Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks vs UCF Knights: Can KU RESPOND After Brutal Loss vs Houston Cougars?

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Kansas UCF round two. We preview Jayhawks and the Knights. You are locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on? Derek Johnson here at D. Johnson Radio. This is Lockdown Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. Thank you. Every day is catching each and every episode and thank you for listening on today's episode of locked on Jayhawks,

Starting point is 00:00:33 wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube, we're going to be breaking down team UCF previewing the Jayhawks and the Knights. We'll get into our top headlines for the game. We'll get into our UCF scouting report, and we'll also get into our matchups of the game and players to watch. This episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Super Bowl 59 is here featuring the Chiefs, and there's no better way to make every play more exciting

Starting point is 00:00:55 than with FanDuel Sportsbook. New customers can bet just $5, and if you win, you'll score $200 in bonus bets. Download the app or head to Fan fanduel.com to get started today okay who takes on ucf tuesday night game seven o'clock um so kind of that tweener game not the six or the eight and headlines coming into this one how do you overcome that gut punch if you're kansas coming into this game after what just happened the last time you were on the court against houston right like how do you overcome that?

Starting point is 00:01:25 How do you mentally get yourself up off the mat? This feels like a pivotal moment, and I wouldn't even just say this game this week. I feel like between this game and the Baylor game on Saturday, this feels like a pivotal moment in the season for KU, where you can have that be the defining image of this season against houston and it can lead to a you know basically snowball just continually rolling and getting bigger downhill or you can have that be the you know a foot in the sand moment where okay clearly there are things that you know need to work on and like overall you played a good game against one of the

Starting point is 00:02:03 best teams in the country that you can use that as a propelling point to get better from it and um i think it'll be interesting to see how they respond starting with this game now kansas is trying to sweep ucf and interestingly enough the last time they played ucf was also coming off a loss at home and they responded pretty well in that one right they went down in Orlando and they won 99 to 48 it was not a game from the word go it was kind of refreshing to have that happen for KU because we'd seen a lot of close games recently right um and Kansas just dominated that game from start to finish there wasn't really one thing where you look to and say yeah they didn't really do that well like they rebounded the ball well they shot the ball well they got open looks uh guys on the bench went off like Flian Padunga was insane that game.

Starting point is 00:02:46 If you remember, that was the game where he had that, like, steal, dribble it down the court himself, and threw down the dunk where it was like, uh-oh, this kid's pretty special. And so Kansas was, I mean, the defense was great. Obviously, you held them to 48 points. That was a dominant outing for KU, and now you're trying to sweep UCF,

Starting point is 00:03:01 and I'm not going to expect KU to win by that many points again, but can you have another comfortable win where you win this one you know by 12-15 points and then you're not having to worry about late game situations where you're having kind of PTSD to what happened on Saturday night the other big headline here this is possibly the last chance for AJ Storr for Alan Griffin for Floyd Padunga to earn more minutes to earn earn more trust of the Bill Self Circle of Trust, so to speak, when KJ Adams does return. There's a chance that KJ could return on Saturday against Baylor. And what's interesting, when you look at that trio between Storr, Griffin, and Flory,

Starting point is 00:03:35 they actually played pretty well in the first UCF matchup. 37 combined points. I mentioned Flory's outing, how well he did. Stor and Griffin also had some good shot totals, too. I remember Griffin making some good hustle plays, too, on the defensive end. Stor kind of filled up the stat sheet at the end of the game in garbage time, but still, you put it all together and, you know, good production from those three. And you look at it, it's going to be very interesting to see how, I mean, Flory Badunga just had an unbelievable game. He was KU's best player against Houston,

Starting point is 00:04:02 and he was on the court for over 30 minutes in that game. What's going to happen with KJ comes back? Is Flory going to go back to playing 10, 15 minutes a night? Or has that earned him more minutes where he can still play 20 minutes a night and maybe KJ's minutes go down? I certainly know what I think a large chunk of the fan base would prefer, but I don't know what Bill Self is going to do. And so this is the last opportunity. You want Flory to have a really good game. You want, you know, Ryland Griffin to have a really good game so that they would be working on multiple straight good games in a row, specifically with like Ryland Griffin there.

Starting point is 00:04:35 I think with Flory, it'd probably stretch back even more. But you want them to have that positive momentum if you want them to play more so that Bill Self feels like they're stringing it together consistently for when KJ does come back, right? Because that is going to create a bit of a minute crunch in a real way. Now, when we look at the UCF Knights, they come in at 13 and six on the season, four and four in Big 12 play. They are fresh off an 85 to 58 beatdown of TCU. So they just crushed that TCU team that you beat on the road by double digits yourself over the past week. And UCF is ranked outside the top 60 on Ken Palm. I would say

Starting point is 00:05:11 they're probably a bubble team right now in the NCAA tournament. They've got some work to do, but they're certainly in the running for it. And a win in Lawrence, a win at Kansas would certainly go a long way in trying to get them to the NCAA tournament. What's interesting when you look at it, all four of their losses in Big 12 play are the top five teams in the league. They lost to Houston. They lost to Iowa State. They lost to Kansas.

Starting point is 00:05:38 They lost to Arizona. You could argue those are the four best teams in the league. And three of those are by eight or more. Two of those are by 25 or more. So there is a question right now, is UCF good enough to compete with the top teams in the league right now? Or are they just picking on the middle and the bottom of the cup? Fine, too.

Starting point is 00:05:56 Like some teams aren't, you know, some teams are opposite of that. Some teams lose to the bad teams and then beat some of the good teams, right? I don't know what the best formula or best resume is or why that happens, but that's kind of been the case for them so far. You look at the personnel of note for UCF right now. Darius Johnson really struggled in the first meeting between these two teams. Johnson is averaging 14.5 points per game, 42% from three. He's been a really good offensive player.

Starting point is 00:06:20 He was just one for eight. So maybe you give credit to DeJuan Harris. Maybe you give credit to, I don't know, Shaquille Moore. That was his first game in the starting lineup for slowing him down in that one. Then they have six-foot-three guard Jordan Ivey Curry. He goes for 14.7 points per game, 36% from three. Really, for everybody in UCF on that game, there was not really efficiency on the offensive end. Obviously, they scored under 50 points.

Starting point is 00:06:42 Then they have Mikey Williams, who's an interesting freshman who started to play more recently. He had a bunch of off the field stuff or off the court stuff, I should say. At one point, KU was recruiting him, but I don't know. That ended up falling off. And then a lot of the off the court stuff kind of happened after that. But anyway, he talented freshman starting to play more. So I guess maybe somebody of interest there. Dallin Coleman, he had nine points off the bench against ku uh in the first meeting so he was pretty good there he's

Starting point is 00:07:08 since seen more playing time recently overall for the season seven points per game four and a half rebounds 35 from three ucf does have some good three-point shooters and then uh they also have jj taylor on the wing he's uh been more of a big body defensive guy kind of struggled on the offensive end um the the interesting guy to point to here is is their six foot seven 235 pound four man which is kishon hall and he was slowed down by kj adams kj adams in an excellent game defensively on kishon hall uh and flory too uh the combination of those two held kishon hall is four for 17 from the floor and this is the guy that leads the team and Keshon Hall at 17.2 points per game he's adding 6.8 rebounds

Starting point is 00:07:50 per game, 2.5 assists per game and he has 43% from the field 35% from three, 80% at the foul line. He's just been an excellent player so far he's putting up all conference level numbers to this point in time but KU really slowed him down 4 of 17 and it felt like that was a good matchup for KJ.

Starting point is 00:08:05 You have another 6'7", 235-pound guy, but now if you don't have KJ in this game, then it's like, okay, who else is going to step up to try to defend him? The center position, they have a 7'2 freshman, Mustafa Thiem. Thiem, Tim, I forget how to pronounce it. 8.8 points per game, 5.3 rebounds, 2.6 blocks per game. He's obviously big he's giving it blocks uh he's 8 of 22 from three point range so like he can shoot threes a little

Starting point is 00:08:29 bit uh 51 percent from the floor and then he's spelled by a couple 610 guys uh rocus jojo jokis jokis i don't know uh six foot ten benny williams um they do have jalen sellers who was great last year um but he's had injuries and kind of struggled this year, hasn't played since the last matchup between Kansas and UCF, but maybe somebody to keep an eye on. What they do well, this is a UCF team that plays very fast. They have the fastest tempo in Big 12 only games. They're solid at three-point shooting. They're third in Big 12 only games, too,

Starting point is 00:09:00 and they do it at solid volume, so it's not just small volume. They've been a solid offensive rebounding team. They get to the free throw line well, and they convert them when they get there. And then they force turnovers at a pretty good rate on the defensive end of the court. What they've struggled with, though, they're outside the top 330 in the country

Starting point is 00:09:17 in defensive rebound rate. So this has been a bad defensive rebounding team. They're barely inside the top 300 in two-point percentage offense. So they haven't finished around the rim which um they've also seen be ranked second to last in big 12 only games that hasn't gotten better um their overall defense is outside the top 80 nationally and in conference only games they are last in big 12 play on the defensive end of the court and the reason why has been poor two-point defense and the defensive rebound and you're giving up a lot of extra possessions and you're allowing teams to finish at the rim part

Starting point is 00:09:47 of allowing them to finish at the rim is after they get an offense rebound and then they get an easy stick back so keep all that in mind let's get to our matchups of the game players to watch this is locked on jayhawks our episode of the show today is brought to you by fan duel sports book and super bowl 59 is, I guess, officially here. We still got 13 days for the hoopla to get there, but one game's left, two teams, endless possibilities. And there's no better way to make every play more exciting than with FanDuel Sportsbook. Whether it's predicting the first touchdown, calling the MVP, or even betting on the coin toss, FanDuel makes it easy to get in on the action. With live betting

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Starting point is 00:10:51 Bet with Fanduel, official partner of Super Bowl 59 and the Locked On Podcast Network. Alright, continuing on here with Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for making this your first listen every day. Don't forget to check out Locked on College Basketball for your second listen every day as well. Our matchups of the game.

Starting point is 00:11:09 Number one, get out to a hot start. So after the way that Kansas just lost to Houston, I think it is imperative to get out to a hot start. And I think just in general this season for KU, they've had some games, like most of KU's games that they've lost. The Houston one was probably the exception most of their other games they've had bad starts they've had slow starts they've been lethargic they haven't come out with a ton of energy that wasn't really the case in the Houston game but

Starting point is 00:11:32 that's been the case in a lot of their other games like that's one reason to do it but yeah I mean after the way they they finish that game against Houston you don't want to have a bad start to this where you compound what happened against Houston with this one. And you start getting to a situation where you're wondering what the team's confidence levels are. You're wondering, you know, is this starting to affect them in other ways, like mentally? You know, you don't want that to happen. If you get out to a hot start initially, like you wonder if that just buries UCF, right? If you start this game out on a, I don't know, let's say a 12-2 run or something,

Starting point is 00:12:10 does UCF in the back of their mind start going, oh no, here we go again. We just lost by 50 at home to this team. And then they start doubting themselves, right? So I think getting out to a hot start is pretty imperative just from, I think, a mental edge perspective and a mental boost for yourself. Number two would be crash the glass. UCF's worst defensive rebounding game of the season it was their loss to kansas in orlando jayhawks grabbed 52 of their misses now kansas didn't miss a ton of shots necessarily when they did they were getting a lot of their offensive misses and we mentioned ucf has not been a good defensive rebounding team well so far this season ucf's four worst defensive rebounding games they're all losses their own four and their four worst defensive rebounding games also when you look at their games against just ken palm top 200 opponents so it's still pretty defensive rebounding games, they're all losses. They're all in four, and they're four worst defensive rebounding games.

Starting point is 00:12:48 Also, when you look at their games against just Ken Palm top 200 opponents, so it's still a pretty wide net, they're just 5-5 when they allow the opposing team to have an offensive rebound rate of 30% or higher compared to 5-1 when it's the flip side. 5-1, much better than 5-5, right? Interestingly enough, KU has really gotten better as the season's gone on in offensive rebound rate like this has been something that i've been kind of saying uh in different recaps as the season has gone on well here's the numbers to back that up so on the season overall including conference play kansas is 148th nationally in offensive rebound

Starting point is 00:13:19 rate that's a 31.4 percent clip prior to conference play starting though, they were under 30%. In Big 12 only games, they've seen that number rise to that 31.4% clip because in Big 12 only games, they are grabbing 34.7% of their offensive rebounds. So basically one in every three of their misses, a little more than that, they're grabbing the offensive rebound. And in Big 12 only games, they're third in Big 12 only games in offensive rebound rate so they've been much better at it of late and i think the reason why is simple one before kj adams got hurt he was doing a much better job rebounding like that's going to help but number two we've seen flory badunga play a bigger role and part of that it was kj getting hurt and flory is obviously an excellent offensive rebounder. So like that is going to help.

Starting point is 00:14:05 So do this. Continue to do it. Continue to make a strength and, you know, take advantage of it against UCF. Number three would be finishing at the rim. And obviously, if you grab an offensive rebound, that's going to give you opportunities to finish at the rim. And you need to finish those opportunities. Well, UCF is giving up a ton of looks at the rim this season. Teams are getting 22.6 shots per game at the rim.

Starting point is 00:14:26 That's a lot of shots allowed at the rim this season teams are getting 22.6 shots per game at the rim that's a lot of shots allowed at the rim in fact uh ucf that puts them in just the sixth percentile at preventing such shots so basically um they're one of the the you know bottom tier teams in the country at preventing shots at the rim and you know part of it obviously if you're giving up a bunch of offensive rebounds it's going to lead shots at the rim so there is a bit of it it there. There's a bit of it, though, elsewhere, too. And, you know, I think part of it is when you're getting the ball inside needs to be getting the ball inside cleanly, not turning the ball over, right? Doing a good job of getting in those entry passes, not making risky passes, not turning it over.

Starting point is 00:14:58 But then when you get it there, you got to finish. And I think on paper, you would look at this and say, oh, Kansas typically does finish at the rim right uh kansas is shooting 69 and a half percent at the rim this season that puts them in the 93rd percentile in the nation over the last five games kansas is shooting 72 percent at the rim that's in the 99th percentile for college basketball over the last five games so you just say keep that going and especially uh from a standpoint of like even though ucf does give up a lot of shots at the rim teams are shooting 62 that's about nationally

Starting point is 00:15:29 average right they have a 7-2 center that's going to help them there um so for kansas this kind of just comes down to because we've seen this before like this happens to teams in the same way that you can have nights where you're cold shooting threes it happens less often with layups and less often with shots at the rim right um that it does with threes like threes is more of an up and down the the shots at the rim typically is more consistent but there are games sometimes where you struggle to finish at the rim we see that probably a couple times a year right we've seen in past years too you don't want this to be one of those because you're going to get a lot of opportunities there and you need to take advantage

Starting point is 00:16:00 of those to take advantage of uh what ucf does which is they don't give up quarter threes and you're going to get some of those shots at the rim so take advantage of those to take advantage of what UCF does, which is they don't give up quarter threes, and you're going to get some of those shots at the rim. So take advantage of them, convert them when you get those opportunities at the rim, and let's lead that into our players to watch next with Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode of the show today is brought to you by TurboTax. This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax. Taxes used to be waiting and wondering and worrying if you were going to get any money

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Starting point is 00:17:30 anywhere you get your podcasts or on our YouTube page coming up Tuesday night or Wednesday. Okay, so player matchups. I'm going to go with Keyshawn Hall versus the KU Foreman. KJ Adams, and some of it was Flory too, but it was a majority of KJ shut down Keyshawn Hall. He was four for 17 from the floor you took away their best you know a player i guess you could say and uh really made him uh inefficient in the game if you're okay well now you don't have kj adams who is arguably

Starting point is 00:17:56 your best defender and was a good matchup for this specific matchup with ucf on that defensive end of the court um so who steps up for KU, right? We've seen AJ Storr play the four a little bit. We've seen a little bit of Ryland Griffin. We've seen a lot of Floyd Badunga playing the four. Flory obviously, you know, did some of that too with Keyshawn Hall and he was excellent against UCF. So maybe you have confidence there. The worry would be that if the guard in Keyshawn Hall drives into Flory and maybe picks up some foul trouble on him, right? And then can AJ Storr do enough defensively, because obviously I don't necessarily view AJ Storr as being this like lockdown defender, to slow down Keyshawn Hall or will Hall go off? That would be a big worry for me. Same with if it's Rylan Griffin. If Rylan

Starting point is 00:18:37 Griffin's having to play the four on Keyshawn Hall, Keyshawn Hall's 235 pounds. Rylan Griffin is certainly not 235 pounds. So can Kansas do a good job and hold down Keyshawn Hall in this game in the same way they did in the matchup in Orlando? I think it's going to be very interesting. On the other end of that, I don't think Keyshawn Hall is a bad defender, but I don't think he's like an elite defender either. I think he's just a fine defender. So can Kansas score on him, right? Can Flory, on the other end, if Flory is being guarded by a six foot seven guard, can Flory take advantage with a bunch of offensive rebounds and finishing over him?

Starting point is 00:19:10 And can AJ Storr score on him, right? And maybe have a little bit of a speed advantage. Can Ryland Griffin have the shooting advantage on the outside? So I think that's going to be a fun chess match back and forth for both teams when they're on the offensive end of the court. High on the go-off meter,

Starting point is 00:19:23 we're going to go with Hunter Dickinson. We just mentioned they give up a ton of shots at the rim. Okay, Hunter takes a ton of shots at the rim, right? So that would certainly make sense that that would be the case. Beyond that, Hunter Dickinson had an unbelievable game in the game in Orlando. And I do think that it would have been interesting to see, like if the game was closer, what stats Hunter could have put up, because it might have ended up being his statistically best game that he had, at least scoring wise at Kansas. He ended up with 27 points, which is certainly a lot, but we've seen him score in that range before, even more than that before.

Starting point is 00:19:58 But what was crazy, he scored 27 points on 12 of 16 shooting in just 23 minutes of action in the matchup in Orlando. So again, if the game wasn't a 51 point game and he plays 30 minutes, does he score 35 points? You know what I mean? And is it his best scoring game at KU? Point being, he had a really good matchup for, you know, he played really well in that matchup. I think he'll have good vibes coming into this one. I think he'll have another big performance for you. Getting those shots on the inside that UCF certainly gives up a good amount of, I think he'll be able to performance for you, getting those shots on the inside that UCF certainly gives up a good amount of. I think he'll be able to get some rebounds, right, with them struggling. Even though I view Flory as the better offensive rebounder,

Starting point is 00:20:31 Hunter's the better defensive rebounder, Hunter still gets offensive rebounds too. So I think it'll be a big game for Hunter Dickinson, double-double, 20-plus points, and you'll see if KU can bounce back from that tough finish on Saturday night. 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. See if KU can bounce back from that tough finish on Saturday night. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including our YouTube page. Again, we will be back at you for a post-game recap after the game.

Starting point is 00:20:56 KUUCF usually comes out 30, 45 minutes after the game. So see you then with LOJ.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks vs UCF Knights: Can KU RESPOND After Brutal Loss vs Houston Cougars?

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