Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Head Into Game with Kansas State In Better Shape After Kentucky Win

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Are the Kansas Jayhawks back after a win in Lexington over Kentucky now that they resume Big 12 play with the Kansas State Wildcats on Tuesday night. Biggest takeaways from the UK victory, thoughts on the matchup with K-State, what we learned and don't expect to repeat from the first go around in Manhattan, and another edition of Whose Stat Line is it Anyway for KU Basketball with Nick Schwerdt.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 edition of Locked on Jayhawks, going to be joined by Nick Schwert. We're going to go over a little bit of the KU Kentucky. Is Kansas back headed into the Kansas State game? As we'll talk about that, finish up with some who's statless anyway. 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. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day.

You can find me as well, Rock Chalk Sports Talk, three to six, Monday through Friday on KLWN in Lawrence. You can find my co-host for today's episode, Nick Schwert, at Nick underscore Schwert on Twitter. You can find him with Cody and Golds in the afternoons 10 to 2 on 610 in Kansas City Wave in the Week podcast with Odyssey as well. So on today's edition of the show, KU bounces back. They end their three-game losing streak. We're going to talk a little reactions with KU Kentucky game what it means for this team if it's just, or if it means they're kind of back

and they figured some things out. And then we're going to get on to some Kansas State talk. We'll finish up with a always fun segment, whose stat line is it anyway? First, this episode though is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On. Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.com slash Lawn Today to get started. Okay, Kansas takes down Kentucky. And, you know, it's funny because when Kansas loses a game to Kentucky, it's always like, well, you know, it didn't really matter. But when you win the game, you see

Bill Self having like the fist pump beating Kentucky. And obviously it means a lot for this team coming off of three straight losses. And I think there were a lot of things you can individually take away and go, well, Jalen again, looked like a national player of the year candidate, or Kevin McCuller did a lot of, you know, really good things to help you win that game or DeJuan Harris bounced back. KJ Adams bounced back. You saw some bench contributions from, you know,

some of the bench centers like Ernest Uday that that was kind of impressive um what was your biggest overall takeaway from the Kentucky win to you know possibly this team's future of where they need to go well I think I would start with my biggest questions going into the game my biggest questions in the midst of that three game losing streak was, are you going to get any production from the bench and can your guard play improve? The guard play question kind of answers itself. Unless you think that DeJuan Harris and Kevin McCuller are going to be stuck in this perpetual rut all season long, then what fixes that is time.

The bench play, though, is the bigger question that I think is going to be a question all season long, then what fixes that is time. The bench play, though, is the bigger question that I think is going to be a question all season long, because at this point, unless Ernest Uday is coming off the bench, giving you 15, 20 solid minutes a night, I expect that to be a revolving door. I still expect there to be nights where he doesn't play that much or where Zach Clements is the first big off the bench or where Zuby Ejifer continues to get run or where you just don't go to the bigs on the bench at all. And it goes back to what we've seen for much of this year, which has been a combination of Joe Yesifu and Bobby Pettiford

being the only guys really giving you quality minutes off the bench. It's nice to see Ernest be that guy because for a lot of fans, and I think I would probably even lump myself into this boat, your attention always goes to the most talented players. And a lot of times that's the freshmen, whether it's Ernest or MJ Rice, when you're not getting any solid production off the bench, when the guys like Joe and Bobby who are coming in, aren't giving you quality minutes, when you're losing something going to the bench, at some point you start to just say, what about this guy who was a top 30 player in the country coming out of high school?

Is there some untapped potential that maybe we can start to chip into this year? And that was a positive sign to see it from Ernest. You obviously have to see more, and he alone is not going to be enough to make you feel really confident about this team's depth by the time you get to the NCAA tournament. But it's a step in the right direction. I'm not willing to say it's anything more than that though.

Yeah. I thought what was interesting is that, you know, we've seen kind of this carousel of the first big off the bench all season long. We've seen, I think it was a gosh, the Indiana game, maybe where Zuby edge for played really well. And then you're like, okay, is he going to take down the road now? And then the next game against Harvard, he was the first big off the bench. He played like two or three minutes for the full game because he didn't do a ton. We've seen Zach Clements have a good game against Oklahoma.

Didn't lead to more playing time the next game. We saw Ernest Uday or Zuby have different games in the non-con against some lesser opponents earlier this year where kind of the same thing and it didn't lead to more playing time. What feels different about this one is you are kind of getting to that point in the season where it's like, you know, put up or shut up time. It kind of is. And also the fact that, hey, you did this against Kentucky.

You did this on the road. You did it against, at your position, the guy who won national player of the year last season. And I know it wasn't always a earnest verse Oscar Sheway, but I think that matters a little bit here. So that I think was a positive takeaway, but you're still not getting anything from the bench guards. So I don't know what to totally think of the bench there. But I think the biggest takeaway for me was just the bounce back of DeJuan Harris and KJ Adams,

because what's funny with, with DeJuan specifically, with KJ you can understand you go through some ups and downs and that's what happened in the Baylor and the game before that against TCU where I think in the two games combined you had two for 11 with DeJuan Harris he doesn't

feel like a player like if Grady Dick has a game where he goes three of 12 shooting it's like okay that's going to happen some nights DeJuan Harris doesn't seem to play a game that has a lot of highs and lows it's usually steady so I don't know what was going on there but I think to me that was the biggest takeaway of getting him in the positive track because that's supposed to be your guy who was always steady yeah but did you have concerns about Dewan before the game yeah that's kind of where I was at because that was one thing that was leading to Kansas's losses was two guys that you needed to have play well for you your two starting guards weren't playing well and Dewan

who at times looked like he was lacking confidence you had to take a step back and say okay is this just who he is now a guy who helped lead you to a national championship. Is he just rattled? He's never going to get it back. The guys who have the equity, you don't worry about. Kevin's a little bit different because he wasn't on this team last year, but that also leads to, I think, some confusion as to who he is because he wasn't playing well either. And so when you've got two guys, your two starting guards who aren't scoring the ball and you're losing games, all of a sudden it becomes an issue

when it wasn't an issue when, it wasn't an issue when KU was, you know, the number two team in the country. It only became an issue when they started losing games. Anybody who watched Kevin McCullough at Texas Tech, like what you've gotten from him this year at Kansas is exactly what Texas Tech got from him for three years. This is who he

is. He's not a good shooter. He has a streaky score, but he's a high IQ player. He will do a little bit of everything. And he is one of the premier defenders in the front court or in the backcourt, excuse me, that the nation has to offer. So I never really was concerned about DeJuan. The problem has been, you can't afford to take either one of those guys off the court for a second, because when you were bringing Joe and Bobby in, it was a net negative. They weren't giving you anything. So what does that do? It puts even more of an emphasis on DeJuan and Kevin to play well, knowing that there are no reinforcements coming in off the bench. So I think maybe the people, I think fans were maybe a little bit too hard on those guys. I'm not saying that everybody was throwing them under the bus,

but everybody was immediately focusing their attention to those dudes when I feel like the story was what we started talking about, the fact that there is no one to give them a breather coming in off the bench. Yeah, and I still don't know if you really solved that in that game uh we had the the comments from bill self about joe yes if we would hawk talk how you know he was like i think he can be the guy who scores for us off the bench and uh he told joe is is the story was relayed to us um he after he got off he he like stopped him and goes uh you know i i meant what i said like you can be that guy and you need to be that guy for after he got off, he, he like stopped him and goes, uh,

you know, I, I meant what I said, like, you can be that guy and you need to be that guy for us. And then Joe comes in and he hesitates on a shot and misses it. And yeah, back to kind of square one there. Um,

so as far as, as far as like, is this team back? Are they back to being, I don't know, to where they were, I guess, before the three straight losses or even to like where they were

after the K-State loss because that wasn't like a huge deal. Are they there? Like, do you view the Kansas State game on Tuesday night? Do you view it any different now that they beat Kentucky as opposed to if they would have lost that game? No, I think, well, maybe this is the same answer, but I think they are the exact team that they were before the k-state loss it's just that they're more adequately ranked like i never thought kansas

was the number two team in the country they just had a really impressive resume now that you tack on three losses and an impressive road win over an sec team i think they're about where they're at i think they're a fringe top 10 team with potential to, to crack into that elite status of the top four or five, six teams in the country. If a few things change, if one of these guys off the bench, if a couple of these guys off the bench emerge and can be real contributors,

right? If Grady Dick can maybe take that next step to becoming a really lethal player to somebody who asserts himself every single night, but I don't view them any worse or better or back to normal. I feel like they've mostly been the same team. They went through a midseason rut. And I know that the three games makes it sound worse than it is. One of them was a one point loss in overtime on the road against your biggest rival.

And the other one was against a Baylor team that is much better than we thought they were going into that game. They're one of the hotter teams in the country. So that's why I don't really view them any differently. They lost two, they lost three, could have easily been two losses, at which point we're not really talking about this team like hitting a lull because they do this every single year.

But yeah, I think they're, you know, somewhere between the sixth and 12elfth best team in the country but there's plenty of time for them to improve or sort of establish themselves as maybe being one of the teams on the outside looking in we're gonna get to some kansas state talk finish up with whose stat line is it anyway first this episode of lucky hawk brought to you by fan duel sports book this year the only app you need at your Super Bowl party is FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. We're really excited about our new sports betting partner for Locked On

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You can even bet on the Kansas-Kansas State game tonight. I like to do little parlays. Let's go with Jalen Wilson to score 15 plus points. Let's go KJ Adams to score 10 plus points. Grady Dick to score 10 plus points. That'll get around even odds for you. The FanDuel app is

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official sports book of the NFL. Disclaimer in the details on the show page. Kansas State preview. Kansas State's on Kansas State. Good old ESPN Plus game, 7 o'clock and 5 30 pregame on klwn so based on what you saw in the first meeting obviously a very back and forth game either team could have easily won it kansas had three players foul out um kind of a weird game at the end but

what would be the the most worrisome thing in this matchup like what is it that you saw in the first meeting that could give kansas the most troubles and Like what is it that you saw in the first meeting that could give Kansas the most troubles? And then is there anything that you take from the first game and go, yeah, but I don't know how Kansas state stops that. I'm going to be honest, Derek,

I'm not skirting your question, but nothing. There's not, I mean, Kansas is a better team. KU is a better team than Kansas state. You can, we can argue all day about who has the better resume. KU is a better team KU is a better team than Kansas State we can argue all day about who has the better resume KU is a better team

there's a reason why there's what 7 point favorites think about that for a second K State one of the hottest teams in the country they validated their early season success when they beat you at their place that was the moment where Kansas State

arrived in the national conversation this year tell was the moment where Kansas State arrived in the national conversation this year. Tell me why Kansas is seven point favorites in the rematch. It's because they're a better team. They're a better team. And if I just want to pull up, like that was the game where DeJuan went, what, one of seven from the field. Grady went one of eight from three. KU shot 21% from three-point range and still almost won and still almost won that game. Kevin McCuller scored zero points. You got absolutely nothing from your bench. How many of those things do I expect to continue? Is Grady Dick going to go one of eight from three again? Are Kevin McCuller and DeJuan Harris two of like, I mean, they might not be great scores, but they are high IQ elite defensive guards.

This is a top 10 backcourt in the country. They're just, they're just going to have another off night. Another one. No, dude, no, there's nothing about this.

This team is a case. It's a good team. I think they're a top 20 team in the country, top 15 team in the country, but I don't, there's nothing about the matchup that necessarily scares me because I think in a lot of ways, they're very similar to Kansas in that they don't go deep off the bench.

They rely upon really two guys to do a lot of their scoring. And unless you think that like, they're just going to go nuclear from three, like TCU did a couple of weeks ago. I mean, this is a, it's a good, it's a good basketball team but there's nothing about them that that scares me and there's not like a massive decided advantage that I see them having over Kansas where I could come up with probably two or three that I think Kansas has over them yes everything you talked about like the the kind of I don't know fluky might be the wrong word but of having three guys foul out and like you said Grady Dick one of eight from three.

Desi Sills for Kansas State had, what, 20-something points. He came in shooting 22% or something like that from three-point range. So you don't expect that to continue. I think the one thing that interests me in this game, when Kansas was having trouble early in the game, they were like switching everything, and they talked about this in the postgame. They started changing that as the game went on,

and they basically just told, hey, DeJwan harris just stick on marquise noel and he only scored four points and that's one of the best players in the big 12 i think coming into that game he was shooting you know an insane percentage is scoring over 30 points per game in big 12 play that's kind of the matchup for me like if marquise noel has single digits again you should win this game going away but if marququise Noel has kind of a 20-point game or something like that and you can't really slow him down, but then again, if you have DeJuan Harris on him, why would I think other to that? But K.J. Adams kind of dominated that game before he fouled out.

So I would expect a big K.J. game. I mean, why would you not expect another big Jalen game? If Kevin McCullers out there longer, Guardian, Keontae, Johnson, a little bit more like that helps you on both ends of the court. I think that it's interesting because there are so many avenues of why KU should win this game, and I kind of expect them to, but if they lose this game is it too early to say no no no why why and you know better than this too and that's that's why i'm upset with you is because you know better and you've seen this asking the questions but yeah but you shouldn't be asking that question you've

seen this conference be decided in the last week multiple times. You see it all the time. There were people asking it after K-State beat KU the first time. What happened? K-State went out and lost a game like a week later. I hate doing that. I hate doing that this time of year.

Being like, well, you gotta have this one. Well, you mean they've gotta win this one if they want to stay in the big... No, they don't. No, they don't. none of these games are must win none of them it would be very impactful if they won this game but to say that you're out of the big 12 race what would that put them two games back with eight to play crazy things happen look at this conference where is the where's the separation in this conference where is the line it's a serious question for you where do you see the line in this conference because I think it's after five I think between KUK State Iowa State TCU Baylor oh and Texas so

six all where where is the line between those six teams there's really not I mean the only difference is like you could say oh this team's better with their a plus game. This team's C plus game is better than the other. Like that's the only difference. Some teams are more consistent. Some teams have a better ceiling game. Like I think TCU has the best a plus game in the conference, but TCU doesn't play their a plus game a lot,

you know? So it's all the same. But so that's, so that's kind of my point though, is because when you get to like that number of six and maybe you think one of those teams doesn't belong, maybe you think T doesn't belong or that iowa state doesn't belong well when you get to enough of those teams they got to start playing each other all of these teams got to play each other and some of them multiple times still so they're going to like i i think

five five losses might get you a share of the Big 12 title this year, don't you think? I was looking back at 2018. I didn't remember the conference being this, I guess, well distributed with wins in 2018 when they made the Final Four and lost to Villanova. That Kansas team won the conference at 13-5 by two games. Every team in the Big 12 except for one had eight or more wins. Does that not sound like what is going to like happen this year? And the difference is I think only five teams made the tournament that

year. Or was it four? I think it was five or six. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right.

Because Texas snuck in. Yeah, you're right. This team, this conference is going to get six teams in the NCAA tournament. And as of right now, like, they all look like five or six seeds. Again, they're going to suffer losses and fall down the seed line.

But one team we know that's not going to happen to, like, Kansas is not going to be a four seed in the NCAA tournament. They're going to be racking up these wins. But I really do believe that. I believe five, maybe six losses will get you a share of the big 12 title. And if that's the case, no,

it's way too early to get into the must win. I know we like it because it's good conversation for shows like this, but I think we all know none of these games are must win. They're, they're big swing games and it certainly decreases your margin for error the rest of the way, but no, none of them are must win.

2011, Texas was 11 and 0. Kansas was 9 and 2. And that was when the Big 12 was 16 games. Kansas won the league by a game. And Texas that year, they, I mean, imploded down the stretch. I think they lost like three or four, four, five, something like that. And Texas Tech, that same year that you were talking about, 2018. I think Texas Tech lost like three, same situation,

like three of four down the stretch. No, they lost, oh my God, I'm looking at it now. They lost four in a row starting on February 17th. They were 10 and three in the conference, at which point Kansas would have been nine and four. And Texas tech lost four in a row, including four of their last five. And K you ended up winning it by two games,

by two games. A lot happens. It gets weird the end of February, man. All right, let's finish things up. Whose stat line is it anyway? This is Locked on Jayhawks. So first up for this week, whose stat line is it anyway? I haven't

been keeping a record at all of how you've been doing, but I know it's very good. You have a very good percentage. I think you've only missed one. Yeah, I missed one. It was the last episode we did. All right, this one I think is gonna be a loss. Yeah, I missed one. It was the last episode we did. This one I think is going to be a loss. I don't know. Maybe because you have to get three on this first one. This is a nation of three players against Kentucky.

17 minutes total. Zero points. One assist. One turnover. Three fouls. What three players put that together? Okay, so 17 minutes. What was the next stat?

Zero points, one assist, one turnover, three fouls. Okay, so it's not Ernest because he scored. One of them is Joe. Yes. Well, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby and Joe. Yes. Well, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby and Joe. Yes. I linked those two guys together. Okay, so those two, who's the third? Oh, did Zuby score? Didn't he have like an oop or something?

Who is the other player who came off the bench? You definitely know this. I'm surprised you haven't got around to this. Oh, who's the other player who came off the bench? You definitely know this. I'm surprised you haven't got around to this. Oh, it's MJ. It's MJ rice. So yeah, MJ,

those three. Yeah. Just getting nothing, nothing from the bench cards. I'm telling you, like you don't need consistent production from all of these bench guys. You just need someone to pitch in every night. And that has been,

what's plagued. Candace is too many nights. They've got absolutely nothing from those bench minutes. And that was light on the minute. That was light on the minutes. Usually Joe and Bobby are playing like 12, 15 at night. Yeah.

All right. This is in big 12 only play. I don't know if you know this, but sixth on KU sixth on the team in points per game in Big 12 play is averaging three points per game. So further distinguishing the lack of bench production. There are two Jayhawks who are tied for sixth on the team in Big 12 scoring with three points per game.

I'll just ask you to name one of the two. Okay. I believe one of the two would be zach clements that is correct zach clements and michael jankovich are the two answers i'm so glad you didn't make me name two because i was not guessing jay for the second one i just i i do you okay. Do we go back to the bill self preseason comment about Michael Jankovic? Should he be in the rotation at this point with the lack of guard scoring, going back to the first one we had,

I was at the TCU game. And when he came in at the end of the game, I turned him and we stayed for the bitter end. And I turned to my buddy. I said, you know, Bill said, he's a, maybe the best shooter on the team. My friend just looked at me. He's like, that's not good. Kind of like what I told you at the time. I go, whoa, really? We need to maybe peel back the layers of this, because this is not good news. Last one

we got here. This is from the Kansas State game that was in Manhattan. This player had five points. That was fourth on the team that game. He had three rebounds. That also was fourth on the team that game he had three rebounds that also was fourth on the team that game he had one assist and one made three-pointer he was just one of four Jayhawks to make three in that game who is it um gosh I don't know I don't know this one oh it's not a starter is it I mean you know it's not Jalen

Wilson so I'll help you eliminate that one I know it's not Jalen and I know it's not KJ and I know it's not McCuller did Grady only have okay oh Grady had more than five why can't I see this is where this is the individual game stuff kind of gets me sometimes one player one game

because they kind of run together especially when you give them to me a week and a half later well this is interesting because you can view this one of two ways this is either a bad game for a starter

or this is a good game for a bench player I know and I'm leaning towards it being a bad game for a starter but that I know, and I'm leaning towards it being a bad game for a starter, but that doesn't make any sense. I'm going to go. I'm going to go to Juan Harris.

It was Joey Asafo. Oh, man. Damn. So Joe can have another good game. I don't know. That's a good game. We're counting that for the bench. Yeah.

We need to up our standards a little bit around here. Five. Hey, five, five points. One assist. That's not cutting it for a big game for me. We've adjusted the line. Nick, I appreciate the time as always, man. Anything you want to plug before we let you go?

No, man. We're just, uh, we're putting out new episodes of waving the wheat every Wednesday. We had on Travis golf a couple of weeks ago. We had on, uh,

Jay Billis last week. So every Wednesday, so we'll be recapping, uh, KUK state. You're coming up on about 24 hours. All right. That's Nick Schwert.

I'm Derek Johnson. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll recap the KUK State game on tomorrow's show. Make sure you're subscribing wherever your podcasts are on YouTube. Later.