Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Lose 5th Transfer; MJ Rice Enters the Portal

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

MJ Rice is entering the transfer portal after one season with the Kansas Jayhawks after coming in as a 4/5 star recruit. It's the fifth transfer that KU has lost. Why it was an unfortunate season with a predictable ending, what it means for KU and what's next for the Jayhawks from anymore internal decisions to targeting transfer players.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, another Jayhawk transferring out of the program, number five with MJ Rice. Let's discuss what it means for him, for KU, and moving forward. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Jayhawks. I'm your host, Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk and the best of our CST podcast.

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. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're discussing the newest player to transfer from KU. That would be one MJ Rice. So Rice becomes the fifth transfer to leave the program for KU to this point. And now kind of all eyes turn on what's

going to be the case with Kyle Cuff I think a good amount of I don't know people who are in the know on this stuff seem to be leaning more toward him transferring but I guess you never really totally know now as far as Rice it wasn't a season that you would have hoped for. Came in 6'5", chiseled freshman wing from Durham, North Carolina. Played a year of prep ball in California and came in. Some sites had him listed as a five-star. Other sites as a four-star. The 24-7 composite had him listed as a four-star, but a high-end four-star, the number 32 overall recruit in the country,

and it just didn't really work out for him um certainly there were some injury stuff that uh really hurt the season for him and maybe prevented the the wheels from really getting going early on in the season i i think i heard some stories maybe early in the season talking about maybe a lack of i don't know, understanding of end-of-game situation or practice habits, I sort of think, but maybe some of that was just to do with the back injury, and that could be a real reason why. And at the end of the day, he only ended up playing in 23 games, didn't have a single start, played seven and a half minutes in the games that he did play, 2.2 points per game, one rebound per game, shot 41% from the field. He shot 20%, three of 15 from downtown.

In terms of the last time we saw him, it was the Texas game in the Big 12 tournament, which he actually played 15 minutes, oddly enough, in the Big 12 championship game against Texas, because KU was obviously without Kevin McCuller and everything. But it was sporadic play for him. And early early in the season there were some of those struggles then i think it was the second game of the year against north dakota state where he plays 18 minutes he has 10 points four rebounds looked really good in transition but couldn't really capitalize on that with more

minutes we didn't really see him he had the i think it was the kidney stones during the battle for atlantis which held him to i think he played three minutes against wisconsin he played 13 against tennessee but then the next game it was probably the best game we saw him play as a jayhawk 21 minutes played against texas southern he went six of nine from the floor two of four from three five of six the foul line he had 19 points to go with three rebounds and it was texas southern sure but it was like okay this guy's starting to get a little bit going there then he gets seton hall 13 minutes five points off the bench it was like maybe he's establishing something but then after the break it just never came around for him and there were a few moments like the texas game at home he played well but he could never really capitalize on that momentum whether

it was the injury or practice habits or inconsistencies, whatever it was, just could never kind of keep the arrow going forward. And it's unfortunate for him because, obviously, this is a guy that came in with expectations of being a one-and-done. He wanted to come in and have a Grady Dick-like season. He wanted to come in and, at the very least, if he's coming off the bench, make a big impact, be playing 20, 25 minutes a game, and in some games close and really provide a scoring punch off the bench and it just never materialized for him uh so you understand why he's going to go somewhere

else i think from the ku perspective it's obviously very unfortunate when you looked at this team's roster coming into the year it was you you were certainly relying on both those freshman wings with grady dick and mj rice because you knew they were going to have to play an important role on this team. Grady obviously did with MJ. You didn't end up getting it. And the bench was a slog. It was a struggle for KU all season long. If you would have had a guy that you thought was going to be able to come in and contribute right away at a high level, giving you real contributions off the bench.

And beyond that, a guy that can kind of get his own bucket a little bit. Now we saw him struggle shooting the ball and maybe he wasn't quite ready to be that guy. Obviously, you know, shown by the lack of playing time and everything, but the potential of MJ Rice was to be the guy that, yeah, could come off the bench and create his own shot or drive to the rim or be another shot creator for you. Who's another athlete for you i mean it's not like you had crazy athleticism on this last year's team and a bunch of guys that were throwing down

jams like you had kj and ernest throwing down lobs but as far as the wings go he might have been your best like power athlete from that standpoint but it just again never materialized and you never got to really see that come together. And there were a lot of, I think, comps made with MJ Rice to Wayne Seldon, both kind of power guards. Wayne Seldon was still like a top 10-ish recruit in the country who was known for being a good shooter. He struggled a little bit in his early going,

but he still was playing a lot for those teams. With MJ, you didn't really have that go in. So it sucks for KU it didn't work because that could have been the difference if MJ Rice hits of KU maybe still playing right now because they have another world-class athlete who's scoring for them and giving them those contributions off the bench

that they didn't really have this season. As far as how KU views this, I think that you could convince me both parties are content with the result here in that for KU, well well this didn't really work out you don't want somebody if they're disgruntled and unhappy sticking around the program and clearly you have some other targets you're going after in the transfer portal you have some good freshmen coming in that sometimes that can be more helpful for giving out minutes or maybe you can even find

a better player in the transfer portal than what MJ Rice would have been as a sophomore at KU. So from that standpoint, it could. And for MJ Rice, he gets a new start somewhere. He may find somewhere that ends up being a better fit for him. I would imagine he still is going to get like a power five somewhere, but maybe less of like a blue blood and more of a power five that he can come in and play through his mistakes as opposed to when he's at ku you make one mistake you make two mistakes

you're going to the bench right away uh so that'll be good for him i would imagine and i i think for ku it's not that you wanted him to leave like i said you could you know obviously like maybe mj rice's potential is better than the player you would get with his scholarship in the transfer portal. But you can argue that the player you get in the transfer portal is better for this specific season for your team. But still, you probably didn't want him to go if you're KU. And I'm sure there was some conversations with the staff or with Bill Self to try to maybe keep him because of the potential i talked about this last week there's not a lot of guys in the transfer portal who are potential pros like you got one last year with kevin mcculler right um and that's not necessarily a first round pick but i don't know probably early second round

pick with kevin usually if guys are going to be pros or if they're going to be first round draft picks they go to the NBA draft. Usually if guys are sticking around the transfer portal, there is a reason because they're not quite draft ready yet, or they are not seen as being, you know, one of those top 40 picks in the NBA draft. They have holes in their game. So you're not going to get a perfect player who does this, this, this, this, and that, and is an amazing athlete because that player is either just staying at his current school where he's the star or he's probably going to the NBA draft. And the idea with MJ Rice, because of the potential, I mean, you're talking about from his athleticism, the body type, the potential of what he could be is a potential maybe first

round pick. And you're not going to find many of those guys in the transfer portal. So from that standpoint, it made sense if KU were to view this as, no, we don't really want you to leave, but if MJ viewed it as, yeah, but I don't think this was the best opportunity for me, or maybe I'm looking for something else, you know, and he goes. But again, you could convince yourself that KU was like, well, we'd rather get the player that maybe helps us win now a little bit more because if you're just doing this from a playing time standpoint this isn't the situation of you know maybe if you're like Zach Clements you transfer out and you go well

they have Ernest Uday and Zuby Ejifer in front of me right now and KJ Adams if he's playing any minutes at the five even though I think KJ will be more of a four this year he could play you know five ten minutes still at the five it's going to be hard for me to get on the court with mj you're viewing it as like oh well all these guys could depart i could have a real look at playing time but you gotta compete out with some other guys that they're gonna be bringing in with the transfer portal or with freshmen and because it just didn't totally work out i don't think uh his his dad or parents were overly happy with the situation i think mj might have been a little bit happier than than the parents there but um that's what kind of just ends up happening now all right we're going to talk about what it means for the

wing possession and what's next for ku and just second year but first this episode a lot on jay hawks is brought by fanduel sportsbookbook. The tournament is heating up. There's no better place to bet on the action than at FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. That's because right now, FanDuel is giving new customers a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's up to $1,000 back in bonus bets if your first bet does not win.

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Just go to fanduel.com slash locked on to $1,000. When you join FanDuel today, just go to fanduel.com slash locked on to sign up. Make every moment more with FanDuel. All right, what this means for his position specifically. MJ, kind of a wing type, could play the two and three mostly. I think you'd probably get away with him playing as a small ball four, even though he's 6'5", because of how athletic he was and kind of strong and built and everything.

So realistically, either way, it's just wing minutes because I think that's the way Bill Self is going to want to continue to play with at least two big wings out there, a lot of times three big wings. But I do think this year you'll see a lot of DeJuan playing next to El Marco Jackson. Also, though, El Marco Jackson at like six foot three with the type of athlete he is and the length he has, he basically is like outside of just the six three part he basically is like a wing but i mean he's gonna jump higher than a lot of those other wings and the length and everything um so what it means for the wing position well pretty much means that

your entire wing group is gone um i guess going back to yesterday's episode is there a small chance the grady dick comes back maybe but realistically j realistically, Jalen Wilson gone, Kevin McCullough gone, Grady Dick gone. All going to the NBA. MJ Rice now transfers away. That means you have zero guys back from last year's team who played on the wing for you. You do have a lot of bodies there, at least potentially, based on some rumors about, okay, he was going to go after this guy in the transfer portal and stuff. And that'll certainly be the biggest position they target. As far as the guys

that you have on your roster right now that can play on the wing, if KJ does indeed move to be more of a kind of four man, okay, you kind of count that as being kind of a wing center hybrid, right? What if he plays, you know, 10, 15 minutes as a four, and then he gives you five, 10 minutes as a five man right so that covers some of your wing minutes there but it still leaves a lot to be open um i mentioned del marco jackson he'll play a lot next to duan harris at that two spot which will be counted as another guard but sort of as as another wing if you're viewing the wing minutes as the two through four positions um but then the the guys who are kind of true wings chris johnson

comes in and he's kind of a combo guard as well like he could even be your like third or fourth string point guard potentially but he'll probably be playing a lot on the wings you have him coming in jamari mcdowell uh known as a good athlete he's kind of a wing for you at the the three position and then marcus adams uh adams is listed as a small forward i'd imagine for ku he'll profile as a four man but you know you could probably play him at the three or the four so pretty much you have three freshmen coming in who are going to play along that wing and fill up the minutes but you also don't know who's gonna i mean just back to mj rice he's a number 32 recruit in the country which is higher than all of these kansas kids coming in with the exception

of i think el marco jackson i forget where marcus adams moved with the exception of I think Elmarco Jackson I forget where Marcus Adams moved into the reclass I think number 36 and MJ Rice was 32 so I I'm high on Marcus Adams I like his potential I think Chris Johnson can be really good like I think all these guys can contribute for KU at some point or another but sometimes with freshmen it takes a little longer there's the point right there with MJ Rice. So it's nice to say, well, I think Marcus Adams can do this, but this is why I try to be a little trepidatious with my freshman projections.

For some guys, it takes longer. And then almost you're better off just being pleasantly surprised if they do hit above that. Now, for the guys that are McDonald's All-Americans, I think you do, rightfully so, especially if they're like a top 20, top 25 kid like Marco Jackson, like Grady Dick was. I think that you're more right to expect higher contributions. But even then, we've seen kids come in.

Wayne Seldon played a lot, but he certainly struggled. Quentin Grimes played a lot, but he certainly struggled. Bryce Thompson, you know, he wasn't a starter. He was coming off the bench of the rotation and everything. So you can't really be totally sure with some of these guys how it's all going to work. And that means that there is a lot of uncertainty in the wing position, which brings us to what is next. Well, KU is going to hammer the wing position in the transfer portal. We'll get to that here in a second with Locked on Jayhawks.

So what is next for KU? Well, as I mentioned, they're going to hammer the wing position in the transfer portal. I know there's been some talk about them being interested in Graham E.K. and the big man from Temple, and they had the in-home visit with Norm Roberts. If they have, because right now

you have three scholarships open, basically. If Grady Dick were to hypothetically come back, then you'd be down to two scholarships open, but we don't expect that. Right now you have three. The next big thing, honestly, is just the Kyle Cuff decision. Is that going to give you one more scholarship, or is he going to stick around?

I think that the way I view it, you basically have four scholarships here. One of them will either go to Kyle Cuff or someone who can be kind of a combo guard for you. It doesn't necessarily mean you expect them to start, but somebody that can at least compete with El Marco Jackson and be a veteran presence to him, and at the very least be someone who's comfortable coming off the bench

to be the backup for both of those guys, right? So that could be your first scholarship, and maybe that is Kyle Cuff. I think of the other three scholarships, two of them go to wings, and then the fourth one is kind of a pick and choose between either another wing or a big man that you find good enough i don't think ku is going to bring in a big man just to bring in a big man i think if they're going to bring in a big man it's going to be somebody who fits a specific role which is being able to score with their back to the basket now the case of the temple kid um maybe he's someone who comes in in the ilk of like,

we've seen this before, like a Hunter Mickelson who comes in and can compete for the center role, but he's more of like a bench big that fits a specific niche for you. With Graham Ike, if he comes in, maybe he can beat out Ernest Duday and he is your back to the basket score, right? So it kind of depends which way you want to go,

but that's kind of how I view them using these scholarships at this point. And that means you're bringing on at least two wings as part of this process here and when you look at the starting lineup dewan harris at the one i expect kj to move to the four uh probably earnest due day at the five unless you bring on you know one of those centers who usurps him then you're looking at those two other starting spots maybe one's el marco jackson and maybe the other is a transfer maybe both are transfers right does kj move to the four or five whatever it is either way you're going to be looking for a lot of

additions and that's kind of where we're at now you're waiting the kyle cuff decision then the next piece of the puzzle is the different visits the zoom meetings the in-homes the brings to lawrence and to kansas um there is a dead period coming up here for about a week. And then once that ends, I think it'll really start to pick up with those different visits. Keep in mind, I think Kevin McCuller chose KU in like the middle of May last season. Remy Martin,

I think also was the middle of May. And those are both guys who were going through the NBA draft process before they decided to come back. But there's going to be more names that continue to pop up in the transfer portal once the final four ends as the nba draft process goes on that it's going to continue to add more good players and more options for ku and so yeah it wouldn't hurt to grab a couple guys in the early period to make you feel like you have a couple things set in stone for the rest of the offseason but also it doesn't

hurt either to have a scholarship or two open through kind of the end of that nba draft process for a couple of those guys like kevin mcculler and remy martin that could just very well come back and end up being like toward or at the top of the transfer class coming in and then once that happens you'll start to get additions so i'd imagine we're going to see maybe we'll see a couple additions uh one or two additions in the next couple of weeks but i wouldn't be surprised if we don't see a couple more additions until maybe like the middle of may which i know that sounds like a long way away but hey i'm all for it uh i know for a lot of people transfer portal is not very fun and all these things but for me just trying to make

content and talk about different things there's so much content on, which actually I'm going to be doing a – I don't know if I'll get to this later this Friday or maybe next week sometime. We'll do a deep dive into all kind of the targets that maybe there's been rumors this player's heard from Kansas or who they're actually in on, who I would be going after, who I think makes sense for Kansas. So we'll do a deep dive on that. I think tomorrow's episode we're going to do a what we can learn from this final four about KU and roster construction headed into this offseason. But that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

We'll be back for tomorrow's show on your Friday because this will come out on Thursday. I guess who knows? Maybe we'll have heard from Kyle Cuff before then. Maybe that news will even come out, whether he's staying or going before this episode drops. And if that is the case, then the next episode would probably be dealing with that. You can find me on Twitter at D Johnson Radio.

You can hear me on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. And you can also check out Locked on Jayhawks. Subscribe anywhere you get your podcast. Find us on YouTube. Give us a thumbs up if you could. Have a good rest of your day.