Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Tack On PWO Transfer Guard Chris Carter from Cal State Northridge

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

Bill Self tacked on another transfer addition for the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team, this time adding Chris Carter, an athletic redshirt freshman guard from Cal State University Northridge. What he adds to the team and the walk-on group as a whole for KU will provide. What does this mean for the roster as a whole in Lawrence?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BirddogsGo to birddogs.com/lockedoncollege and when you enter promo code, LOCKEDONCOLLEGE, they’ll throw in a free custom birddogs Yeti-style tumbler with every order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED 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, KU Basketball has another transfer edition. It's another walk-on transfer edition, this time in the form of Christopher Carter, a transfer from Cal State University, Northridge. Let's discuss what it means. Are they done from here? Is this one of the best walk-on groups that KU has ever been able to assemble? All that and more on this edition of LOJ. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network,

your team every day. I am 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, of course, you can hear me right here as well with Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts.

You can also find us, like, and subscribe to the show on our YouTube page, which is right on YouTube with Locked on Jayhawks. Before we get into the action today, Chris Carter, the newest addition for KU basketball, was at another D1 school last year, transfers in. Now a preferred walk-on, what it means for the team, what he could bring to the table, both short-term and long-term, and maybe what it means overall for the roster as far as the walk-ons and just KU in general here. First, though, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On.

Make every moment more. Visit fanduel.com slash locked on to get started. So Kansas lands Chris Carter. I've seen a couple places where he has gone by like Christopher Carter and then some other places where it's been Chris Carter. So I don't know which of those two he prefers, but I think I've seen more of the Chris than Christopher. Nonetheless, he is a 6'4", 180-pound guard from Indio, California.

He actually is a former Aau teammate of marcus adams who just arrived to uh ku campus over the weekend and he ended up going to uh cal state university northridge out of high school which shout out that's my dad's alma mater uh go matadors and he redshirted in year one for csun and csunUN obviously has been, you know, it's not like this super well-known basketball program. They are a D1. He obviously redshirted there, and a program that right now is just like,

I think I saw they had like eight or nine scholarships still open on their team, so they're kind of in peril. Basically for Kansas, this gives them an opportunity to have a developmental player who at one point earned a d1 scholarship to go to cal state northridge elsewhere find his way to the roster without affecting the scholarship numbers if this is it for ku it basically gives you another like d1 level body basketball player type without having to use up a scholarship in terms of the self-imposed sanctions to where, you know, you could have gone out and maybe you could have got

like, you know, Arthur Columa going to Kansas state, right? Like you could have got a more impact play like that. Maybe you're just opting for somebody like this who can at least give you depth. If you didn't think Chris Johnson was going to be part of the rotation, you just exchange him out for another player, except this player who is also providing you more depth and probably isn't going to be part of the rotation. At least they're not on scholarship and you save a scholarship for a future year. I do think it's a little like the difference between the 12th, the 13th scholarship does not seem that big to me so i still think you should probably use at least your 11th scholarship because even if it's like uh well that means one year you're gonna have 12 scholarship players in the future as opposed to 13 i don't think it's that big of a difference whereas 10 to 11 to me feels like a bigger impact uh nonetheless this gives you more depth from your walk-on perspective and you know when you're looking for players who are trying to walk onto the program in the case

of this like this isn't your, I don't know, your normal walk onto the standpoint of like, yeah, he was at a D one. Like even if he was going to transfer and maybe there were no, those other D one offers that he was looking for, probably looking at like a high level D two at that point. You don't have someone coming in who is to walk on that. Like there's, there's no way there's a future there. Right. But at the same point in time, you don't have to coming in who is in to walk on that like there's there's no way there's a future there right but at the same point in time you don't have to worry about uh it being some sort

of like issue in the locker room when you bring certain players on there's always the question of well what happens if they're not playing what happens if they're not playing are they going to be a problem in the locker room are they still going to make an impact on the team in practice and yada yada yada right and with chris johnson it felt almost like that wasn't going to be a great fit if that ended up happening happening to him which it kind of seemed like it was but with with chris card i mean automatically for signing up as a preferred walk-on like you know what you're getting into he redshirted at cal state northridge like clearly this is not somebody who uh is going to come in and be like well i just did this at my last stop. Like, why would I not play here? Right. Like, you know, writing is kind of on the wall that you're

going to have to work your way up. You would assume he's friends with Marcus Adams, which that always kind of eases the process. I think for a couple of guys, especially, you know, I, I myself came to Lawrence from Southern California. And when I first got out here, you know, maybe those first few nights you're out here and you're feeling all alone and you don't know anybody else that is at the university. It's a different kind of experience. Now, it's different for student athletes like this because they're automatically vaulted onto a team with a bunch of other guys. Right. But, you know, that can never be a bad thing to make people feel more acclimated. And that'll be the case for, think carter and adams here um and obviously from you know carter's perspective being on scholarship at cal state northridge he is probably in a better

situation financially being a walk-on at ku uh so just again as somebody who came from the southern california area it was cheaper for me to go to college in lawrence at ku than it would have been to stay in state even within state tuition um now part of that was you know having scholarships and stuff but uh you're looking at it like you're covered there and then even if oh well it's csun he doesn't have to pay anything for school at ku it's a walk-on you do have to pay some for school he's going to make more nil money that's going to offset the amount of tuition and probably end up making you know like at csun you're probably looking at a net zero. You're probably not really making any NIL money, but your school's paid for.

At KU, you're paying for school, but you're making more NIL than the school is making and coming out a little bit on top. You get the D1 experience. You get to be a part of a winning program, all that stuff. So it makes sense from that regard. I want to get into his scouting report a little bit, what maybe the future could look like or the current for Chris Carter, KU's walk-on group as a whole,

and maybe what this means to the roster just in general. First, though, before we get to that, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Book. Make a fast break to FanDuel during the NBA playoffs because right now, new customers can get a no-sweat first bet up to $2,500. That's $2,500 back in bonus bets.

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As I talked about, he is a six foot four guard. This was a little blurb about him in his Cal State Northridge profile, because obviously we didn't get any stats of play because he registered last year at CSUN. Carter spent three seasons on the basketball team at his previous stop in high school, so a kid who hasn't even played basketball for overly long, earned several awards, at least organized basketball, earned several awards including Desert Empire League MVP in 2022 and first team all league twice helped his team win their cif division three title in 2020 while his team won championship in 2020 and 2022 also was a high jumper on the track and field team as a junior and senior won the desert league high

jump championship in 2021 before finishing as a runner-up in 2022 um and that obviously sticks out where it's like okay this kid's a good jumper right so that's automatically if you're looking at the scouting report you go to strengths athleticism is something that is a strength here you don't have to worry about this kid coming in and not being a good enough athlete and i i think a lot of times the the walk-ons that ku does bring in like they're either shooters or they're just like gonna work hard or whatever you're not always if you're ku getting walk-ons who are just like going to work hard or whatever. You're not always, if you're KU, getting walk-ons who are just like really good athletes.

I think with both Carter and then the Justin Cross kid they brought on from the JUCO level, who's a good rebounder, you're getting good athletes into your walk-on, which I think will help you in practice a little bit more to give you a different look while you still have those shooters like a Michael Jankovich or a big guy down low like Dylan Wilhite. You have some different options you can kind of throw out there in terms of those practice opportunities, but you see some of his highlights and, you know, a lot of them, I saw one highlight package of him

where it was like all, all dunks and like these crazy, not like windmill dunks through the leg, like awesome, really good dunks. They were all through like layup lines before the game, which, you know, so it shows he has athleticism but i i would have liked to see like more more highlights from you there but i i did see you know good set shooter on the wing good athlete i think the idea there is he has three and d potential because of the athleticism can get up and down uh good speed quickness jumping ability all that sort of stuff and that goes back to the high jumping stuff uh i think you add in the strengths column here should be content in his role he's known as being a good teammate in his previous stops talked about how you know he's had a past relationship with marcus adams and obviously you

know what you're signing up to when you become a preferred walk-on that it's going to be something where you're going to have to work your way up if you ever want to make it into the rotation at the university of kansas so you kind of know what to expect and that can be a good thing role allocation is so important over the course of basketball teams any league you know knowing who the guy is knowing what my specific role is is to be knowing where i'm supposed to fit in that is so crucial the teams that don't figure that stuff out tend to have more issues and even if it is down to a walk-on, those guys knowing their role and not causing problems and making everything fit in like a seamless puzzle piece

is super important. You also have time to develop him. He redshirted last year, so he's going to come in as redshirt freshman. Theoretically, you could have four more years of this kid. And you never know if he's going to actually work out to be a rotation player. Like anytime you bring on a walk-on,

there's never a guarantee that player is ever really going to play outside of garbage time at the end of games, right? Now, there are some success stories of players, whether it's, you know, a Christian Moody or you think back to like Connor Tehan working his way up from being a walk-on to a scholarship player. You can think back to like Clay Young playing rotation minutes in the first half of the 2017-18 season where there are success stories of players eventually getting there i would say if you're looking at a bunch of the different okay you has if you're just looking at ceiling of eventually getting to that point maybe there are a couple guys that you would be

like yeah that probably is never in their cards they're probably just going to continue to be you know important pieces of the program as walk-ons practice players that sort of stuff carter might be one because he had a previous d1 scholarship because of the athleticism yeah maybe by the time he is a senior year four in your program you are talking about somebody who maybe he can work his way into you know seventh or eighth man if he just works his butt off and boom you have another connor t hand which is never a bad thing to add depth in kind of different ways. So I think that's that's obviously a positive. Obviously, you do have to worry about the jump up in competition going from red shirting and a not very good CSUN program.

Obviously, this is someone typically bring on for, you know, a scholarship player and they're not. It's a preferred walk on. But if you're done bringing in scholarship players you know i don't know is it is it a choice is it a detriment to you to be done bringing in scholarship players and instead do this in case there's an injury and he's not ready to kind of play right away but as far as he kind of fits in in year one like ideally he's not going to play right like ideally you have your rotation you have your your kind of next wave of guys ideally you're only playing your scholarship players right and even if it does get to a point where you're playing a walk-on on the wing your probably first option in that scenario would be

okay michael jankovich is coming in and he's just going to play five minutes and try to hit a three and do the brock cunningham thing that that you know texas has or it's just like he's just going to be a glue guy and hit some threes and we're gonna hope he he holds up enough on the defensive end, right? So ideally, you're not going to play in year one, probably ideally not going to play in year two. Like I said, there is that scenario where there are some past walk-ons for KU who have been able to work into a bigger role eventually. It doesn't mean that you're saying that Connor Tehan was an all-Big 12 player, that Christian Moody or some of these guys that you think back of were all- all big 12 players but they eventually led to being part of the rotation and it's been a while since anybody has been able to do that I guess like I said you go back to the Clay Young one when

that team was very thin um kind of at the big man spot and he kind of had to play before Silvio arrived this team's kind of thin got the roster with only 10 scholarship players though so I guess it is entirely possible but I mean if you look three or four years down the road and he never is able to crack even the eighth or ninth man in the rotation okay well that's fine because that's what most walk-ons are going to be expected to do but then if he does crack the eighth or ninth man in the rotation if he does become like a sixth man like connor tn then it's found money then you found something and you developed something that you weren't totally expecting to but you're excited for and i think that when you look at carter's play he does have the potential to where you look at a lot of the

past walk-ons ku has brought on i don't think they have the same ceiling or athleticism juice that carter has so i i again like i i don't want to turn this into uh you know i don't want to blow smoke up your butt and be like like oh he's going to to be an all-Big 12 player by the time he's a senior. No, you don't know. It's a walk-on, right? Anything you get from him is found money. But I will say this, I think this becomes a really good addition for you to give you another competitive player in practice.

And when we look at KU only having 10 scholarship players, now you have, I think, six walk-ons, seven if Charlie McCarthy plays. I don't know what the deal is they're going to be with McCarthy. You need scholarship players to just keep practices going, right? Like, think about it. If you're doing a five-on-five scrimmage, that's already 10 guys out of the way, but you're going to have to sub guys out. You're going to have to give guys breathers. What happens if somebody rolls an ankle? What happens if somebody's sick that day? You have to have guys to be able to practice. You have to have bodies to be able to practice.

So half of a walk-on class is very good for KU. And Carter is certainly one of the, I think, more talented players of this walk-on class for KU. Let's finish up. I have a fun little question here. Is this the greatest walk-on class that KU has ever assembled here with Locked on Jayhawks? All right. Finishing things up Locked on Jayhawks, talking a little bit more about the walk-on class that KU has ever assembled here with Locked On Jayhawks. Alright, finishing things up with Locked On Jayhawks, talking a little bit more about the walk-ons. I'll be clear on that

question. Is this the greatest walk-on class KU has ever assembled? It's very hard to actually go back and look through this and come up with a set way of being like, no, this is the number one team, this is the number two team, because typically those walk-ons aren't playing a ton of minutes. I think it was Billy Packer who, did he call Christianian moody they're like the greatest walk-on

ever or something like that i could be wrong with who that was but um i think overall though i'll just say this like if the bill self era this does feel like the best group of walk-ons that ku has had think about it if michael jankovich came in for five minutes in a random game just because like let's say one of your other players was injured and you're like well we could use three-point shooting could he survive out there for five minutes and maybe hit you three and help you out a little bit yeah sure so you have that there uh you have a couple good practice bigs with dylan wilhite and justin cross who i think wilhite averaged like 20 and 10 his senior year of high school in san diego and he's got real size at like 6 9 230 240 230, 240. Justin Cross

averaged you know basically a rebound per minute for a team that won the JUCO National Championship last year. You look now with with Chris Carter coming in and having good athleticism and bringing you that kind of dunk package and stuff while their Evers put up like pretty good numbers at the high school level before coming in as a walk-on to KU again I don't I don't totally know what's there with like Charlie McCarthy I feel like I'm forgetting someone as a walk-on but point being that like if you threw out KU's five starting five walk-on picks and you threw them into some like low-end mid-major league I think they could like legitimately compete and do pretty well which I know that's

not like a huge bar or anything and this is kansas and you're going for national titles but i think that that gives you more depth more practice players more competitiveness and practice than maybe you have had in other years when maybe some of the walk-ons have come on and you know more so just been there for for other reasons or to just work hard and do this or that where these feel like more like legit players to a certain standpoint. And you have, I think, more guys here where you do raise the possibility of being like, yeah, I don't know that they'll ever be in the rotation. It's never wise to bet on that to happen with a walk-on.

But if in two to three years X, Y, and Z happened and they got better at this and that and they have shown higher potential than maybe some walk-ons in the past. Then yeah, maybe you could squeeze your way into rotation like some of those previous guys that we brought up, but I, so I know it doesn't sound like much, but it helps a team with less scholarships in practice. It helps a team with depth.

It helps give you at least a little more coverage in case of injury, at least to get through the season and get through practicing and all that sort of stuff. And certainly it'll be interesting to see what ku does from here because this is the type of move where you basically could convince yourself well we took on a d1 transfer without having to use a scholarship um and realistically that 11th scholarship by losing chris johnson we don't know how much johnson was going to play we were just going to bring in a developmental player anyway to just give us added insurance of depth for that 11th man does this cover that does this basically cover the point of being like well we got the developmental player that we don't know is going to be a part

of the rotation just like chris johnson was we have the more depth we have everything we wanted and we get to save our scholarship too so that we can just knock out all three in the same year or if the ncaa the irp comes down and says we need to lose even more scholarships now we're even in better position in a better situation for those future years after that I still think it would behoove Kansas to uh maybe add an 11 scholarship player I know there's this uh uh Mulcahy kid out there for Rutgers that Yongu out there for from Washington State um there's some interesting players and again like it's hard to be like, well, how much of a role would any of those guys have?

And that is certainly a real question. I still maintain that you can find 20, 25-ish minutes a game for some transfer to come in, right? I mean, if Hunter Dickinson's playing 30 minutes a game, if K.J. Adams is playing 25 minutes a game, if KJ Adams playing 25 minutes a game, you still have 25 minutes per game at the four. You still could have some minutes that you can hand out a handful at the three, right? Like you can find ways to make this work. I think it would behoove Kansas to add that one extra player,

but this certainly helps as you continue to add some real talent to the walk-on class for KU. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back on Wednesday's show. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about Paul Mulcahy or Adrame Deongu. Maybe we'll talk a little bit. I want to get into Jamari McDowell because we got to talk

with him over the weekend as part of KU Media Vale. And he's an impressive kid. I think Bill Self, he's going to be a Bill Self favorite by the time it's all said and done. How much will he impact in year one? Could it be a future thing? I don't know.

I think I'm very interested by maybe the competition between him and Marcus Adams. So we'll get to that later in the week. This has been Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us anywhere in any of your podcasts. You can find us on YouTube as well. Like and subscribe to the show if you could. Certainly helps us out. We'll talk to you next time with LOJ.

Later.