Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Late Night in the Phog and 2024-2025 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Season-Long Predictions

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, late night in the fog preview, some season-long props for KU basketball. You're not going to want to miss this one. 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 at D Johnson Radio. He's Nick Schwert at Nick underscore Schwert. And we're going to be talking late night in the fog on today's episode.

Starting point is 00:00:32 A little KU basketball season props. Some fun ones we'll throw at you. Whose stat line is it anyway? And thank you for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. Thank you to every dayers catching each and every show. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. Don't worry, we will have a KU Houston preview coming later today as well for Saturday's game.

Starting point is 00:00:54 Before we get into any of the action today, it is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Place your first $5 bet and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit FanDuel.com'll get started with two to a hundred two hundred dollars in bonus bets guaranteed visit fanduel.com to get started i haven't seen a line on fanduel for the crimson versus the blue in this one i don't know if you have hard thoughts on who would be favored and why uh but i guess first things first nick what are you more interested in little john performing or the new stadium renovations uh the allen field house renovations? Yes. I think I'm more interested in the Fieldhouse renovations. I've said this the whole time. I get it. I get why you want to enhance things. Same thing with the football stadium. Just don't mess anything up. You've

Starting point is 00:01:41 already got the best. You know what I mean? You've already got the best you know what i mean you've already got the best place in the world to watch a basketball game so my only ask is to not screw it up in any way added the video boards i saw the pictures they released on thursday and it looks really sick like the new jumbotron and stuff i know people are kind of hating on the video boards and eating into the concourse, whatever. We'll see. Will it affect the experience inside Allen Fieldhouse? Probably not. As for the Lil Jon stuff, I have a question for you. Who's more likely to do the Lil Jon yell on Friday night, Bill Sell for Brian Haney. Who's more likely to give a Lil Jon impersonation? Oh, it'd definitely be Brian.

Starting point is 00:02:30 100%, right? Brian's kind of down for whatever, you know? He'll laugh at himself, so he'll be able to do it. I don't think Bill would do it. Bill's a little too cool for that. I could see, like, more Roberts. That would be my favorite part, though. Afterwards, though, you know, in the press conference, somebody's going to ask Bill, like, what do you think of little John?

Starting point is 00:02:51 Hey, well, I thought he was terrific. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting late night, too. There's no recruits that are coming in attendance, which I remember for the longest time. Like, that's what this event was about. It was about the recruits that are in attendance. I don't think there were recruits last year either. And I know there was supposed to be this year, but there were like some last minute cancellations that,

Starting point is 00:03:12 that ended up happening there. Well, and he said, and Bill said that it's not as important now with the unlimited visits it like late night. Yeah. It's not really, if you were, if you were the head coach of Kansas, would you rather have the number one recruit in the country come to late night to watch little john and a scrimmage and some skits right like maybe like maybe uh kj adams does a backflip at half court i don't know or would you rather have them come to the arizona game you know it's just like it's an easy it's the Arizona game. It's easy, which makes me wonder,

Starting point is 00:03:46 is late night going to die soon? If it's not a recruiting tool, I'm just not sure. I personally, I'd rather watch him play some exhibition game. You get the Arkansas exhibition next Friday. I'd rather watch that. It's not even close.

Starting point is 00:04:03 The weirdest thing about late night is it's not really about basketball at all. That's the worst part of late night is when they start scrimmaging. It is like you, you, cause I know sometimes they'll play like an extended video highlight montage thing. That's like 10 minutes long and that's cool. It gives you goosebumps. You're going to show off the new arena renovations maybe some funny skits but for the most part like that's it and then the game starts and everyone's like oh well this is kind of boring i do appreciate the video version of it if they're going to do this again they've done this the last i don't know three or four years bill self has been doing commentary with

Starting point is 00:04:42 like you know greg girley and b Brian Haney on it and that is a treat because you get the classic bill of like ah this doesn't mean anything but you can see him going into coach mode as the broadcast goes on that's a terrible shot like oh what is he doing that's not how he's gonna play here and stuff like that which that can be uh I don't know endearing and it also can can give you a little peek into how things are going so I guess when when you do look at this like it is a weird format and obviously whatever happens in this game doesn't really matter at the end of the day.

Starting point is 00:05:10 But like, is there a player that you're just generally curious to see what they look like? Because it is maybe the shiny new toy, new freshman, new transfer. You just want to see them in a KU lineup, you know, going up against somebody else because there is somebody for me. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to, I think the player for me is Flory Badunga. And the only reason is because, like, AJ Storr, Rylan Griffin, Zeke Mayo, like, we know how these scrimmages go.

Starting point is 00:05:35 Like, guys are going to come down. They're going to get some shots up. But in a scrimmage like that where nothing really matters, the one thing that I think could be cool is to see the impressive physical strengths. And for all the transfers you brought in, who are all going to probably play, I mean, if we're talking about AJ and Ryland and Zeke, they're probably going to play more minutes per game than Flory will this year. But Flory has something that nobody else has, which is freak NBA athleticism. And that can show itself. I don't care if he scores two points and gets four boards,

Starting point is 00:06:16 but if those two points are on a sick dunk over somebody, that is to me cooler than like, Oh, Zeke had three threes. He went three of five. What does this tell us about the team? Rylan Griffin shot seven, like nothing. It doesn't tell us anything, but if you see the physical talents, the physical attributes from him or even Rakees Passmore, right? You see that, then you could say, okay, that may not mean anything right now. It may not mean anything in November or December. But the more you want to zoom out on your scope of like, when will this matter, the more interesting it gets. And those guys are, at least from a talent perspective, probably one and two on this team, just in terms of like, yeah, they're going to go play in the NBA someday. Yeah, and like you can watch highlight videos or past games of all the transfers they brought in. You know what they have in the returning guys. You know, you've heard some good things about Rakeez Passmore.

Starting point is 00:07:12 You've heard some good things about Flory Badunga, but we've never actually seen it. And so those would be the two that I definitely do. And I think too with Flory, I say this all the time for like spring games, specifically, you know, if somebody has a big game in a spring game, like let's say the receiving core goes off. You sitting there going oh wow the receivers look good but because you're scrimmaging yourself you're like are we sure the receivers are good or is it just corners were that bad you know what i mean like yeah the beauty of flory in this matchup is that in theory

Starting point is 00:07:37 i'd imagine he's going to be going up against hunter dickinson for a lot of possessions and i don't know how serious hunter's going to take this. I know he didn't really take it very seriously last year. So that kind of, you know, grain of salt with how that works out. But if Flory looks good scrimmaging against Hunter Dickinson, then it maybe gives you a little bit more hype because you have a known commodity he's going up against.

Starting point is 00:07:58 Well, to me, it's like, I'm going to coin this right now. I'm inventing something right now. As we talk about this, we're calling it the Tik TOK test. Oh, that could suit it all. Would this go viral on TikTok? Right? That's the lens for which I'm viewing everything on late night. Somebody putting up a double-double is

Starting point is 00:08:18 not going viral. Like Rylan Griffin getting 10 points and 10 rebounds and be like, whoa, wait a minute. Is this guy going to be a good rebounder? I don't care. I don't care. Don't talk to me. I'm telling you right now, if he gets 10 rebounds, if anybody gets 10 rebounds and you ask me about it next week, I'm going to be mad. I'm going to be mad.

Starting point is 00:08:35 But like Flory Badunga breakaway dunk between the legs from the free throw line, that gets 10 million views on TikTok. That's the TikTok test. That's what I test. That's what I care about. Snoop Dogg bringing out stripper pulls that goes viral on TikTok, right? So that is what I care about for late night. Will the masses gobble this up? Is this great content for everyone or is it just like a cool little thing that we're going to talk about? Well, this one doesn't pass the TikTok test,

Starting point is 00:09:05 but what would you be more interested in? That crazy dunk by Flory Badunga or KJ Adams going three of three from three-point range? Dude, this is actually it. This is what you're going to do to me next week. KJ is going to take a three. Like the over-under. A corner three or something, yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:22 A three-point attempt is going to be 0.5, and then everyone's going to be like, Oh, somebody's been working on their jumper this summer. And then you know what's going to happen. He's going to hit zero threes in the regular season. He'll go like, Oh, for two, it will never be in the flow of the offense. I'm just, I'm, I'm refusing to even consider the idea that KJ Adams is going to be able to like stretch the floor to 22 feet. It's, it's not happening, but he will take a shot. He will take a three. And if he makes it, I'm actually going to be mad. I'm going to be mad only because it's now going to start a conversation about like, can KJ stretch the floor now? Yeah. I think he took a couple in that like Bahamas trip that they had or, or Dominican Republic trip they had last year. I think he took like two or three of them. And I think he might've made one, but. That's the only time he's allowed. There are two, there are two occasions when he's allowed to take threes. Anytime KU leaves the contiguous United States. So they can go to Hawaii.

Starting point is 00:10:21 If they go to any Island, he's allowed to shoot three or if it's late night, he's allowed to shoot three, but that's it. Especially senior year. Yeah. All right. Let's continue on. I got some fun season prop bets.

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Starting point is 00:11:28 All right, continuing on here, we've got some KU basketball season-long prop bets here. Who's going to average more points per game this season? Hunter Dickinson plus DeJuan Harris or Zeke Mayo plus KJ Adams? Hunter averaged about 19 last year. Are you going to give me some numbers? Can I get some stats from last season? So Hunter averaged about 19.

Starting point is 00:11:54 I don't remember what DeJuan averaged. Yeah, so for what it's worth, I mean, I don't know if you want like Zeke Mayo's numbers since that probably isn't very applicable. But DeJuan was at 8.5 um KJ Adams was at 12.6 Hunter was at 17.9 okay so 18 plus eight I'm gonna put the over under for Hunter and DeJuan at like 30 and a half because I think I, I think KJ, I think Hunter's scoring goes up. I think the floor spacing is going to make his life easier. I don't think it's necessarily going to be like all of a sudden he's getting way more open looks.

Starting point is 00:12:33 I think it's probably more of like an efficiency thing. Life's just going to be easier. So without even doing the math on what I think KJ and Zeke are going to average, it's, it's, it's Hunter and DeJ are going to average it's it's it's 100 if you think 30 then that's the answer I think the way that it goes Zeke and and uh KJ is that if Hunter's around let's say it is up to 19 let's say DeJuan even goes down with more offensive options let's say it's at I don't know eight maybe you're at 27 KJ at 12.6 is there a chance he can get back to 12 and is there a chance that Zeke Mayo is just that good and he's your leading perimeter scorer well you know the thing

Starting point is 00:13:10 with with DeJuan is that even last year where you didn't have as many offensive options and you needed him to do like his role is just never going to change and his shot volume is just never if it if he were ever going to shoot more, it would have been last year. It didn't happen, which makes me think like good or bad. It's just where it is, where it is, is where it's going to stay. So I like, he's going to shoot about as much as he always has. There will be a point during the season where people are like, ah, he needs to shoot it more. He's wide open and it's not going to happen. And then there'll be a random game where he goes like four from three and they'll be like, wait a minute.

Starting point is 00:13:47 But it will all even out in the end, which is why I feel very comfortable with that number. And I just don't see any way those other guys get to that. More rebounds per game. Hunter Dickinson plus DeJuan Harris or KJ Adams plus AJ Storr plus Flory Badunga. Oh, can I get some numbers for Dewan and hunter again so hunters at 10.9 dewan's at two so you'd be at basically 13 combined uh kj last year was at 4.6 store was in the like three range and then flory we have you know no idea he was at 13 in high school but i i mean if if the answer is hunter and dewan i think that's a problem i think i and not even going off well what what what did they do it's that doesn't

Starting point is 00:14:33 matter anymore it's like no aj store you're you're six seven so like you can rebound you know what i mean same thing with with kj you're six five". You can go and get rebounds. We've seen guys at those sizes. What did Frank Mason average his senior year? Wasn't it like four rebounds a game? Yeah. minutes a game, you need to get as many rebounds as him. That's it. I'm not saying be a great rebounder because nobody's going to talk about how great of a rebounder AJ Storr is if he gets four a game, but he needs to be getting four a game. I think with the playing time as well, KJ needs to be getting four a game. That gets you to eight. One of those guys will get you five. So that puts me at nine. Can Flory get me two to three rebounds a game? I think so. I think so. I think he's your backup five. I think he's going to get like 10 minutes a game. And I think he's going to be one of those dudes like we've seen so many times,

Starting point is 00:15:33 Sheck the Owl, Cliff Alexander, where fans are going to be clamoring for him to play more. And they're going to say, look at his per 36 numbers. If you played him, if you played him 36 minutes, he'd be averaging 15 rebounds. No, he wouldn't. He wouldn't. But I still think athleticism length, like in college basketball, that can make you a really sick big man. So I am actually going to go with the trio for rebounding here. And maybe that's more of like what I hope to happen,

Starting point is 00:16:01 but I'm going to stick with it. So Mitch Lightfoot, 12 minutes per game, his final season at KU, 2.8 rebounds. I think in theory you'd view Flory as a better rebounder there just from pure athleticism and length and everything. So if he can get to, I don't know, three, three and a half, maybe even four. Like you said, can KJ get to four? Can KJ get to five even? And then we heard the comments from Bill Self talking about AJ Storr trying to be a better rebounder.

Starting point is 00:16:23 So clearly that's an emphasis. Can he have four or five? Yeah, I think that would be the answer there as well. Player most likely to finish on exactly the third team all Big 12 from KU? Not better than? Nope. Okay, let's go through this. Hunter Dickinson's probably first team all Big 12.

Starting point is 00:16:43 AJ Storr, I would hope first or second. But I mean, the Big 12 is so stacked now that I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, he'll be first team. Or even a lock for second. So honestly, getting to Storr, I'm like, he could be in consideration. I don't know that DeJuan is going to have the numbers to get to third team. Same with KJ, Ryan. I mean, like you're really getting into wild projections where it's like,

Starting point is 00:17:12 can Zeke Mayo be a top 15 player in the Big 12? And not even like top 15. It's like you have to have the numbers to get there. So I'm not willing to make that jump. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing when I say this, but I think the answer is AJ store. I think that makes sense. If you average, let's say AJ store averages 14 points, and

Starting point is 00:17:38 four rebounds a game. Is that I mean, is that good enough for second team? I mean, I think that squarely gets you on 13. But is that is that good enough for second team? I mean, I think that squarely gets you on third team, but is that, is that good enough for second in this expanded big 12? No, I mean, I think you're right with 16 teams with the guys that Arizona and Houston and Baylor and all these schools are going to have. I can't remember what team LJ Cryer was on last year, but he was 15 and a half points per game and not really much else. 2.4 rebounds, 1.9 assists. I know those are different positions, but it's the same idea. It's a score and not much else.

Starting point is 00:18:08 And I don't think he was on the first or second team. He might have been third team last season. So I actually do think that one makes sense the more I think about it in the new age of the Big 12, but maybe it is Zeke Mayo. I think Zeke Mayo is the hardest stat line to project what it's going to look like. You can ballpark Hunter Dickinson and DeJuan Harris and be like, he's going to get you around 8-7 or he's going to get you around 18-10.

Starting point is 00:18:31 It's really hard to know what the Zeke Mayo stat line is going to be. Is it going to be 14-3? Is it going to be 10-2? I have no idea. To expand on that idea, I think the biggest issue is that like, when we look at season long averages and we go back and look at certain players that averaged in that like 10 to 15 range, I think the biggest thing, the biggest difference between 10 point per game score and 15, which is probably the difference between being on the third or second team or being left off

Starting point is 00:19:01 is that you can kind of count on it night in and night out. Like, yeah, sure. There'll be nights where you give them eight, but with Zeke, I'm not willing to say like, yeah, he's going to be so consistent. He's never going to disappear because how often do we see that happen? It is going to happen for wing players, for perimeter players at Kansas under Bill Self, where unless you're that next level talent where you can go and shot hunt and find it on nights where teams are guarding you or accounting for you in ways that you're that next level talent where you can go and shot hunt and find it on nights where teams are guarding you or accounting for you in ways that you're not normally getting it, there are going to be nights where you're taken out of the game. And like, yeah, I do think Zeke

Starting point is 00:19:33 can score 20 in a given night. I also think there might be games where he scores four or five and we're like, what did he do tonight? Which we've just seen so many times. It's not a knock. I think it's just more so the reality all right last one here player on the current roster most likely to have their jersey in the allen field house rafters after their career ends who well hunter dickinson goes first team all-american he's getting on he's the favorite for the wooden award if he wins national player of the year he's but yeah i mean if first team all-american if he has a first and the second let's imagine this though let's say hunter doesn't go first team all-american let's say

Starting point is 00:20:13 second team right still a great season but let's say ku wins the national championship duan harris two rings as a starting point guard. He would be the only KU player, I believe, with two NCAA championships. It would be. I mean, you have to at least consider it, right? Because it's weird. He is not going to be on the short list of greatest point guards in KU basketball history um i think what makes it tough is like aaron miles isn't in there you know what i mean and aaron miles is that same type of like pass first get the assist this is this is universal for any like successful sports organization or program all we care about are rings all we care about are rings we are chasing

Starting point is 00:21:04 history we want to be the best program ever, right? We don't just want to say, oh, another – like the rings are what is important. And if DeJuan left with two rings as a starting point guard, I don't know, man. I'm not willing to say like, yeah, you put him in there. But I bet you Bill Self – I bet you Bill Self might be pretty eager to put him up no it really is and I mean he could end up if they win the national title maybe that's enough games for DeJuan to break Aaron Miles assist record uh in the Big 12 and at Kansas he certainly would be on pace to finish second but it's one of those two right unless you're like ready to say

Starting point is 00:21:39 Rakeys Passmore is going to stick around for four years yeah I mean what if Flory Badunga is like you know solid this year and then next year when Hunter Dickinson's gone, Flory's the big 12 player of the year? I don't know. It's a lot of projection. I feel more confident about DeJuan in that scenario than I would projecting a freshman I've never seen play.

Starting point is 00:21:58 Okay, what about A.J. Storr, Rylan Griffin? Because both guys hypothetically could have two years at Kansas. Nah. No? Nah. Nah. No? Nah. Are there any two-year players currently in the Raptors? I mean, we were just talking about Hunter Dickinson. Right, but like Hunter, it's easy for me to imagine him being a national player of the year.

Starting point is 00:22:20 Right. I mean, production-wise, like Thomas Robinson, he was three years, but realistically, like the production was pretty much one year of being a starter you know so like that's not two years no no it doesn't it's still three years it's thrown names out there um gosh i don't know that's a good question uh i don't think i think will so be as good as will chamberlain you'll make it be a top 10 player in the history of the sport and you'll have a shot. You're fine. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:22:49 It's not that hard. All right. Let's get on to whose stat line is it anyway? This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. If you want a prop bet, you can decide for yourself. Kansas is plus 250 to win the Big 12 in basketball. They're plus 210 to make the final

Starting point is 00:23:06 four. So, Big 12 is actually harder than the final four, but you can decide for that yourself at FanDuel. And if you're watching a game, whether it's NFL, college football, college basketball, when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats. We live play-by-play and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. You'll get started with $200

Starting point is 00:23:22 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. That is at Fanduel.com, the official sportsbook partner of the Locked On Podcast Network. Finishing things up on this episode of the show with a little Who's Stat Line is. Anyway, let's go back to late night in the fog, which is happening tonight.

Starting point is 00:23:40 I asked you this same question last year, and now I'm going to re-up it this year with the new version. Who was KU's leading point scorer during last year's late night in the fog? Did I get it right last year when you asked me this? I think you did. I might have given you a hint or something, but, yeah, I think you did. I could have cheated, too. I think the year before it might have been like Jankov or something like that but i don't know what um who would

Starting point is 00:24:12 have been the leading scorer who would have gotten a lot of shots up last year was uh oh what's his face was Was Arturia Morris on the team? No, he did not participate in late night. That was way before that. That would have been a story. Yeah, it would have. You know what? I'm going to go with Kevin McCuller.

Starting point is 00:24:36 He was the leading scorer on the team. Good call. He led the way with 12 points. Do you want to take a guess who was second with 11? Give me Marco Jackson. Nick Timberlake was second with 11, and nobody else on the team had double digits. It was an ugly game.

Starting point is 00:24:54 The teams combined to shoot 17 of 51. That's 33% from the field and 5 of 26. A sign of things to come. Little did we know. I was going to say, like, there's two ways of viewing that. You can view the Timberlake 11 points and be like, that was not indicative. We shouldn't take anything from this game.

Starting point is 00:25:10 You can also view the 5 of 26 and 3 and be like, oh, maybe this game does matter because it showed how bad they were. You know what sucks about that is that at the time, I'm sure a lot of people, maybe ourselves included, would have seen that and been like, oh, well, they got a long time to work on it. They'll figure it out. It was probably just an off night. Nope. They had all season. It was exactly the same all year long. So here's to hoping that KU just, I mean, blows the roof off the building with outside shooting on Friday night.

Starting point is 00:25:46 All right, that'll do it for this episode. Nick, what do you got going on right now? You can check out our podcast, Could Be Wrong, wherever you get your podcasts, as well as the full episodes, which you can watch on YouTube. All right, that's Nick underscore Schwert on Twitter. I'm at DJohnsonRadio, Derek Johnson here. Thanks for tuning in to Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:26:02 We'll be back later today for another episode, KU Houston preview out of Saturday's game, but that'll do it for us today. This has been Locked on Jayhawks. See you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Late Night in the Phog and 2024-2025 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Season-Long Predictions

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