Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks vs Baylor Bears: Impact of Dajuan Harris Injury Status

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, will DeJuan Harris play for KU as we preview the Jayhawks against the Bears of Baylor? You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's happening? Derek Johnson here. This is Locked On Jayhawks. Thank you for making it your first listen every day. What's happening? Derek Johnson here. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thank you for making it your first listen every day. Thank you to Everdares, catching all of the shows. And you can find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show or

Starting point is 00:00:35 anywhere that you get your podcasts. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we are previewing Kansas Baylor. What's going to happen with DeJuan Harris? Can the Jayhawks win in Waco for the first time in a while? We're going to get into our matchups of the game that could determine it and players to watch and who could go off for KU in this game. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by GameTime, where you can download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Get into the KU Iowa State game for for 116 right now on game time at least as

Starting point is 00:01:06 of recording hopefully a deal still there if you're looking all right so ku takes on baylor this is a saturday evening game for ku down in waco and this has not been a successful place for ku to play of late i mean it makes sense you think of uh who have been the best teams in the big 12 with kansas you know along this past whatever handful of years, right? You think of Houston since they've joined the league these past couple of seasons. You think of Iowa State these past couple of seasons and some of the years in the 2010s, right? You think of some years here and there with maybe Oklahoma or maybe in the early days of Bell South, Texas. And certainly you think of over the last whatever decade or maybe even a little bit longer than that,

Starting point is 00:01:42 Baylor as consistently being one of the top half teams, one of the competitors for the conference with you atop the league. So obviously it's going to be tough when you play a good team on the road. But Kansas has not won in Waco since 2020. Kansas last won in Waco in that crazy game in Waco where Yudokazabuke just kept dunking the ball and you won at a really good Baylor team. And arguably those were the two best teams in the country. Kansas ends up going 17-1 in Big 12 play that year

Starting point is 00:02:10 with their only loss at home to that Baylor team where they beat in Waco in 2020. So that's their last road win in the series. And, you know, we'll see if they can get back on the winning ways there. I think also another headline coming to this one, Kansas trying to build some momentum after the Houston loss, right? Very easy that the Houston loss could have led to your demise in the next game. And it almost did with how that one win against UCF to where you'd really be feeling like if you would have lost that UCF game and you'd be on two straight losses,

Starting point is 00:02:38 and now you'd be playing at Baylor, a team you haven't won in Waco in five years. And then you have Iowa State coming to town on Monday, and then you're on the road against Kansas State, who you've lost on the road to the last couple years. That is a tough stretch to stare down the barrel if you're KU. So important to win that one, but it'd be even more important if you could win this one and really start to build up some momentum and really feel like you are overcoming what happened in the Houston game.

Starting point is 00:03:00 Now, obviously, one big key to this game is going to be what's the health status of DeJuan Harris, of which, you know, in hearing from bill self at his press conference ahead of the game in waco didn't really get much of an update the update was uh we'll see kind of based on what happens today in practice which um doesn't really tell us what is going to happen i kind of wonder if i'm going to put you know a little bit of a i don't know if this is quite tinfoil hat territory probably not quite that extreme but um i do wonder if bill self in the back of his mind is expecting to one harris to play on saturday and he didn't want to give anything away to baylor right obviously this is a big game it's played on the

Starting point is 00:03:39 road um i i wonder if like in my mind if're asking me, if you're just making a reckless prediction, what do you think happens? I'm kind of leaning toward DeJuan Harris ends up playing, but that's without knowing anything as part of this. Like I'm not in the room. I'm not the doctor here. Like I had no idea, but it'll certainly have a big impact on the game. We saw it have a big impact in the UCF game. KU had a lot of sloppy turnovers early,

Starting point is 00:04:01 would have helped for KU to have another defensive guard to slow down some good offensive guards for UCF and that's going to be kind of similar to this Baylor matchup in terms of what they like to do well shoot threes have or shoot threes well they have some scoring guards which let's get into that Baylor comes in at 13 and 7 on the season they are 5 and 4 in the big 12 so far this season they're in 26th on ken palm they're 29th on bart torvik top 10 offense basically um right around there but the defense is outside the top 70 which is honestly very very similar to where they've been these past like three seasons they've consistently

Starting point is 00:04:37 been one of the best offenses in the country but they've consistently been like among the teams that have good offenses one of the worst defenses in the country and that's really been like among the teams that have good offenses, one of the worst defenses in the country. And that's really been the case since Jerome Tang left. I'm sure those two things are correlated in a little bit of a way. But they come into this one off an overtime loss in Provo during the week at BYU. Prior to that, they had won two in a row. They beat Kansas State and at Utah. And then before that, they had lost two in a row at Arizona and at home against TCU.

Starting point is 00:05:05 So kind of up and down so far this season. You look at the personnel, there's some really good star power on Baylor this season. They have two dynamic freshman guards, 6'1 point guard Rob Wright. He's averaging 12.5 points per game, almost five assists, shooting 45% from the floor, 36 from three, 83 at the foul line. He just had 22 points against BYU. He's been a very impressive freshman for them. Speaking of impressive freshmen, 6'5 guard Vijay Edgecombe is probably going to be

Starting point is 00:05:31 a lottery pick in the NBA draft. He's averaging 15 points over five rebounds, over three assists, over two steals per game. He's getting almost a block per game, which is a lot for a guard. 44% from the floor, 39 from three, 77 at the foul line. So you have these two guards in Wright and Edgecombe who are basically combining for 27, 28 points per game. They're doing it on high efficiency. They're hitting their three balls. And in the case of Edgecombe, he's averaging 26 points per game over his last three games. That is about as dynamic of a backcourt as you could ask for.

Starting point is 00:05:58 You look at some of the other games where Kansas has played dynamic backcourts. I think of like Iowa State. Well, you know know that certainly wasn't ku's best defensive game i would say or um i don't know i guess they were okay on the defensive end that game but you look at the unc game like that was a good backcourt and they certainly gave up a lot on the defensive end so it'll be interesting to see how that one goes here they also have jayden nunn who's 6 4 10 points per game 44 from three he's he's a sniper outside jeremy roach uh the transfer from duke he's put

Starting point is 00:06:25 up 12 points per game but he hasn't played since january 19th against tcu so i don't know what his status will be for this one then you have a couple wings six foot seven jalen celestine he gets more than eight per game he's also a sniper from three 39 from three and then jason asamoto is six eight he's more of a glue guy defensive wing type but he'll uh see a little bit of time not as much as celestine the big men are really interesting for baylor because this is not an overly big team nor chad o'meara is a double double machine transfer from miami was a starter on their final four team he's only six seven listed 240 he's a mountain of a man on the inside kind of a bowling ball type he plays the four and the five but uh you know don't let the hype fool you he's a very productive player over 15 points

Starting point is 00:07:09 over 10 rebounds per game he's getting over a block over a steal he's shooting 50 percent 57 percent from the field um over two tries per game from three 31 percent so he will take him here there 70 percent at the free throw line he's just a really good player and then their center six foot ten 230 pound josh ojianwuna ojianwuna i don't know how to pronounce it but he plays a five for them uh 7.4 points per game 6.7 rebounds per game he really only shoots it when he's like wide open if he gets like an uncontested dunk or you know an easy lay he's shooting 76 from the floor right um which if you're shooting 76 from the floor it tells you that you're probably taking a lot of high percentage shots. And if you're only averaging 7.4 points per game, despite shooting 76% from the floor, it kind of tells you that like, he's not taking a bunch of like post hooks or like turnaround fadeaways. He's just in the flow of the offense.

Starting point is 00:07:56 If you leave him open, he'll throw it out of dunk, but then he'll, you know, provide size on the inside. He'll get some rebounds, stuff like that. What Baylor does well, they play slow on the offensive end of the court, but that doesnlor does well they play slow on the offensive end of the court but that doesn't change that they are a super efficient offensive team they don't really turn the ball over they have a top 20 offensive rebound rate so they our team takes advantage of their possessions and they're going to out shoot opponents in a lot of ways by not turning it over and getting those offensive rebounds and then they combine that by being a lethal three-point shooting team,

Starting point is 00:08:25 37% from three essentially so far this season with all those guards that can shoot them. Defensively, they do have a top 50 turnover rate and a top 60 steal rate. So this hasn't been a great defense so far this year as we talked about, but they do force turnovers. And if Kansas doesn't have DeJuan Harris, maybe that becomes more of a problem for them in this game. What they struggle with,

Starting point is 00:08:45 Baylor doesn't get to the free throw line much this season. They get their stuff swatted a ton, which in Big 12 play has been a part of why they only have the 13th best two-point offense among the 16 teams in the Big 12. So if you can limit their three-point shooting, then it's a little bit tough sledding for them to get easy buckets. Defensively, they have struggled at defensive rebounding, and they're sending teams to the line too much. They've also been torched from three on the defensive end. So maybe this is a game where KU can get some open shots from three. And then Baylor's only middle of the pack in a lot of the other defensive numbers.

Starting point is 00:09:20 So a lot of times if your defense isn't as good, maybe you're just horrible at a couple of things. It's more so for them. They're just not like great at anything on the defensive end of the court, except for really forcing. I think that's it to our matchups of the game. Players to watch. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode is brought to you by GameTime. This year, GameTime makes it even easier to create those unforgettable moments with their new feature, GameTime Picks. It filters out the fluff and shows you only the best deals on great seats.

Starting point is 00:09:50 You can focus on what matters, which is being at the game. You know, I'm looking at tickets right now for the KU Iowa State game, which is Kansas' next home game in the field house. And obviously, it'll be a big one with Iowa State. Again, by the time you listen to this, it might be gone because it's such a good deal.

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Starting point is 00:10:43 Matchups of the game for Kansas against Baylor for KU to come out on top. Matchup number one is guard the three ball. Kansas just got torched against UCF. UCF shot nearly 40% from three, and they did it on super high volume. And I would imagine Baylor saw that film, and they're probably licking their lips coming into this game because they have a ton of three point shooting threats as a team. They're shooting 37 percent from three. Right. Rob Wright, Vijay Edgecombe, Jaden Nunn, Jeremy Roach, if he plays Jalen Celestine, like that's five guys who are legit knockdown shooters.

Starting point is 00:11:19 And then, you know, Omer can like at least hit them right so it's a team that it comes from a lot of different areas and in games where the Bears are shooting 37 percent or better from three-point range they're nine and one in games where Baylor is shooting you know below that quota so below 37 percent they're only four and six if you can limit their three-point shooting which you know sometimes there's only so much you can do about that right sometimes you might have good defense and they might hit a ridiculous three in your face, right? You have to just hope that by consistently not giving up open looks or by not letting them get in a rhythm or by contesting the shots that more often they do end up missing. But the key there is

Starting point is 00:11:57 you have to get out on shooters. You have to chase them off the three-point line and get a hand in their face. If you let them get comfortable, you let them get too many open threes, that's where the problem comes in and they can thrive. The thing for their offense, as we talked about earlier, they're not a good two-point offense. So if you can take away those three-pointers, they don't have a lot of other ways to beat you. Now, if they're playing Norchado Mir at the four, then I think Kansas actually might be able to match up okay

Starting point is 00:12:22 because you look at it and with them basically playing three guards with none at 6-4, basically at the three at that point, O'Meara at the four, who's kind of an undersized center, and then having a traditional center at the five, you just think of, okay, well, if KU's playing Flory at the four, or KJ at the four, you can match up with that okay. Of course, part of that is assuming KU is not playing three bigs. If KU is playing three bigs, I think this is a horrible matchup for them

Starting point is 00:12:51 because you look at it and KJ chasing a guard on like KJ is a really good defender, but he's a good defender on, you know, wings. I don't know that you want him. He doesn't have the foot speed to chase a guard around. Right. And like he can survive a possession here or there if he has to switch on to him, but like have the foot speed to chase a guard around right um and like he can survive a possession here or there if he has to switch on to him but like that's not gonna thrive right if you're playing kj3 flory at the four and hunter at the five and they go with a

Starting point is 00:13:14 lineup where they're playing omir at the five like sure you're gonna dominate them in size but they are just going to blitz you with speed and three-point shooting so that would be a bad matchup but if ku is just saying we're not gonna play the three big lineup anymore which I'm kind of hoping for and then O'Meara slides to the five I think it'll be interesting to see what KU's counter is does Kansas counter by playing small right do they counter by saying we're going to play Rylan Griffin at the four or we're going to play AJ Storr at the four or something like that or do they just say we're going to keep playing it and I think it'll be very interesting how K ku matches up on the defensive end and can they chase them enough off the three-point line number two kansas scoring inside but not with floaters baylor is four and seven this season

Starting point is 00:13:54 when teams shoot 50 or better from two against them they're nine and oh when they don't um furthermore they are oh and six when teams 55% or better from two-point range. So, again, this kind of goes into the idea that, you know, if you can find a way to score efficiently on the inside, it's tough for them to win these games. And on the season, Kansas is shooting 54.4% on twos. They're shooting just 51.4%, though, in conference play. That number is just eighth in Big 12-only games.

Starting point is 00:14:24 Feels like KU has missed a lot of layups, a lot of shots around the rim, and that's backed up there. just 51.4% though in conference play. That number is just eighth in Big 12 only games. Feels like KU has missed a lot of layups, a lot of shots around the rim, and that's backed up there. They're only middle of the pack in two-point shooting. But the thing that's weird about it is Kansas has shot 70% at the rim this season, essentially. 70%, that's very good. But the problem is Kansas is taking a lot of floaters

Starting point is 00:14:40 and they're taking a lot of mid-range shots and it is dragging down their two-point percentage. And you look at the lack of free throw numbers. I know this wasn't the case for the UCF game. KU shot a ton of free throws. But overall in the season, Kansas is not shooting a ton of free throws this year. I think a big reason why is they're settling for those floaters and mid-range shots. Sometimes you just got to kind of be aggressive and say, you know what? I might get hammered here. They might call it. They might not. But like, I'm going to take the layup here. A, because it's a higher percentage shot. B, it gives me a better chance at making a free throw as opposed to throwing up this

Starting point is 00:15:09 floater that we've seen Kansas. You know, I think they missed a lot of those in the UCF game specifically. So I want to see Kansas play more aggressive there and attack the rim. Don't just settle for those floaters in mid-range. Baylor, what's interesting, has not been giving up many shots at the rim this year. They have been playing some of that like 1-3 one that we Scott Drew played for so long before they changed back up to man-to-man they'll kind of switch it up and what they do that's part of it they're in the 93rd percentile preventing them can you find a way to crack into that and still have an efficient

Starting point is 00:15:38 two-point offense even though they've been kind of taking those away so far this season. Number three, and our final key to the game matchup for KU, don't let Vijay Edgecombe or Rob Wright do what Keyshawn Hall did to you last game. And obviously these are very different player styles of player positions that they play, body sizes of the players, but just in terms of having a player go off, right? Having a Keyshawn Hall go for 30 plus points. Edgecombe's getting 26 points per game his last three. Rob Wright's coming off a 22 point game both of them represent players that can go off in any given you know game can you hold both of them under 20 right if you can do that i i think you might be okay i mean i guess if they both get 19 points like is that really that much better i don't know

Starting point is 00:16:19 it kind of depends on what happens with stuff but like can you avoid one of them from just absolutely going off and torching you that would i think go a long way for for kansas and i don't know kind of keeping the crowd out of it maybe a little bit more um don't let them kind of take over the game because it becomes tenfold if keshawn hall would have been doing that in the game in orlando and um you know i i think this all kind of goes back to like what's gonna happen with duane harris right because i view shaquilleille Moore as being a good defender, though I don't think he had his best defensive game last game against UCF, but I do think overall he's a good defender. If you have DeJuan Harris and Shaquille Moore, that's super helpful because they have those two

Starting point is 00:16:56 dynamic guards that you can say, okay, we're just going to put those two on those two and try to match up and try to limit them a little bit more than they're used to. But if DeJuan can't go, and even if you say, oh, even if Shaquille Moore has a good defensive game on one of those guys, then the other one goes off, right? So I think that'll be very interesting in how that does kind of have an impact on the game. All right, let's get on to our players to watch, player matchups, player we think can go off.

Starting point is 00:17:18 This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us on LOJ. We'll have a post-game recap of the KU-Baylor game coming at you later this weekend. And possibly any other news, if there's any breaking news in some sort of way, get to that on Locked on Jayhawks. So make sure to subscribe to the show anywhere you get your podcasts. Don't forget to check out Locked on College Basketball for a second listen every day as well.

Starting point is 00:17:44 Our player matchup here, I mean, going back to what we were just talking about, I think if DeJuan Harris plays for KU, it ends up being Edgecombe. Well, it'll be interesting. I think it makes sense to put Shaquille Moore on Edgecombe because Shaquille Moore has a little bit more builds to him, right? And Edgecombe's a little bit bigger. And then you put DeJuan Harris on Rob Wright. But I think those are the matchups, right? And Edgecombe's a little bit bigger. And then you put DeJuan Harris on Rob Wright.

Starting point is 00:18:07 But I think those are the matchups, right? It's Wright slash Edgecombe versus Harris and Shaquille Moore. But again, if DeJuan can't go, then how do you kind of operate that if you're Kansas? The other interesting matchup to me is just kind of the, you know, Norchot O'Meara versus whatever position he is playing at that given time if omir's playing at the four you know i i think he's gonna have a bit of a strength advantage on even kj i mean kj is a strong guy but that actually could be an okay matchup for ku if he's at the four if he's at the five i think you look at it and say throw the ball to hunter every possession if you have this six seven center trying to guard

Starting point is 00:18:45 him at the other end and if they double team him then hunter ends up with seven assists you know in the night so i think that's going to be interesting the kind of the chess match at both ends how that impacts things and then also if you have lineup for flory's at the four and omir's at the four how does that work because you have the length the athleticism the wingspan of flory versus the just pure grit and size of omir is he able to bully flory who's uh you know probably going to be looking to add some weight in the offseason right versus will flory's athleticism and length bother omir in a weird way i think that's going to be just super fascinating matchup based on where he's playing now as far as our high on the go-off meter,

Starting point is 00:19:30 so if you look at it, Evan Mia rates Rob Wright as the 140th best defender among 142 qualified in the Big 12. Now, I do take some of those numbers with a grain of salt because it's based on box score plus minus when you're on the court. It can be a bit dependent on your teammates a little bit here and there. And, you know, I don't know. But, like, I do find that interesting because that is a very low number on there. Does that mean the Kansas can take advantage of it, right? If he's guarding DeJuan Harris, can DeJuan have a good scoring game if he plays?

Starting point is 00:19:57 Does this mean a game where, like, D.E. Coit coming off the bench, if he's being guarded by Rob Wright, like, maybe D.E. Coit can follow up what he just did with another good performance um I I also think in going back in their recent looking back at their five most recent box scores there was a backup big man for BYU who had uh over 20 points Ernest Uday obviously we're very familiar with him 16 points at the center position and then a Arizona seven footer had 19 off the bench and And those are all games in the last five. I'm going to actually pick Flory Badunga for my answer here because I do think on the offensive end,

Starting point is 00:20:33 I could see Flory being able to finish over O'Meara in that situation. I could see Flory being the recipient if they're playing that 1-3-1 zone of catching a lob and throwing down a dunk in a lot of ways, slipping behind the defense, getting those dunks. And I'm going to say Flory has a big game in Waco. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page.

Starting point is 00:20:57 Back for a KU Baylor recap later this weekend. See you then with LOJ.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks vs Baylor Bears: Impact of Dajuan Harris Injury Status

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