Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kevin McCullar is Back; How it Affects Him and the Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Team

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Kevin McCullar announced he will be returning for his 6th season and 2nd with the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team for 2023-24. Why the decision is surprising (in a good way), how he can see his NBA Draft stock rise and add to his legacy at KU. How will this decision impact the team in terms of the starting lineup, defense, and overall play on this Bonus episode.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BirddogsToday's episode is brought to you by Birddogs. Go 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.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND 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

Bonus Locked on Jayhawks. You know that means something big happened, and it did. Kevin McCuller is coming back for his really sixth year of college, second year at the University of Kansas. Big time get. Bonus episode. Let's discuss today. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks,

part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. 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 find us, like, subscribe to the show on our YouTube page. Also, and this is a bonus

episode, we actually came out with earlier today a deep dive, some deep dives this week on Kaluma and Phillips in case those were guys that KU was going to go after. Well, doesn't seem like that's a need anymore because Kansas landed Kevin McCuller. He becomes really the first real small forward on the roster.

I guess Jamari McDowell, but I don't know how much he was expected to play in year one for KU. Gives you options at the three and four. He gives you more veteran presence. It's just a big deal for KU to get McCuller coming back. And this is a good surprise, a genuine good surprise from the KU side of things. This, to me, feels like the opposite of McKenzie Mbako.

Like the McKenzie Mbako thing was a surprise almost, I think, to a lot of people, including myself, that he ended up picking Kansas. Kevin McCuller, a positive surprise, I think, to a lot of people, including myself, that he's ending up coming back to the University of Kansas. It seemed like he wanted to stay in the draft. Now, then again, we've seen this before. Yudoka Azebuki wanted to stay in the draft his junior year, but he was injured. He couldn't participate in the drills, and he had to come back.

Jalen Wilson, you know, Ochagbaje might have wanted to stay in the draft after his junior year, but then something switched with him late in the process. Same with Jalen Wilson last year in the process. And then just kind of, you know, maybe you go through the drills, maybe you don't get all the feedback you would have wanted. Then you get a very convincing Bill Self talking about coming back and being the leader on the team, and nowadays how much NIL money you can get, all this stuff.

And all of a sudden, it's like, yeah, maybe I could come back. So I don't know how it all works, but I'm sure for McCuller, he's, you know, ready to just kind of move on and be like, I just want to play basketball. I don't want to play basketball and go to school anymore. I've already done this for five years. I don't know how that works with grad graduate players. Like, is it something where, um, cause I think there are certain NCAA stipulations and rules about how many credit hours you have to be taking per semester.

Is it the same for graduates? Can you just enroll him in like a bowling class or something? I don't know. However that works. But this is a genuinely good thing of shocking news for KU. This offseason as a whole has been bananas and one of the greats. There have been a lot of great Bill Self offseasons. There's a reason we call him Spring Bill.

This one might take the cake. I it kind of depends right we kind of look back at these things with uh hindsight 2020 goggles because um you know if they come out this season and they end up with the three seed and you lose in the second round we're not going to look back on it and be like man remember that off season right but we look back on things with that hindsight where if this team does make a final four um we will look at it that way but at least just on paper at least on paper when you're living that specific offseason in the moment this is about as big if not bigger than any offseason that bill self has put together kansas which is certainly saying something. Self was able to convince him whatever way it took. He was at the NBA Combine, as Adam Zagoria said for Jalen Wilson. You know, I think there were probably other reasons to be there, and this was clearly

one of them. Let's get more into Kevin Kohler, his side of things, and how does it affect KU in this short edition of Locked on Jayhawks. First, though, this episode of the show is brought to you by Bird Dogs. Bird Dogs are super comfortable, they fit super well, and they are ultra versatile. So you're talking about having kind of a stretchy waistband where maybe you have too many beers, maybe you have a little too much to eat, and you're not going to feel like all of a sudden it's tightening down on you a little bit.

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it's perfect for a bunch of different activities. So go to bird dogs.com slash locked on college, locked on college. They'll throw in a free custom Bird Dogs Yeti-style tumbler with every order. That's Locked on College at birddogs.com slash locked on college. So more on Kohler specifically.

I think this is an interesting thing for Kevin. I think he wanted to be in the NBA. And from his standpoint, I have heard some people that have said, well, I don't know if it's worth the risk of him coming back and what more does he have to prove? I kind of disagree with that, to be completely honest. And I kind of have the whole way through that. It's not that I don't disagree that there isn't risk involved with coming back to school for another year. And then all of a sudden now you're 24 years old entering the NBA, which that can hurt you a little bit more.

And if the three point shooting doesn't come around anymore and he does have any more injuries, which he certainly suffered a fair deal amount, especially of ankle injuries over his college career, then yes, that can hurt his NBA stock because now you're a year older and now you have another year where those things didn't improve or NBA teams are like, okay, it does look like it's kind of just becoming a flat thing as opposed to an improving arrow going up. Right. So if you shoot 30%, it hurts you a little bit more. The flip side though, we have seen older guys, Derek, we saw Thomas Duarte, he was like 24, 25 years old from Oregon, be a lottery pick um so if if you're good enough at some point it's just not going to matter and so i think the the risk here there is a positive amount here for

kevin if kevin comes back let's say ku has the the great season you're expecting them to they make a final four and kevin shoots 35 from three now all of a sudden if you're an nba team you're salivating at that because you know what Kevin brings from an IQ perspective, from an extra ball handler, from a defensive perspective, from a basketball acumen perspective, but you're just looking for the shot. And if he has that one season of shooting 35%, 36% from three, I don't think that's crazy that he could be a late first-round pick. I really don't.

So I do think there was real reward here, but it is taking a risk on yourself from that standpoint. But obviously he's going to make a real good amount of money off NIL, probably more than he would make off a two-year deal. Now he's got the chance to be a leader on this great team. He's got NBA chance coming down to that kind of three ball. And I think beyond that, he becomes more of a fan favorite. I think Kevin already became kind of a fan favorite in year one.

But one worry I had because of how KU lost, falling in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament where it wasn't as memorable of a run. I was hoping that last year, like that Kevin McCuller wasn't going to be somebody who was more of a forgotten player, right? Like in, you know, 10 years, when I'm asking trivia questions on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Trivia, like would Kevin McCuller not be as remembered as a name? Well, now this pretty much guarantees that he's going to be remembered more. He'll have that extra year.

He gets to add to his legacy at Kansas and certainly becomes a very important player for how he affects KU and adding that one last kind of piece that they were looking for in the rotation. Let's finish up there. How does it affect KU with locked on Jayhawks? So I think obviously from the KU perspective, they were looking with two scholarships open.

Who knows if they will fill both? They still have one scholarship open left that they could if they wanted to, but they at least needed one more player and they needed it to be an impact level player and when i said impact level player i meant a couple things it could be a starter it could be somebody who plays off the bench but gives you a solid 20-25 minutes a game but is consistently in the rotation well if kevin you you know he's going to be a starter so clearly he's going to be an impact player and play lots of minutes and that was so important to fill out this rotation because you already kind of had, like you look at the four guards that you have with DeJuan Harris, Elmarco Jackson, Artario Morris, and Nick Timberlake.

Okay, those are four guys who should be in the rotation. You look at the center position, Hunter Dickinson, and then you got KJ Adams is kind of a four or five hybrid should be in the rotation. That gives you six players that you feel comfortable as being part of the rotation. And then it's like, well, Parker Brown, maybe he works in the rotation if you're playing another center that game. Or Marcus Adams could be in the rotation as a backup for, you know, Jamari McDowell. Does he have a spot because small forward? I don't know with Chris Johnson, whatever.

But basically, that gave you a spot where it's like, well, you need kind of one more rotation player rotation player and ideally it could be somebody who plays the three or the four because you don't really have that on the roster you don't really have a small forward who was somebody who you viewed as being one of those impact players and now kevin mcculler comes in and it helps you out in a couple ways it gives you that three man if you want to play with a couple wings out there next to two you know smaller guards it gives you the opportunity to play small ball. You can play Kevin at the four. And if Marcus Adams isn't ready, you have more coverage at the four position there. You just have more coverage at a lot of the different positions now,

which is so important. The big question is going to become, will he start at the three or will he start at the four? And I don't know how much it's going to matter at the end of the day, to be honest, because I think even if he starts at the four and KJ is coming off the bench, KJ is probably playing 20 plus minutes per game. If he starts at the three and KJ starting at the four, you know, whoever that bumps out, they're probably still playing a good amount. I think no matter what you're going to play a good amount. I guess my early guess would be that he starts at the three

KJ starts at the four, but I wouldn't be shocked if at some point over the course of the season, Bill Self gets to a point where he's like, well, we need more floor spacing out there. We're going to start sliding Kevin to the four, but we'll see how that goes. I just feel like at the beginning of the season, like game one, usually it's the guys he trusts the most, and so that would make a lot of sense.

But as far as team impact in the skill level, the level of play and everything, certainly there will be questions about the team three-point shooting, right? If you do start a lineup of DeJuan Harris at the one, Kevin McCullough at the three, KJ Adams at the four, and Hunter Dickinson at the five, you know, is your two-man Nick Timberlake? Is it not?

Are you going to have enough shooting even if Timberlake is out there? Those will be questions, but this insulates the defense even more. You thought that the floor of the defense would still be be good because you have bill self you have dewan harris the big 12 defense player of the year like marco jackson arteria morris good ball pressures and should be good defenders from the guard position um kj adams good defender hunter dickinson at the very least is a good you know rim protector and one-on-one defender in the post to where you had enough there now this further insulates the defense it protects some of those other guys

it makes it so that your floor your defense raises even more the ceiling of your defense raises even more um you have more experience in the bill self system you have at least inside scoring and cutting ability and more transition game it adds a lot to your team that was already in contention with the preseason number one. I think now it's probably preseason number one with a bullet. That'll do it for this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll talk plenty more, go deeper into Kevin McCullough returning on tomorrow's episode.

We'll also get into who does it impact most on the team outside of specifically, and does this cement KU as the preseason number one team? All those come in in our upcoming episodes with Locked on Jayhawks. This has been LOJ. You can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts or subscribe to us on YouTube. Have a good one. See you next.