournament, but also not one of the top tier teams in the Big 12. And you get them at home to kind of open things up here.

But certainly a sluggish game for KU in taking down Harvard. And it's interesting because the final score, you end up with a 14-point win. So it's hard to be like, well, 14-point point win against team who might end up winning the ivy league i know fran for shella was talking a lot about how good he is this year so maybe that won't be the cards for harvard but a team that could potentially you end up looking at them and they're a you know 13 seed and they upset a four seed or something in the ncaa tournament like that wouldn't be crazy anytime you're talking about any of the the top teams in the ivy league let alone this harvard team but you win by 14 it's a close game for most of the way through you never really could pull away until those final few minutes of the game when jaylen

wilson kind of takes over and up until then it just kind of lingered with the score being within you know a couple scores kansas might have ballooned it up to seven or eight points and then harvard would make it back to a three-point game. They led for a bunch of the first half. They kind of went on that fun run at the end of the half, and then it felt like, oh, you're going to carry this over and blow them out in the second half, but that never ended up being the case. And the final score doesn't actually seem as close as maybe the game was played over the majority of it

because, again, you win by 14, but most of that was kind of played in tight quarters between the two teams it was a two possession game for a handful of the game and until I don't know five or six minutes left in the game and also you were expected to win the game by 21 22 points so again kind of a sluggish game in that regard in terms of hey you would expect them to win by this they They only won by this. We talked a lot about this for Thursday's show, though. It was the perfect opportunity for Kansas to have a kind of letdown game. You're coming off the big win over Indiana. You're done with finals week. You're looking ahead to your Christmas break or holiday break or seeing family, maybe leaving the next day. Maybe you're even worried about the weather. Am I going to be able to get out and leave and go see my family with everything that was happening late last week and then you have the

look ahead of not just the holiday break but then you have time off and then you're into big 12 play that's like now we're playing harvard and then you know maybe it's not as great of a home court environment like it always is at allen field house but maybe it's not one of the better ones with the weather and people not showing up maybe as much into the corners of the arena so again like there are reasons to kind of point to and say yeah it would make sense that this would be kind of a possible letdown moment and game and that wasn't surprising for me in any way but I think um when you look at things to me it kind of just all boils down to one thing that led to the score being even that close and I think even if this was a closer game I wouldn't really care which it kind of was at points like the southern Utah game was close Kansas has moved on from that it's the perfect kind of letdown spot. But what really led to this game being close,

it wasn't a matter of KU playing so poorly. That was KU's fourth best. So they played 12 games, their fourth best two point shooting game of the season. It was their third best non-turnover game of the season. Despite Harvard actually having one of the better effective field goal percentages that KU has given up on defense in a game this year, Harvard overall, when you tack in not getting a ton of offensive rebounds, maybe not being able to get to the free throw line a ton or turning the ball over, Kansas actually had their third best defensive game by points allowed per possession of the season. If you're looking at top three, top four,

and all these different categories, all of those things would tell me that maybe it wasn't as sluggish as I remember it being and as I remember it on first watch, and that there's a different reason for it being a close game. And then maybe also you could say that the last five to six minutes KU playing so well did cover some of those flaws to help make up for that.

And the latter is definitely likely that that did cover up for some of it. But even if it didn't cover up for all of it, it's not like it was going to be a horrible game before thing. I think it just boiled down to one thing. Kansas couldn't hit a three. They were four of 20 from three-point range, and that's why the game was close for a majority of the time. There were times when it might have been a six-point game,

and if Kansas would have hit two more threes, and they were getting some open looks early, then all of a sudden it's a 12-point game. And those moments where it's like, man, are we going to get a stop, or are they going to be able to cut it to a one-possession game, all of a sudden are, oh, point game. And those moments where it's like, man, are we going to get a stop? Or are they going to be able to cut it to a one possession game? All of a sudden are, oh, are they going to keep it at 12? Or are they going to cut it to single digits? Right.

It's a completely different situation. So if instead of going four of 20 from three, if Kansas ends up six of 20 from three, which to be clear would still be a solid amount below what they can. I mean, they came in shooting 37% from three. If they even go six of 20, right? Instead of four 20, you win by 20. If you go seven of 20, which would, it'd be around like what's your season averages, but still slightly below they win that game by 23. And they even cover the spread. I know Fran for shell was mentioned on the broadcast. Like this is the plan for Harvard.

And they're going to basically face guard Grady deck Dick and they're not going to let anybody else or they're going to let everybody else shoot threes and live with it. Okay, that's fine. And that's actually probably going to be a good strategy that other Big 12 teams implore. But guess what? This team came in shooting 37% from three. This has not been a bad three-point shooting team. Harvard took a risk and they got a little bit lucky with how kansas poorly shot the ball so maybe it's not even that

kansas you know had a sluggish game maybe it's just the threes weren't falling and that happens from time to time because you shot well from two you didn't get worked on the glass you had low turnover numbers offensively you only had 10 turnovers you continue to create a good amount of steals and opposing turnovers again they had the the third lowest points per possession against your defense this season it's kind of actually an okay game for kansas you just didn't hit shots but overall you take the win you're happy with how things have gone in the non-con you're 11 and 1 through the non-con obviously there's still the Kentucky game looming looming in January but especially how things have gone since the Tennessee game in you responding that could have been a fork in the road that whole battle for Atlantis even in the wins things didn't like whether it was defensively

or at times going through cold spells offensively whether it was the Wisconsin game or the NC State game you played a bunch of close games, and then you lost the Tennessee game. That could have really carried over, and it could have been a sign of, well, maybe this team's good, but it's not elite. They bounced back from them and showed that, yeah, this looks like one of the elite teams in college basketball so far to this point in the season, and obviously you're very happy with where things are.

It's funny how similar in a lot of ways this year's team is to last year's team at this point in time um you had one loss in your whatever non-conference tournament or um i know obviously very different how it went down like the dayton loss very different than the tennessee loss both in terms of the opponent and how you kind of lost the game. But you're talking about two teams who were being looked at as like a very good team at this point, but maybe not the very best team. And you you've had some big blowout wins. You blow out Missouri. You have certain roster questions with last year's team. It was, well, what's going

to be the role of Remy Martin with this year's team? It's what's going to be the role of the backup center. You also did have some center questions last year. Like Dave was kind of struggling through the non-con last year until he picked it up at the end of big 12 play. And again, you have those center questions. So outside of KJ, who's played very well, uh, the playing style is so different with this year's team, but in terms of where they're at at this point in time, it's actually kind of similar to where they were a season ago.

All right. In just a second, we're going to get onto our goats of the game. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business. You want to be 100% certain that you have access to the best qualified candidates available. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for free. It's super easy to go on the LinkedIn website or the LinkedIn app as just somebody who, you know, post stuff about

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Goats of the game for Kansas. Good goat. Jalen Wilson and I thought about making this instead of just Jalen Wilson on the good goats making it Jalen Wilson the last like five minutes Bill Self talked about in the post game that yeah the last five minutes he looked like an all-american that he was a little frustrated with him for the first 35 minutes or so of the game but he took over down the stretch. And that's what you want from your kind of leader, all-American type players. And now I could have also made this like the caveat, Jalen Wilson outside of shooting threes,

and it would be even better because he just had kind of a poor three-point shooting game, kind of a microcosm for KU. He had 21 points, six rebounds, two assists, a steal in a block, filling up the stat sheet, doing it all. Continues to kind of add to his great season so far. He struggled shooting the ball against Indiana. He goes 4 of 18. What a bounce-back performance here.

He goes 10 of 17 against Harvard. And again, if you take away the threes, he went 9 for 11 on two-point shots against Harvard. So if he hits one more three at that point, instead of going one of six, if he goes two of six, then it's an even better game. And again, then we talk about KU being up by even more at that point. But it's kind of funny because he was the inverse of Grady Dick. Grady Dick went three of seven from three and

O of four from two. Jalen went nine of 11 from two, one of six from three. I guess if you add the duo up though, it works out. You get nine of 15 from two, you have four of 13 from three, the three still a little bit lower than you like, but you know, those numbers work out a lot better when you just combine the duo of what they ended up doing but you also had the accomplishment for Jalen where he surpassed the thousand career point mark and certainly more points planned to be scored for Jalen this season but yeah when you really needed him down the stretch he really took over for you kind of reminded me of the Southern Utah game in that regard like kind of a sluggish game against an opponent you're not expected to do so

against and then Jalen just like keeps pushing down the stretch and keeps getting those tough buckets for you to make sure you come out on top and avoid that big upset loss uh KJ Adams stat stuffing gets a good goat of the week he had 10 points seven rebounds four steals two blocks and an assist just filling up the stat sheet all the way through for K.J. Adams. No really other center, which we'll get to this here in a second, stepped up and like you didn't have a carryover game from Zuby after the Indiana game. K.J. continues to just be your most consistent option there,

which that's important for Bill's self-consistency, and continues to i guess further entrench himself that he is the guy as the starting center for you and it's not just that he is i think entrenched himself like i would be surprised at this point if kj wasn't your starting center the rest of the season but it's also the fact that he seems to be even further distancing himself in terms of how many minutes he is going to get for the rest of the year beauty of kj adams though being kind of a wing type you can get away with playing him 30 plus minutes a game if you have to in a specific game because he is more conditioned to play that way than maybe a traditional big who is more of a lurking big man who maybe can only play 20

25 minutes a game kevin mcculler good goat of the game. 14 points, 11 rebounds, another double double for him. He also had three steals, two blocks and two assists also filled up the stat sheet a little bit. I mean, just, I have to continue to kind of sing his praises on the defensive side of the ball. He he's just never out of a play. Like you see a couple of plays where he like comes from behind and gets a block after it's like, Oh, maybe the guy beat him on a cut or just kind of powered by him, but he comes up with a block or you know somebody's driving right into him and it's like oh he's gonna get an easy layup or he has a big man matched up on him where it's like i don't know it might be a mismatch and he just strips the ball away he is

never out of a play he is so crafty defensively he is so good with his hands so unbelievably great and again the offense and the rebounding continue for him as part of this nice stretch that just happened in December since he came back from the groin injury on to the bad goats for the game the three-point shooting we talked about this KU just four of 20 from three-point range if you take out Grady Dick who actually did have a good three-point shooting game at three of seven. KU went just one of 13 on three-point shots besides Grady Dick. On one hand, you'd say, well, that's worrisome if we go back to the preseason expectations about, man, I don't know, do they have enough three-point shooting besides Grady Dick?

But I think to this point, they actually have shot it pretty well, even outside of Grady Dick, who certainly has raised those percentages a lot for you. There's just kind of a bad three-point shooting game for everyone. You just hope it's not a reversion thing coming for players like Jalen Wilson and Kevin Kohler, who career-wise or maybe last year haven't been the greatest three-point shooters but have shot it better so far this season. Maybe it's the reversion to the mean. Maybe it's the start of a bad stretch. Maybe it's just one bad game. That's where I would kind of lean.

But either way, that was a bad goat for the game. DeJuan Harris gets a bad goat here. Now, hear me out, because DeJuan still overall impacts the game so much. And I love DeJuan. He's arguably the most valuable player on the team, whether you think Jalen's the best or the valuable, whatever. We had that conversation about a week ago. Four points, four assists for DeJuan Harris.

He still had some awesome defensive plays to help that especially in that that nice first half run that ku had to finish the first half um he made some big defensive plays their hustle plays so it wasn't all bad and i'm not putting it here um to say that anything bad is happening here is why dewan is on bad goat this is now becoming a bit of a trend of him getting in foul trouble early so maybe I should just rephrase this to Dewan Harris foul trouble on bad goats but again he only had four points four assists which we're used to seeing again Dewan's not like a you know super high lofty stack guy to begin with but we've been seeing closer to eight to ten points six to

ten assists per game but the foul trouble has been the real problem. And again, so if we wanted to say DeJuan Harris foul trouble, that's what's on here. It is a super tight, fine line for him with being a pesky defender, being someone who tries to get steals, tries to poke the ball loose, and also tries to take a lot of charges. It's a fine line between that and trying to avoid fouls so i get it but tennessee game fouls out in like 18 minutes indiana game gets in foul trouble this game he gets in foul trouble early there have been a couple other games this year where

that's been the case where maybe he's picked up a couple quick fouls or picked up his third early on in the second half i think the nc state game he got in foul trouble too. That's a bit problematic for you because we talk about how valuable DeJuan Harris is and things just run so much more smoothly offensively. Your defense is obviously a lot better when he is out on the floor. That scares you in a possible one game elimination the most in the NCAA tournament. You can envision it now. Kansas is in a second round game and DeJuan Harris gets two early fouls in the first four minutes. Things don't look the same and you get a big halftime deficit and you have to try to bounce back.

Right? Like that, that's the type of story that that would lead to. So that's a little scary. Overall, you still want DeJuan playing how he plays because that can be so valuable, but it is such a fine line and he is such an elite point guard in college basketball that with the way that he has consistently improved his game, it would not surprise anyone if he fixed that trend that's kind of emerged with this foul trouble,

if that became something that he really worked on and got better down the stretch here after seeing some of these games. But that certainly is a little bit worrisome that this is becoming more and more of a thing. Last bad goat, the KU bench centers, KJ played well, but nobody else really established anything. Zuby, Ernest Uday, Zach Clements, they combined for nine minutes, zero points, 0 for 2 shooting, three rebounds. They did have two blocks, which is possible, but the biggest disappointment there is that Zuby Ejifer, who had a nice game against Indiana, it was can he carry it over? Can it become a trend where he is starting to lock down those backup big minutes and didn't really happen. You didn't really get any rhythm

with any of those backup centers, which certainly has been a theme so far this season. All right, in just a second, we're going to finish up with some new KU football additions because they made some late in the week last week. We'll get to those in just a second. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks brought to you by NHTSA.

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The Jayhawk football team tacking on a couple pickups, a couple from high school, and one more transfer pickup, which they go back to the well in the pipeline. That is the Minnesota Golden Gophers. The high school commits. They get Grady Seifert. He's a 6'2", 275- pound defensive lineman from Beloit in Kansas and Dylan Mong who is a 6'6 215 pound tight end from Shawnee Mission East so certainly someone who you

figure will yeah he can develop red shirt maybe sit in the program for a few years and then um after those few years you know you get the the weight up to 235 240 250 something like that got a big body and certainly a lot of potential with Seifert. You know, you bring someone in. You love adding the local kids from the state of Kansas, which you're doing there. I don't know if both those guys are on scholarship or if they're preferred walk-ons.

You know, we've seen that before. But either way, those are nice pickups. The big news one, though, Austin Booker, Jim Panagos, the defensive line coach for Kansas kansas i guess uh you know defensive tackle coach whatever he was the main recruiter here he is just doing absolutely wonders in the transfer portal right now booker is a defensive end from minnesota he redshirted in 2021 after he came in as a three-star recruit nationally, he was top 600 recruit nationally, played just 23 snaps in three games this past season in 2022.

That'll make him a redshirt sophomore in 2023 with three years left to play. So you go back to the well of getting another kid who has multiple years left, which is always nice because A, if it takes him more time to adjust to the scheme or B, if it doesn't work out in year one, you know, you still have more years ahead of you. And if it does work out, it's even better because then you still have years ahead of you, but a six foot six,

240 pounds. He's someone who has seen as having very high potential from a lot of different, you know, scouting, recruiting people that, that you trust. And this is a,

from our Minnesota guy with locked on Jay Hawks. Booker is a true edge, freak talent and athlete, has great bend and a quick spin move. I was kind of shocked he didn't get more time in Minnesota because he was popping off in the spring and even some of fall camp prior to a short injury. So it sounds like he was actually possibly going to get even more playing time on what ended up being a good Minnesota team,

but just kind of an unfortunate timed injury. Like to jaylen daniels not this past season the year before right jaylen was competing for the quarterback job with jason bean and miles kendrick at the time and then jaylen had the injury in fall camp ended up not starting until the end of the year but then when he came in he was a good player that could have been what happened for austin booker this past season so as far as individual role, I would expect he competes for a starting job. I wouldn't expect him to start. I would expect him to be at least some sort of a rotational defensive end. How much he plays on the scale of rotating a little bit in there

to being the primary backup off the bench, that remains to be seen. I just kind of expect with Jeremy Robinson and Lonnie Phelps expected back in the toe for next year. Like I expect those two as the starters, but Booker could be a rotational guy behind them. We know KU likes to rotate a lot of their D line depth. And then Phelps would be in his final season next year. I think Robinson can have two more years, but you would be hoping that by 2024,

so after a rotational player in 2023, who again still would get a lot of snaps based on how KU plays, 2024, he becomes a possible starter and a possible breakout star for you for the next two years at that point, 2024 and 2025. That's going to do it for this edition

of Locked on Jayhawks. We are going to preview the KU Arkansas game on tomorrow's show ahead of the Liberty Bowl. If you want for the show to talk about anything, hit us up at D Johnson rate on Twitter, or you can hit us up in the comment section on our YouTube page. Don't forget to subscribe to the show wherever you're getting any of your podcasts or on YouTube. You can also hear me later today on Rock Chalk Sports Talk from three to six on KLWN and Lawrence. Have a great rest of the day. Talk to you on tomorrow's edition of LOJ.