Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - KANSAS PORTAL TARGET: KJ Lewis Brings Defense & Athleticism from Georgetown Hoyas

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks eye K.J. Lewis as a transfer portal target, seeking to bolster their defensive prowess and on-ball chaos. Would pairing Lewis—a disruptive guard with elite steal rates—with freshman shot-maker Taylen Kinney echo last season’s backcourt formula? Bill Self’s priorities for athleticism and defense could lead to a crucial roster shakeup. Host Derek Johnson analyzes Lewis’s strengths—rebounding, fast-break efficiency, and defensive impact for Georgetown—against his shooting limitations and fit alongside Kansas’s freshmen and potential new wings. The conversation explores KU’s need for improved floor spacing, perimeter production, and whether Lewis’s attributes could unlock the championship potential Kansas lacked last year. Will Bill Self replicate last season’s guard structure, or opt for even greater offensive firepower? Jayhawks fans won’t want to miss this scouting report and roster strategy debate. Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub     Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 5-Hour ENERGY Have your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at https://5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. Mazda Like our players, we’re driven by the details. Highlights make the reel. But the work behind them makes it count.
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I really think Bill Self would like some KJ Lewis. So let's break down his game in another transfer portal potential target episode. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. How's it going? Derek Johnson here with another Locked on Jayhawks episode. Bonus episode for you. We're going to be breaking down KJ. Lewis, who's in the transfer portal. somebody that KU had some interest in last off season.

Does he make sense this off season? We'll get into his potential fit with the team, strengths and weaknesses of his scouting report, and just some info on KJ Lewis. Let's start right there. Again, KU showed a little bit of interest last off season. I don't know to what extent, but at least, you know, you see these social media tweets of like,

oh, these teams have reached out and showed interest. I mean, they offered a scholarship. They tried to get him to visit. Does that just mean they called and said hi? Who knows? But he is a 6'4, 210, peasant. guard who's going to be a senior this upcoming season with one year left. He was a top 100 recruit out of high school, goes to Arizona and immediately hit the ground running. He was all PAC 12

freshman team honorable mention over six points, three rebounds per game on what was a two-seat Arizona team. And then as a sophomore, he goes up to 26 minutes per game. He averaged 10.8 points per game, 4.6 rebounds per game, 2.9 assists per game and 2.1 stocks per game on an Arizona team that made it to the Sweet 16 before losing to Duke. Wonky shooting line in that season, 43% from the floor, which is a little lower than you would like, 19% from three, which is very much lower than you would like. But yes, of course, when he played KU, he did make a three in the big 12th tournament. And then he was 81% at the foul line.

Like that is a wild shooting line, right? So he transferred from Arizona to go to Georgetown. I would assume that was because Braden Burries was coming into. to town in Arizona. And I'm going to imagine if you were Arizona, they were picking between Jayden Bradley or KJ Lewis to pair with Burries. And obviously they made the right decision here. But Lewis did have a good season at Georgetown, 14.9 points per game, 5.1 rebounds per game, two and a half assists per game and two point seven stocks per game for what was a not great Hoyas team once again in Georgetown. But he had six games this year did Lewis with 20 or more

points. And I think pertinent for KU. Kinsis was a really bad turnover and steep. creation team on defense. Well, Lewis would certainly bring that in for KU. He had 10 games with three or more steals along with plenty of other games, or he had a block and or two plus steals for Georgetown. So very chaotic creating defender, right? And the metrics look pretty good here too. 96% on RAPM, 75% town win shares per 40,

91st percent on PER and 91st percent on Winsberg replacement player. The defensive numbers, as you would imagine, are a bit better than the offensive numbers and some of the metrics, but all of them are actually strong. And he had a huge on-off impact for Georgetown, which I think speaks to a couple things. When you're looking at on-off numbers, it doesn't just speak to the player. It speaks to the guys coming in for them, right? Because let's say that you have an average center, but you have a walk-on as the backup versus you have an All-American center with a dude who, like, let's say your backup is like in the year that T-Rob was one of the Morris twins backup.

You know, Marcus Morris might be a better player than this other player who's an average center, but the other player who's an average center might have a better on-off rating because the player behind him is worse, you know, so the drastic nature of the plus minus is going to look even better. So that is important to remember, especially as we're talking about Georgetown team, again, was not very good to where how many other great players did they have around K.J. Lewis to wear when he was not on the floor is the drop off more. start than at another school. But still, pointing that all out, the Hoyas were over six points

better per 100 possessions offensively with him out there. They were seven points per 100 possessions better defensively. And the overall on-off net rating for him was 13.8 that put him in the 88th percent on nationally. So he clearly was making an impact. Now, if you do go back to his time at Arizona, he was a net negative on offense. He was a positive on defense. That was the area shot 18% from three, though. So if he could just get up to 30% from three, then would he have been a, you know, net positive at both? Who knows? The year prior in a smaller role, he was basically a net neutral. So it's tough to see exactly what is the value here, right? But I think this would be interesting because I think the idea here to me would be is Bill Self interested in kind of replicating last year's back court where you have the defensive athletic guy, Elvin Counsel, that would be KJ Lewis. And then you have the shopmaker freshman, Darren Peterson this year.

be Taylin Kinney. Because I do think there's some comparisons you can make. We'll make those, get to the strengths and weaknesses, and what is the full fit here? Does it make sense for Kansas and Bill South next? Our episode of the show is brought to you by Robin Hood. What if sports were traded like markets? Now you can put your sports IQ to work in real time with Robin Hood prediction markets. It's not you against the house. It's you participating in a live market. You can buy your sell your positions live all game long. Use your sports knowledge in the moments that matter. Robin Hood prediction markets change the game. It's people moving the action. So when the momentum shifts, you can move with it.

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Thanks you for joining us. continue on with our KJ Lewis deep dive and know for you can check out the everyday or club where you can get the ad free version of the show to our Discord server. It's code March to get in at locked on Jayhawks dot supercast.com. I was making the mention of like I think if Bill Self is interested here, which I think there's always going to be a difference of how I approach these podcasts. Like I'm going to try to give you my opinion on the player. I'm going to try to give you my opinion how he would fit with what I think Bill Self would want, which, you know, I'm not always going to know everything that Bill Self wants, right, or that he likes. But

we can try to make educated guesses there, right? And I do think this is a player that I'm not as in on, but I could see Bill Self being in on. I guess is where I'm kind of at. And again, going back to the idea that you have, okay, Darren Peterson is your shot making freshman. Tailing Kinney would be a shot making freshman. And you pair him with a defensive athletic, another guard. Now, a little bit of a difference. Kenny is going to have the ball in his hands a little bit more. I would think, and Lewis more of an off guard who can play on as opposed to counsel is more of an on guard. You know, so you look at it. Now, Lewis for his career has worse three-point shooting numbers than Melvin Council.

But if we take Lewis's most recent season at Georgetown, he was at 30.5% on 3.8 takes per game. So improved from the year before at Arizona. Melvin Council's final year of St. Bonaventure, he was 29.9% on 3.9 takes per game. So you're pretty much identical there, right? And then counsel this year at Kansas, 30.8% on 3 on 3.4 attempts per game. So if we're just talking about the shooting perspective, you could say, yes, Lewis is not a great shooter, but Kansas made it work with Melvin Council. And there are other similarities there with both being athletic guards who are around 6364 that can get up and down in transition.

That can be good defenders. I think there's a little more to the offensive game of counsel, including his passing ability. I think there's actually a little more disruption to Lewis's game on the defense event. So the strengths here for Lewis, rebounding from the guard spot is one of them. That was something else counsel was good at. But Lewis, 76 percentile among guards in offensive rebound rate, 88th percentile in defensive rebound rate among guards. He also gets the free throw line, 82nd percentile, free throw attempt rate,

and he makes them at a strong clip as well. He's also a very strong, like I said, fast break player, 96th percentile in fast break points per game. He was above the 83rd percentile in efficiency on fast breaks, both of his years at Arizona. The efficiency dipped a bit at Georgetown. Then in previous seasons, he was really good at attacking and kicking, so a little bit of a passing thing there. Numbers did take a nosedive a bit there at Georgetown, which maybe that just boils down to worse players who were shooting it after he passes it out. He was solid at finding cutters as a passer and a good passer on the pick and roll.

Again, I don't think he's... But this is more of a passer than just a strict shooting guard, right? He's also a very good defender. He's got good size. He's got good strength. He's got good athleticism. He uses it to not just be a good defender. but to also be a chaotic defender.

98th percentile in steel rate, 91st percentile and block rate amongst guards. Those are all appealing, and you know those will be appealing for Bill Self, especially because Kansas didn't get nearly enough steals this past season. Some of the weaknesses, though, shooting. We talked about it, right? Just 27 percent from three for his career.

And on the heels of another season where Kansas didn't have enough offense, didn't have enough shooting, didn't have enough floor spacing, that would scare me a little bit. Now, does the fact he got up to 30% on, you know, it wasn't two attempts per game, close to four attempts per game at Georgetown, along with the fact that he's a career 78% free throw shooter, give you hope that he's continuing to improve his three-point shot and then he can get it up to 33,

34% on three or four attempts per game, right? One thing that was good was that he shot well from the corners this season, right? Haddon't had previous seasons did this season. Kansas, a lot of times, will use that corner for their off ball player to try to make shots, right? So again, if Bill Self's viewing it from, oh, we made it work with Melvin Council. And basically you just view it as, hey, we're bringing on a guard who's on par with him from three. And then he does these other things. Well, that would be the reasoning.

From where I'm sitting, I'm going, but I want even more three-point shooting. I don't want to just replicate what we had last season from a three-point shooting perspective. This is the other one that's a little scary, just 39th percentile this year and two-point percentage. He does have a solid free throw line jumper, but the area. he really struggled in was around the rim, which kind of odd, given the, you know, athleticism. And actually his last year at Arizona, he was, he was good at the rim. So I don't know. Again, that could be a scheme thing. That could be teams are able to pack the paint more on Georgetown than Arizona. Who knows? Maybe some of it, too, is that Arizona, they're playing

in transition more where he was really good. Georgetown, not going to play as fast and you're going to get the half court more where he's better in transition than half court. I don't know. But overall, I think that leads into something else. Like, he's not a super efficient half court player offensively or off ball player. Good transition player. Has some other things about his game that work. Excellent defender. I think for those reasons,

Bill Self would be interested again. Again, you had interest last year. Let's talk more about that fit next. This episode of the show is brought to you by TurboTax. It is tax time for a lot of us. The old way of doing taxes is a lot. Trying to book an appointment. That's not the most convenient.

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Don't forget check out our full episode. Kind of an opposite player. Jack Kerosensky. We did a deep dive on him. Ultimate three-point shooter. Does he make sense for KU? We've done a bunch of other deep dive episodes. Please check them out as we await the news of what's going to happen with the KU

roster, Bill Self, all that sort of stuff. And we'll get to that when we get to it. I'm locked on Jayhawks. By the way, shout out KU Baseball, who was up. 6-0 on rival Missouri on the road. They get down 8 to 6, and then they went 11 to 8 over Missouri and finish it off. Brady Bollinger had a home run. A couple other guys had a home run for KU and a good win there on the road.

So I think 18 and 10 is now the record there. All right, what is the fit here for KJ. Lois? So like I said, personally, I'm more interested in the guards for KU being a bunch of shopmakers and creators. So this wouldn't be the path that I would want to go down. but let's say you get a like I'm trying to think what the roster construction would be where I would be more in on it from the idea of like okay you do have a freshman point guard coming in having a veteran back court member who can who can be a good defender and show him the ropes a little bit and at least is a solid passer and rebounder and you know good defender and can help you with the steel issue um there are some things like there right to where you could say especially you know I don't I don't know what the level of defense is is for Taylor and Kenny. Like there's some reports that it might not be great, but is that just,

is you not like trying all the way right now and the level he's playing at and that'll get ramped up at KU? Who knows? So if you were able to get a, let's just say a scoring wing at the three, who's just kind of an all-around player, can hit threes, can do other things, and then let's say you were able to get a four-man

who was able to hit consistent shots for you, would that be enough to say, hey, Kenny is supposed to be a good shot maker and three-point shooter, three-man who can do a little bit everything and hit some threes. Four man who's a good three-point shooter. Is that enough if you had KJ. Lewis at the two and Florey at the five? Or is that going to sink your spacing on its own? If you can make it work, I'm open to it because of the possibilities, but I would

personally rather go down the road of find shot makers and shot creators for KU at those guard positions. But what does Bill Self want? We know Bill Self-Falue's defense. We know Bill self-values athleticism. KJ. Lewis fits the billing on both of those. We know that Kansas was not a good enough rebounding team and was not good enough for getting steals this year. KJ. Lewis helps both of those areas as well. So I can at least see the vision a little bit here, but it does make the rest of your roster construction, I think, very more specific. And I don't know that the past off seasons would tell us that those specificities that KU would need to work around it are ones that Bill Self would, or avenues he would actually go down to make it work.

All right, that'll do it for this episode of Lockdown, Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time on LOJ.