Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Locked On Jayhawks - 11.12.19

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

Les Miles speaks following bye; Bill Self discusses 4 guard lineup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome in everyone to Tuesday's edition of Locked On Jayhawks. I am Sean Kellerman, Learfield IMG College Broadcaster and University of Kansas Insider. This is Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, giving you insight, numbers, and a chance to hear from all the voices within Kansas athletics. Alright, happy Tuesday everyone. Looking forward to the show today. We're going to get a chance to hear from Head Coach Les Miles as he met with the media for the first time in a while yesterday. His Monday press conference, of course, did not have one last week

as KU was on bye. But Coach Miles met with reporters and talked a little bit about Oklahoma State but talked a lot about his past and some of the things that this Jayhawk team needs to improve on. Three more opportunities for this Kansas team. Two road games and one home game to close out the slate. KU 3-6. If you're thinking about a guaranteed bowl game, you get to win all three of them. So we'll see what Coach has to say about that and some of the improvements they made over the bye week. We'll also get a chance to hear more from head coach bill self

udoka azubuki and devon dotson of the kansas basketball team they defeated unc greensboro on friday and now of course in the midst of this week off i guess you could say kind of rare to have this many days off but there are a couple stretches this season where Kansas goes a while without playing, and that's the case again as the Jayhawks are in action on Friday against Monmouth. So we'll hear more sound from those guys post-game, the UNC-Greensboro game, which was certainly a battle. All right, let's talk first about this KU football team. Nice to kind of get back in the swing of things after having the bye week, and we've had to sit on that disappointing effort in the Sunflower Showdown.

KU lost 38-10 back on November 2nd, and that was their last time out there. So second bye week of the year, a chance to kind of regroup 75% of the season in. And now you need to go all in, basically, these last three weeks and hopefully be as successful as can possibly be. Let head coach Les Miles talk to the media yesterday about what was accomplished on the bye week. Wanted to get some guys that, a little neck that, you know, fresh health and vitality that we got accomplished. We scrimmaged and practiced a good bit and moved the program ahead. Of course, the health of the players is something that's important. We'll get an update later this week from Coach Miles regarding guys like Drew Prox and Jeremiah McCullough of the KU

defense who have been missing for a while in their status for the rest of the season. Of course, this upcoming game for the Jayhawks on Saturday, 11 a.m. kick in Stillwater, is the scene of where Coach Miles spent his first time as a head coach, Oklahoma State. Coach Miles, back in 2001, was named head coach of the Cowboys and kind of recap his four years in Stillwater. Four and seven first year for Oklahoma State, two and six in the Big 12 South Conference,

and then 2002 he was eight and five, so a four game improvement in just one year. Hopefully that's the type of improvement we see here at Kansas next season for these guys. 5-3, a part of that 8-5 season, were the Cowboys in the conference. In 2003, Oklahoma State was 9-4, 5-3 in the Big 12. In 2004, the Cowboys were 7-5 and 4-4 in the Big 12. Bowl appearances in each of the last three seasons for Oklahoma State under Les Miles. They won the Houston Bowl in 2002. They fell in both the Cotton Bowl and Alamo Bowl in the two next years. So four years at Oklahoma State for Coach Miles. And then, of course, he spent 2005 through 2016, midway through 2016, as the head coach of LSU, appearing in many bowl games,

winning seven of them, including the BCS National Championship back in the 2007 season. So back to Oklahoma State, where it all began for head coach Les Miles, and he was asked about what he's learned most in his time since then. What I learned is that it's something that everyone knows, quality people, people that care about the team, people that work hard day to day, that those are the guys that you want to turn to and count on. Quality people with good character, a staple of Les Miles

and the type of people he likes to surround himself with at any program. And that's what we're beginning to see here at Kansas. We're seeing the improvement on the field. It hasn't been as consistent as we like, but we know that things are improving here in Lawrence. Back to the K-State game. Of course, we don't like to talk about it too much. It was that ugly. K-State led it 38-3 in the fourth quarter pretty late after Kansas had decided to go for it a

couple different times in their own territory and that came back to bite them as K-State made the stops on defense and then the subsequent touchdown scores on offense to go up by that 35-point margin. Kansas did not get into the end zone until under one minute to go in this game and it was backup quarterback Manny Miles, one of Les' two sons who play for this Jayhawk team, who ended up getting the touchdown. Of course, Manny came in after Carter Stanley left with about five minutes to go with an apparent knee injury. No update on Carter, and we just assume no news is good news. He should be good to go as initially planned.

He should be out there taking all the snaps against Oklahoma State on Saturday. But had to be a moment of pride for coach Miles seeing his son get it go out there and pick up the touchdown here's coach talking about Manny's TD. Manny goes into the game after after Carter gets nicked and uh and engineers a nice little drive and uh they get down in there and hand them all the fullback. And Manny says, you know, that just goes to show you that my dad loves my brother better than me. So, and then next play or so, he goes in. And that was great fun. The score was the wrong score to celebrate. That's the bad news. Manny

did what we asked him to do. He did a good job. In addition to that rushing touchdown, of course, Manny Miles, 2 of 3, 65 yards through the air in that game against K-State, where the box score all in all was pretty ugly for the Jayhawks. Kind of similar to the TCU game in Fort Worth not very long ago, where Kansas just dug a hole early and just did not have any firepower to answer. We thought we had turned the corner maybe with two good games under Brent Nierman, back-to-back 500-plus yard performances by this KU offense against Texas and Texas Tech.

But maybe just kind of a humbling reminder that it's not going to be that simple for this Jayhawk team. But hopefully we get back to being on schedule for Brent Dierman and we get the wheat ready, as he says, for the Oklahoma State game on Saturday. After the break, we'll hear more from Les Miles. He's going to talk about the KU offense. He's going to give some updates on some of the defensive front seven that's been kind of a problem for this Kansas team. They gave up 324 yards on the ground to Kansas State, did this KU defense.

And then, of course, the last segment we'll hear from Bill Self and some KU basketball players as well. That's all coming up next. This is Locked On Jayhawks, a part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. All right, before we hear more from Head Coach Miles from his press conference yesterday, definitely want to give a shout out to the KU soccer team. Really unbelievable. This team enters the Big 12 tournament as the 5 seed, and they win the thing.

KU on Sunday picked up a victory over TCU to win 1-0 in the Big 12 Soccer Championship. That was held in Kansas City. The Jayhawks had previously beaten the number one team in the conference, Oklahoma State, 2-1. That was an emotional victory on Friday. And before that, the first round victory was over West Virginia, 2-0. So the KU soccer team clinches a spot in the NCAA tournament, and they're going to be a three seed. So from a five seed in the Big 12 tournament to a three seed in the NCAA tourney, and they're going to get a chance to host their region. Kansas is taking on Iowa this Saturday at 5 o'clock, and I'll make sure to remind all of Jayhawk Nation,

anybody in Lawrence can go out and support the girls, but it's going to be 5 o'clock and I'll make sure to remind all of Jayhawk Nation anybody in Lawrence can go out and support the girls but it's going to be five o'clock Saturday against Iowa the winner of that game will advance to take on either Virginia Tech or Xavier in the regional round one and round two for KU soccer so congratulations to Mark Francis and the girls seven KU soccer players were named to the Big 12 Soccer Championship all-tournament team, including Sarah Peters being named the most outstanding defensive player. So really just great. Anytime you get a Big 12 championship, conference championship in any sport,

we love it here. We love winning. And now let's go and get that national title. I mean, right now it's been a program that's been consistently good under Mark Francis, and now you've's been a program that's been consistently good under Mark Francis, and now you get an opportunity to win a couple games at home and see what happens from there. But congratulations to the women of KU soccer. All right, let's take a look around the Big 12. There's some action tonight, so anybody who's as much of a nerd about Big 12 basketball

could probably be interested in that. Probably the biggest name out there, biggest battle of two names, I guess. Oklahoma travels to Oregon State. That's a late game tonight at 10 o'clock in Corvallis. Other games in action, 7 o'clock starts for all three. Texas is hosting California Baptists. Texas, of course, coming off their big win at Mackey Arena against Purdue. TCU hosts the Raging Cajuns of Louisiana. That's a team Kansas hosted last year. And then Iowa State, they lost their last time out. They host

Northern Illinois. Again, those past three games I mentioned are all at 7 o'clock. Oklahoma travels to Oregon State at 10 o'clock. All right, let's get back to Coach Miles. And we know one of the biggest problems for this Kansas team offensively has been their slow start. So heading into the bye week after the K-State game, Coach Miles said that that's going to be one of the things they're focusing on is how to start better. He spoke to that yesterday at his press conference. The best offense that we have is when all cylinders are operating. You know, Pukas carrying the ball. We have four or five receivers that can go onto the field to make big plays. And we have Carter who can make the pass.

So that's the best way that this offense operates. And getting all those guys going early and getting in sync with each other early is going to be a key. Even the two big performances against Texas and Texas Tech, Kansas was seemingly behind the eight ball offensively, got down 14-0 to Texas, came back, ended up losing by two, could have won obviously. And then against against Texas Tech Kansas was down 17 nothing on homecoming they did finish the job then Liam Jones field goal gave Kansas the victory but again you're kind of having to dig from behind and don't get me wrong it's good to see Boston College was like that too got down early came back it's good to see this team fights and that they've got the fire power to actually come from behind when nature calls, but you would like to play from

ahead a little bit, and that's just not a luxury this Kansas team has had. Another possibility of playing from ahead is getting able to utilize the run game. That's something that Kansas State did against the Jayhawks big time in the Sunflower Showdown to the tune of 342 rushing yards, including 127 from their star quarterback Skyler Thompson. Kansas front seven has been a problem this year, to be quite honest, and it's something that they're going to have to shore up, especially heading into a game against Chuba Hubbard and company on Saturday. Oklahoma State has one of the best rushing attacks in the conference because of Chuba and his dominance. They've had a lot of guys who have been very successful. Think about a couple guys in the NFL right now, products of Oklahoma State,

Chris Carson and Justice Hill. So Mike Gundy is getting the right guys at tailback, and Chuba Hubbard is just another one in that long line. Here's Coach Miles talking about that front seven of KU's defense. Our front seven's got to make tackles. I mean, he's a talented, talented back. One of the best backs in the league, certainly. The defense is going to be a great test.

One of those guys who we've seen a steady improvement from this season has been Gavin Potter. He's been a fan favorite ever since he chose KU over K-State and Texas Tech. And, you know, we didn't see him a lot the early stages. Of course, we had a healthy Drew Prox. And Potter now, the past three, four, five games has been thrown in to the fire and expected to make plays. And he has really improved. Here's Coach Miles talking about his true freshman.

He's going to be that kind of linebacker. He's a guy that's long, wiry, fast. Two-time state champion of the state of Oklahoma. A physically strong guy. He's bright as a weapon. He's a guy that learns well. I think he'll play linebacker here for a number of years. Coach then continues, he talks about there are a lot of young guys who have this certain weakness, particularly in the linebacking core, and Gavin Potter just does not have that problem. Well, the weaknesses that most guys have are there needs to be an aggressive point.

You have to know when to shoot the gun to make the play, press to make the play. That's not a weakness of his in any way. He's an aggressive person by nature and he'll pull a trigger routinely. That's head coach Les Miles talking about Gavin Potter who's going to be a key part of this defense, not only the final three games of the 2019 season, but for many seasons to come here in Lawrence. And we like what we've seen the past couple of weeks out of Mr. Potter and look forward to his continued improvement. Coming up after the break, we're going to hear more from Bill Self and some KU players and a big announcement coming

later today for anybody who's not in the know on that 2020 top guard Bryce Thompson a five-star recruit is announcing his college of choice and he's point guard this is a guy that Kansas could really use Kansas of course already has a couple four-star guys inked in for next season and Tyon Grant Foster and Jethro Muscadine but particularly if you're going to lose Devon Dotson and or Ochai Abadji you need some some help in the backcourt, and Thompson would be a big-time get for this Kansas team. We'll talk about when his decision will be after the break. Manscaped is number one in men's below-the-belt grooming. Get 20% off and free shipping with the code LOCKEDON at manscaped.com.

This is the Locked On Podcast Network, the local experts on the biggest stories. We're going to hear from Bill Self here in a little bit as he's going to talk about the four-guard lineup that KU initiated the majority guys that I talked about, Musketon and Grant Foster, who are both four-star recruits. And this is according to 24-7 Sports. The two players alone make KU the 50th-ranked recruiting class in the 2020 rankings. If you get Thompson, that makes that class from instead of 50, it becomes number 11. So that would be awfully, awfully impressive. And this would be a victory for more than one way. Obviously, you're getting a guy who can play point guard for you next year.

But with all that's going on with the NCAA and stuff, that's kind of a sign that Kansas is still there. The KU brand is still a top notch in the eyes of some of these guys, and that KU coach Bill Self can continue to recruit his butt off because he has been great in continuing to get guys. And everything these guys have said, the two signees for Kansas so far, is that Self and the KU coaching staff have been very transparent about what's going on, and the players have said that according to KU coaches they're not at all worried about KU's future on that front so going to be interesting this guy is down to Kansas Oklahoma Oklahoma State in North Carolina and he was in the fog on Friday night for the UNC Greensboro game for his last unofficial visit six foot five 175 pound combo guard I mentioned he would probably

take over the point guard roles, assuming Devon Dotson does go pro. And if you're into the crystal ball predictions, 24-7 Sports has KU leading the way. 82% of the crystal ball predictions are favoring Kansas. Oklahoma, the remaining 18%. So it should be interesting, but man, that would be very, very exciting. Thompson has a mother and a father who both played college ball, and Coach Self coached his father, Thompson's father, at Tulsa.

So it should be exciting, and it would be a great day for Jayhawk Nation if they can land this guy, Bryce Thompson, out of Tulsa, which would be their third big-time recruit and their first five-star recruit of the 2020 class, particularly with everything that's gone on with this program. All right, so we know that Kansas went four guards the majority of the time against UNC Greensboro. They started, of course, with David McCormick and Yudoka Azubuki, the traditional too-big look, but it wasn't long before Bill Self kind of did away with that against a smaller, quick, and athletic UNC Greensboro team,

and he was asked after the game was Coach Self about why he went four guards so early. I didn't think we could guard them. I thought we got lucky early guarding them with four guards, and once again, you know, the offense was crowded and didn't have much going. So I thought we'd try to spread them. And then we actually defended pretty good too.

So I thought, except for defensive rebounding there for a stretch in the first half, I thought four guards looked pretty good out there. We got the shots we wanted. We just didn't make them. Coach Self's floor general echoed his statements. Devon Dotson talking about how he thought the four-guard look was successful. It was very successful because their team, they had four guards that could really stretch the floor and shoot. So that four guards that we put out there could defend and stretch out their defense.

And that's when we got rolling and knocked down the shots and got out of the transition. So, yeah, that worked for us tonight. The four-guard look was very successful on Friday for KU, particularly when they went on that big run at the beginning of the second half. Isaiah Moss, the senior grad transfer from Iowa, started the second half in replacement of David McCormick, and Bill Self kind of just ran with it. He talked to the exhibition about how we might have to have situations or games

where Doak and Silvio and David are just three guys rotating at the five, and this was one of those games. Now, he did talk about, after the game as well, how we'll probably continue to start two bigs, and we'll see a lot of the two big look for sure, particularly against bigger teams, but that particularly UNC Greensboro was not a team that was going to work out very well. You think about the guards and it gives guys more opportunity

to play. Now Kansas without Jalen Wilson, who's out for a significant period of time with that broken ankle, you've got six guys on the perimeter. So if you're playing four guards and you just got two guys on the bench and then you got three bigs rotating at the five spot when we do see that you might think it's a good thing for the guards because they're able to get out get some run get their feet wet and kind of get in the flow of the offense and everything but one guy who is very happy with the four guard look is Yudoka Azubuki he talked about that after the game and how it just is way better for him because he can operate with more space. It really worked out for me a lot because the floor kind of space around

and you know, we got my teammate, they can all shoot threes and stuff. And then, you know, that kind of really helped me to the floor, the space, but with the two big rotation, it's like sometimes like the other big kind of like, you know, cloud the lane for me. And that's kind of like difficult for me to walk on the inside. But with that four-man rotation, that kind of opened up a lot of space for me

to like do whatever I got to do. That's Yudoka Azubuki, and that's going to be a plus for any of the fives when they're out there with the four-guard lineup. But at the same time, you know, Silvio De Sosa, David McCormick are really talented players, and that is an advantage that Kansas is going to have over the majority of teams. We're going to have that size and that depth in the front court. It's just kind of a different brand of basketball now, particularly these mid-major teams who have so many small guys out there and a lot of guys who

can stretch the floor. Kansas is going to have to find a way to either match that with their four-guard look, or they're going to have to combat it and go with the too-big look and be able to take advantage somehow with their size. But we'll see. Every game will be a little bit different, of course, in terms of game flow and whatnot. So it should be exciting. We're going to be here for it. We're going to preview, of course, the Monmouth game as the week goes on,

Friday, 7 o'clock at Allen Fieldhouse, KU and Monmouth, and then Kansas football Saturday at 11 a.m. takes on Oklahoma State. We'll hear more from head coach Les Miles the rest of this week as well. Make sure you tune in to tomorrow's show. We'll have Bryce Thompson's commitment choice from later today. Hopefully he's a Jayhawk and contribute to that already

pretty good looking KU 2020 class for the basketball Jayhawks. Thanks so much for listening. This has been Locked On Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. And Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.