Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks' Rotation Projection: Balancing Talent, Depth and Playing Time + Recruiting News

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we do the impossible task of trying to figure out the starting lineup and rotation projections for this year's KU basketball team. 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 find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio, and this is Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for making LOJ your first listen every day. Thank you to every dares catching each and every show.

Starting point is 00:00:38 We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts, and you can also find us on YouTube where you can like and subscribe. We're going to be breaking down our rotation projections, our starting lineup projections, how deep could this KU roster go for KU, and also get into a little bit of recruiting news. KU football lands a quarterback for 2026 in on a couple receivers. Darren Peterson going to be announcing later tonight as well, if you're listening to this on your Friday morning.

Starting point is 00:01:03 First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Place your first $5 bet and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets. Guaranteed. Visit FanDuel.com to get started today. All right, so we're going to start with the rotation. And before we get into this, I want to clarify, this is the rotation that I am projecting, I guess, for the majority of it. It's difficult because you can have a beginning season rotation, an end of season rotation, a middle of the season rotation.

Starting point is 00:01:29 There's so many ways you can go about this. And it's also difficult because this year's KU team has shown several players who have looked really good early in the season, or you've heard good things about, or have had different moments. Tough to figure out who's going to be higher up in the pecking order. And also certain players who we thought were going to have bigger roles maybe haven't performed to the notion we thought they would to this point and where do they go in the pecking order um i'll i'll add this little caveat here if i'm predicting the opening night starting five which i still don't even feel great about this i'm going to predict juan harris i'm going to predict diggy coit in 19 points going to be tough not to start i'm going to predict DeJuan Harris. I'm going to predict Diggie Coit in 19

Starting point is 00:02:05 points. It's going to be tough not to start him. I'm going to predict Zeke Mayo into the starting lineup for AJ Storr. So you're playing like three guards next to each other. And then KJ Adams, Hunter Dickinson. That'll be my starting five projection for KU. But you can convince me that Rylan Griffin starts instead of Zeke Mayo or that Rylan Griffin starts with Zeke Mayo and Diggie Coit goes to the bench. It's a lot of big questions that are kind of in the air. I will also say, as part of these rotations, you know, I typically am one of the biggest champions of like, you go every offseason and you look at every player and you're like, oh, but I like that guy and I like that guy and he's a good pedigree or he was a highly rated recruit and you talk yourself into every single player

Starting point is 00:02:43 playing and it just doesn't happen. And typically, teams only play you know really a seven man rotation where the eighth guy is kind of like spot minutes or like a limited role maybe in the in the regular season or the non-conference it's eight guys with a ninth man in the spot role but there are certain precedents that have been set and if you're an everyday or you caught a rotation episode earlier this offseason and we looked back at that 2010 to 2011 Kansas basketball team that was the uh the Morris twin team that went 35 and 3 it was obviously a great team that ended up getting upset in the lead eight by VCU but you look at the minutes per game that team had 10 players who played 10 or more minutes per game now you could say well Travis Relaford who played 10 or more minutes per game. Now you could say, well, Travis Relaford, who played 10.4 minutes per game, he only played 29 games of the 38. So in a sense, you know, was he really part of the rotation? I don't know. He also started three games though, which is pretty crazy. So

Starting point is 00:03:34 they, Travis Relaford, Mario Little, Elijah Johnson, T-Rob, Josh Selby, Morris Twins, Tyshawn Taylor, Brady Morningstar, Tyrell Reed, all of them played over 10 minutes per game. Nobody played more than 29 minutes per game nobody played more than 29 minutes per game so I'm gonna actually predict that it's gonna be closer to that one and I can't wait to be horribly wrong all right so if you're watching on YouTube we have a graphic out and again this is probably gonna be horribly wrong this is the least confident that I have ever felt at this point in the season or going into a season about where things would be right and I mean not to say that I haven't been wrong before and won't be wrong again because that's absolutely true with some of this stuff and predicting but at least a lot of times you can

Starting point is 00:04:13 get into the ballpark with certain stuff this one felt like throwing a lot of darts um DeJuan Harris starting like that's okay I feel great about that but how many minutes is he gonna play right and I know there's probably gonna be some people in the comments being like, oh, they should start D.E. Coyd or Zeke Mayo and take away. Guys, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. You can argue if you think it's better or why you think it doesn't matter what you think.

Starting point is 00:04:35 Bill Self is not going to not start DeJuan Harris. DeJuan Harris has 29 minutes per game on this. And again, you could convince me it's going to be 32 because it's Bill Self with a six-year point point guard those guys typically play a lot of minutes you could convince me it's going to be lower at 26 because of all the guard competition they have um but the thing with dewan harris is i go back to that 2021 to 22 championship season they had a good other point guard option that they could go to with remy martin he played 29 minutes that year and that was even with remy having i guess the injury and whatever weird stuff was going on behind the scenes over the

Starting point is 00:05:10 course of that season. If Remy would have been playing the whole way through, does DeJuan end up closer to 26, 27 minutes per game? So I went with 29 on DeJuan, but I don't feel great about it either way. For the rest of the backup point guard minutes, I gave some of those minutes to Shaquille Moore. I also gave the rest of those minutes to David Coit. So both of them getting some point guard minutes. As far as the starting two guard, I got Zeke Mayo starting at the two. And again, this is not my opening night starter necessarily, just over the course of the season. Now with Zeke, it's interesting because you go back to the comments by Bill Self after the Washburn game that the reason he went to the bench after starting in the Arkansas game

Starting point is 00:05:48 was because Zeke wasn't shooting enough in practice and Bill Self wanted to get his attention. But he got his attention and it worked out off the bench. So there's two avenues Bill Self could view that. He could view it as, hey, it got Zeke Mayo's attention having to come off the bench. Is that the best place for him? Would it be good for him to be that six-man role that can come off the bench and just be firing? Or does he view it as, okay, he listened to me, message received, now I'll put him back in the starting lineup. I went back in the starting lineup here.

Starting point is 00:06:17 I have him playing 24 minutes per game as both the two and then a little bit of minutes at the three. When KU is like, hey, we want to play DeJuan next to David Coit and Zeke Mayo or DeJuan next to Shaquille Moore and Zeke Mayo when they do those three-guard lineups, which we did see a little bit in the Washburn game. I have Rylan Griffin starting at three over A.J. Storr. Now, you could argue that by end of season,

Starting point is 00:06:40 it would best behoove Kansas that A.J. Storr is a starter because that would probably mean he's playing well. But what happens if Rylan Griffin's playing well and then AJ Storr starts playing well later in the season, but your team is doing really well? Maybe you just stick with the group. I don't know. But Rylan Griffin, I have 24 minutes per game. And with Zeke, you could convince me 20 minutes per game, right? What if the athleticism doesn't translate? I don't know. You could convince me 30 minutes per game if he's one of the team's leading score same goes for like rylan griffin right i have kj starting at the four 27 minutes per game for kj now the thing with that is you look at some of the exhibition minutes for kj and he's like leading ku in minutes played in those so what does that mean does that

Starting point is 00:07:19 mean kj is going to actually play more this year or is it a fact that hunter dickinson was out so kj was not only logging minutes at the four he was logging some minutes as a backup five. He's not going to get that 100 back because you're going to have Hunter and Flory cannibalizing all of those. So I have KJ at 27 minutes, and then I have Hunter Dickinson at 28. Bill Self said that he wanted to get DeJuan, KJ, and Hunter to around 30 or under minutes per game. Boom, we accomplished that here. Now off the bench, we have AJ Storr, 24 minutes per game. And as you can tell, with Zeke Mayo, Ryland Griffin, AJ Storr, all at 24 minutes per game. A little bit of that is a guess to where it's like those are interchangeable and you could interchange like who's starting where

Starting point is 00:07:57 if they're playing the same minutes per game. And a little of that was on purpose because it is hedging the bet a little bit in terms of, yeah, I don't know. This is a very hard one to figure out this year. I have David Coyte playing 15 minutes, some at the one and some as the backup too. And that's another one where it's like, okay, he just looked so good against Washburn. Could he play 20 minutes per game? Could he play 25 minutes per game? Maybe it's not crazy. Or am I overvaluing a game against a division two school where he looked really good and in reality the the start against Washburn was a little bit of a nod by Bill South to say hey we appreciate you coming here we appreciate your hard work you're gonna have a chance to do

Starting point is 00:08:37 something but once we get to game time you're gonna play the Jalen Coleman lands role of more playing like spot minutes 10 minutes per game if you have the hot hand that day, maybe you play a little bit more. If you don't, you're going to play a little bit less. That's entirely possible too. But that one game certainly shadowing my judgment a little. So he's got 15 minutes there. Flory, just plug him in for whatever minutes you don't want to save. If you think Hunter plays 26, boom, that's 14 for Flory.

Starting point is 00:09:01 If you think he plays 30, that's 10 for Flory. I have Hunter at 28, so 12 for Flory. And think he plays 30 that's 10 for flory i have 128 so 12 for flory and then uh shaquille moore with 10 minutes that's one where it's like he would have never got hurt you could convince me he would be ahead of zeke and david coy in terms of the the minutes or to start maybe zeke would still be in front of him but you're certainly in front of david coy and we hear Bill Self talking about the defense. He loves defense. Now, does Shaquille Moore end up, you know, usurping one of these guys? Does the injury put him behind the eight ball?

Starting point is 00:09:32 I don't know. But we gave him 10 minutes per game, which is a little similar to the comp we had earlier in the offseason, talking about, you know, maybe he plays a Roderick Stewart role, where he's like this ninth guy, like extra guard who plays 11, 12 minutes per game off the bench as a guard who's athletic. So Shaquille Moore, 10 minutes per game. You could convince me that and David Coyt swap. Again, don't feel great about these, but these are trying to ballpark at least.

Starting point is 00:09:56 And then Rukies Passmore, eight minutes per game. Huge wild card because he played like the same amount of minutes in the two exhibition games combined as A.J. Stor did. So like who's to say Rukies pass more can't play 20 minutes per game. And then if that happens, where are you shaving off minutes? And that becomes the most difficult part of all this. You might look at one of these players on this list or that I've talked about and be like, that guy's going to play way more than that. Right. He's he's you have a mark for 24, 15. He's going to be like 25. He's going 25 he's gonna be 30 okay if you do that where are the minutes coming away and i do find it very interesting of how

Starting point is 00:10:31 much rickies passmore has played and that he got in in the second half of the washburn game with all starters around him at one point now is that just bill self trying to get some early season reps for a young freshman or was there something indicative of that? So that's what we have here. Again, a lot of this is probably going to be wrong because I don't feel confident in it as much as many other years to begin with. But this was my – I felt a lot better about this in the offseason than I did right now before the season starts.

Starting point is 00:11:00 So let's get to the biggest questions or things that could change some of this stuff. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode today is brought to you by 5-Hour Energy and our friends over at 5-Hour Energy know that being a passionate football fan isn't just a hobby. It's a way of life. It takes a lot of energy and power through all-day tailgates, touchdown

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Starting point is 00:12:19 Locked on College Football for your second listen every day, Locked on Big 12 as well with what's going on there. So what are some of the biggest questions that could change our early rotation projections well i think uh one big one into all of this and a lot of these are going to revolve around the guards like how good is shaquille morgan to be and i don't just mean in terms of the player himself but like also coming off the injury and trying to catch back up and I think also when you look at it like does missing some of these practices and some of these early game opportunities does it put him behind the eight ball to where you know normally him and

Starting point is 00:12:58 David Coit would be a very close competition but those extra reps that Coit has makes it too tough to overcome I don't know like that's going to be a part of it because you could convince me that maybe it's later in the year right if if one of the questions is the defense uh for zeke mayo and david coit is there a game where some opposing guards are constantly getting past those guys and bill self throws shaquille moore out there and all of a sudden he's able to limit the ball pressure and that endears Bill Self enough that that is the runway for him starting to get more playing time and do we end up seeing Shaquille Moore more than him right that's a big

Starting point is 00:13:33 question that could certainly change things um will David Coit translate playing against bigger teams right I mean David Coit is not an overly large guy and so if it's one thing like i said am i overreacting to a really good performance against a division two school right i mean what happens when david coy goes up against bigger guards we saw the arkansas game he was 0 for 5 you know what happens over the course of the season when you're playing bigger guards more athletic guards over the course of the big 12 and if it doesn't translate then maybe you are seeing more spot minutes for david coy and that's somebody who could drop minutes and divvy out some of those minutes to other places but what if it does translate what if he is that that defender who's at least being pesky and guarding guys 94 up the feet and 94 feet up the court and he's hitting threes and making extra passes giving

Starting point is 00:14:21 you an extra ball handler and quickness on the court. Then maybe he's playing more, right? Then with Zeke Mayo, like same question, except instead of against bigger teams, how is he going to translate against more athletic teams? Again, he struggled a little bit more against Arkansas. Now you can point back to for David Coy and Zeke Mayo, did they struggle versus Arkansas because that was just a good team who's on the road as their first game, still figuring stuff out. You're still without, you know, Rylan Griffin and Hunter Dickinson

Starting point is 00:14:44 and some of these things that is going to make life easier for you or was that a real flaw that we'll see later in the season against better teams right those are the real questions um that could swing some of the minutes pretty sizably for each of those individuals and then if the minutes is going down for any of them it's minutes up for other players if the minute's going up for one of them it's minutes down for somebody else and i think in that same relation like does one of those three players by far end up being the best player you know right now we have them combined for like 49 minutes played in our projections but what happens if like bill self is like no this guy's by far the best of those three he's gonna play 30 minutes a night the second best gonna

Starting point is 00:15:23 play like the other 19 and then the third guy's just not in the rotation like that could happen too right or do they all end up being pretty equal where they're all playing around the same minutes per game um the other part of this is like what are you getting from aj store if it's the aj store we saw early in the season or in the first two exhibitions i should say um he's still going to get good minutes because bill self wants to figure him out because the highest ceiling version, the highest potential version of this team involves AJ store being a key contributor, being a good player on this year's team and trying to unlock that, trying to figure that out.

Starting point is 00:15:53 So he, you know, is it going to be like, how long is that going to last? I guess, how long is the leash going to be? How many minutes are we talking while you're figuring that stuff out? Like those are the real questions that kind of come down to this and really make it interesting.

Starting point is 00:16:07 And then at what point do you pull the bandaid, pull the ripcord, so to speak, to where it's like, hey, this ain't working. You know, it's time to give your minutes to Rakeesh Passmore or whatever it ends up being, right? Like that's another big question here is how much does self really drain the minutes of duane harris kj adams hunter dickinson because he said he'd like to get those guys minutes closer to 30 under 30 per game it's one thing for him to say it it's another thing for him to do it because i don't know we see him go with the guys he trusts all the time and especially early in the season when you might be saying hey we have a higher ceiling if we can give this guy more reps early in the season, but we really got to win this game.

Starting point is 00:16:50 He's going to go with guys he trusts. And so can he give that longer leash to those players that allowed DeJuan, KJ, and Hunter to play under 30 minutes per game and give those other bench guys the opportunity to take advantage of that? There's a little bit of I'll believe it when I see it but he has said it so that's why we projected it but again wouldn't surprise me if those guys all end up playing 30 minutes per game all right uh let's get some recruiting news k who is a new quarterback in the class of 2026 and darren peterson announces later tonight this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with FanDuel,

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Starting point is 00:17:48 You'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. That's Fanduel.com. Never waste a hunch and make every moment more of Fanduel, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL and the Locked On Podcast Network. I'm finishing things up on this episode, and we will have a bonus episode if there's good news tonight and Darren Peterson becomes a Jayhawk, and I guess we'll start right there with that recruiting news. So Darren Peterson, top five recruit in the class.

Starting point is 00:18:17 Commaguard seems like Kansas has been kind of the favorite for a while here, but sounds like there's been some late push from some other schools that makes it an interesting decision that will happen at 8 o'clock tonight like i said if there's good news we will have a bonus show uh for that a lot of ku football news jaylen mason who is a quarterback in the class of 2026 local kid originally from maize i think he goes to wichita northwest high school also had offers from iowa state and liberty he is a three-star in rivals. He is a three-star with on three, whereas an 88 graded, and he's the number 33 quarterback in the class at on three, which out of comparison, David McCombs, number 32, Isaiah Marshall's number 30. I think a lot

Starting point is 00:18:55 of KU fans think highly of both those quarterback recruits that bring it in. So when you're looking at Jalen Mason, you're looking at somebody who is right in that same range of players. The biggest difference though, is that Jalen Mason class of 2026, that would make him what still a junior in high school. So still a lot of time to, you know, improve and bounce that up even more before he ends up coming to college. Now, this is one where you might be thinking, Hey, you have these good quarterback recruits already in tow. Why do you keep adding more? This is just business in college football. You bring in a quarterback, every class, some schools bring in two for KU their rule typically is one um and the reason why you don't know with quarterback attrition quarterbacks transfer all the time

Starting point is 00:19:33 right you don't know which ones are going to end up being good you can think all these guys are going to be great but you know players always don't live up to their recruiting ranking especially the quarterback position where there's so much asked of you. So you continue to add to it, and especially because it's like, you know, if you're viewing Isaiah Marshall to the class of 2026, basically, with Jalen Mason, like you're talking about a two-year difference to where, okay, by the time Jalen Mason arrives on campus, Isaiah Marshall could be a redshirt sophomore, and he could be a year or two away from, you know, moving on to the NFL

Starting point is 00:20:04 if things were going super, super well. Although, although you know that's a story for another day because I don't know that Marshall is NFL size we don't need to get into that right now nonetheless um I really love the KU quarterback room that that they're bringing in and all these guys um you know you don't know what's going to happen what if the the loser of the quarterback competition if it comes down to Isaiah Marshall versus David McCollum, what if the loser says, okay, well, since I lost the competition, I'm going to transfer away. Now you have Mason coming in and boom,

Starting point is 00:20:33 but it seems like they're recruiting that position really well. One position they haven't recruited super well has been receiver, but it sounds like they're starting to make some moves on that. They are working to flip a receiver who's committed to Nebraska, who's kind of a local kid, so that be big and then also jayden nickens who is a four-star receiver he's also a two-star sport player would play basketball at ku as well um it sounds like there's some real ku interest and possibility there that'd be big time obviously they need a good receiver i mean they're gonna be losing all these good receivers in the offseason

Starting point is 00:21:04 here you need some receiver talent infused in and uh if you get a two-sport player out of it obviously the scholarships are expanding in basketball to 15 although i'm not even sure you're counting that because i thought the ncaa rule was the scholarship that you count to for your sport is the first one you play i think there was like back in the day it was like miami and florida state were like taking advantage of it and they would sign kids to track scholarships because they would be on the track team they'd run like you know sprints and stuff but then they wouldn't have to count the scholarship to football so they changed that rule where it's like your first sport that happens is the one that that you're a part of but that would actually make him only under scholarship

Starting point is 00:21:39 for football theoretically um but yeah even if it was basketball too even if you had to count for both you have the extra scholarships next year anyway and so uh obviously this would be pretty football, theoretically. But, yeah, even if it was basketball, too, even if you had to count for both, you have the extra scholarships next year anyway. And so, obviously, this would be pretty cool. And there's a, I wouldn't say super long lineage, but there's some really cool players who have played, you know, two sports and had a lot of success. I mean, you think of, like, Ray Evans, you think of Charles Gordon, you think of James Sosinski, of course, who could forget Big Game James.

Starting point is 00:22:04 All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get podcasts, including on our YouTube page. Back tonight, if there's some good news, on Darren Peterson as a bonus show for that. So make sure to subscribe to the show on YouTube and anywhere you get your podcasts. See you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks' Rotation Projection: Balancing Talent, Depth and Playing Time + Recruiting News

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