Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Locked On Jayhawks - 11.7.19

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

KU offense labors in loss to Duke; Jayhawks in the NBA; Les Miles talks starting fast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everyone? Welcome in to Thursday'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. And today we're going to hear more from Bill Self, reaction to the Jayhawks' loss in the Champions Classic on Tuesday to Duke. A 68-66 setback in Game 1 of the regular season. And of course KU will look to bounce back tomorrow. It's a late game tomorrow night. 8 o'clock start here in Lawrence at Allen Fieldhouse against UNC Greensboro. Now the Spartans won their first game of the regular season Tuesday as well, 83-50.

So UNC Greensboro will be coming in with the better record of the two teams, interestingly enough, after just one game. And tomorrow we'll have fresh sound from all the guys, media availability later today. So we'll hear more from Coach Self and a couple of KU players as well on tomorrow's show. And we'll preview the Spartans from UNC Greensboro. On this show, of course, we're going to talk a little bit more about the Duke game and what went wrong in the first segment. Second segment, we're going to do something a little bit different. A new Thursday edition, Thursday segment, going to be NBA Jayhawks. You're going to look at what some of the Jayhawks in the NBA have done

and also catch you up on what's happened in the Big 12, both in football and basketball season, as, of course, it's a busy time of year. And teams are going to be wrapping up their football season here, of course. The end of November, November 30th, is KU's final game, assuming they do not get invited to a bowl. And then December, a lot of bowl games in December and a couple in January as well. So we'll get you up to date on all of that. And, of course, men's basketball just underway as well.

A lot of teams got in action Tuesday night, same night of the Jayhawks game, where they officially opened college hoop season. The last segment, we'll kind of transition back to Kansas football. I haven't talked a lot of football this week because of the bye week, but we did get a chance to hear Les Miles after the K-State game kind of talk about some of the bigger picture things that this team needs to focus on moving forward.

All right, so let's talk hoops. Disappointing first game. We know the story of the game against the Blue Devils and the Battle of the Blue Bloods was the turnovers. 28 giveaways by this Kansas team. You can credit Duke's defense for that, of course, for part of it, but a lot of it was just mistakes on Kansas fronts. Most notably, perhaps the final turnover of the night in which David McCormick had the ball down low. He was about six feet away from the basket and just tried to make an extra pass to Yudoka Zabuki,

who was open for a split second. But when McCormick tried to sneak in the bounce pass, Duke's Jack White came in and was able to snatch it. And that gave Duke essentially the win because that was KU's last real opportunity to take the lead and take this one home. Bill Self talked to reporters after the game about that last turnover specifically.

I thought he had a shot and had a little three or four footer there trying to make an extra pass, which isn't the percentage play without question. But David did a good job tonight. He rebounded the ball well. That's a hard guard for him to guard a four man. He did a fabulous job for him He rebounded the ball well. That's a hard guard for him to guard a four-man. He did a fabulous job for him most of the time.

He's a really nice player. But, yeah, the late game deal, that's on me more than the kids. We've got to figure out how we can stretch the floor two weeks in the game because certainly that wasn't effective tonight very much at all. I talked about this a little bit on the show yesterday, but with the sheer volume of turnovers that KU committed, you didn't really get a chance to see what this team would look like in the half court. I mean, you've got an idea of what they want to do.

They've got two or three guys down low who can play with their back to the basket, and you want to play inside out, as some of Bill Self's best teams have done in his coaching career, but you didn't really get to see that because Duke was pressuring out so much. They were forcing so many turnovers and KU was just playing uncharacteristic to what most Jayhawks teams do, even though it was the first game of the regular season. That number of turnovers is really tough to see for a KU fan and we just haven't seen it very often. Mentioned 1988, KU turned the ball over 30 times in a first-round win in the NCAA tournament against Xavier, and it's not often that you're going to win those games, but I think that was a year that KU was kind of meant to be.

It was in the stars a little bit. But bottom line is, didn't get to see a lot in the half-court offense, and Bill Self was asked after the game if he thought the floor shrunk out there. I think the floor definitely shrunk from the first opening tip. You know, they didn't have to guard our bigs away from the basket, and our bigs really didn't do a good job, nor did our guards do a very good job early on as far as moving the ball and getting open and making the defense go from strong to weak, back to strong, and those sorts of things.

So there's some things. Our only offense, and I remember when we played Kentucky one year, the year they won it, and then we ended up meeting them in the finals. Our only offense was just Ty Sean, get the ball to Ty Sean, drive it downhill. And that was basically kind of what we resorted to tonight with Devon and Marcus. With that being the case, with the Jayhawks having to essentially resort to Dotson and Garrett trying to get the ball downhill, get to the rim, and either score or get fouled, KU was not able to establish what they thought was a strength heading into this game in this season, and that's their bigs down

low. Yudoka Azubuki had just four shot attempts, and he's the preseason Big 12 player of the year. You'd think that number, realistically, Coach Self would like to be up toward the 10 or 12 shots a game at least range for a guy who can score easily so close to the basket and has such a high percentage in his career. But of course, this year, you're transitioning a little bit back to that two bigs offensive attack like Bill Self had in years past. He hasn't had that the past couple years. Hasn't had the luxury of Biggs' depth. But this year, hopefully, we'll see a lot of that. That being said, Coach said it just felt a little bit different with Doak down low.

I think he and Silvio both were, it was a little bit different for them than probably what it would have been if they had been playing last year. I felt like, you know, basically both had the year off, and I thought that it felt a little different for them out there than it will moving forward. It's tough for KU fans to have any sort of patience at all regarding Jayhawk basketball because it's something that we wait for for so long. We're so excited about the beginning of the year, particularly when we have a team that's as talented and as deep as this team should be.

But you got to remind yourself, Yudoka Azubuki played basically one full season his sophomore year at KU. And freshman and junior years, he played 11 and nine games respectively. And that's it for Azubuki. And remember Silvio De Sosa, he played 20 games his freshman year a couple years ago, and then didn't play at all last year. And this is just game one of the regular season. And I'm sure a lot of KU fans remember Silvio's first eight or 10 games when it was really tough for him to get into the swing of things. And we know he's a more veteran player now, and he's been in the program for a while. That being said, game speed, especially against high caliber competition like Duke, it's not going to be as smooth as we want it to be. And that was certainly the case on Tuesday. We'll have an opportunity, of course, tomorrow night at

Allen Fieldhouse to right the ship, get back to 500 and beat a very pesky UNC Greensboro team. This is a team that has been to the postseason each of the last three seasons, including an appearance in the 2018 NCAA tournament. They almost upset in a 13-over-4 game Gonzaga, but the Bulldogs won that by four points. So it's never going to be a test. It's always going to be a test for KU. They're always going to bring in mid-majors who seemingly are picked first or second in their conference, and it'll be fun to see KU get back out there

and we can wash away this Duke loss, hopefully with a win tomorrow night. Coming up, we're going to take a look at Jayhawks in the NBA. We're going to recap and see what we have to look forward to in regards to the Big 12. And then later in the show, we'll hear some sound from Les Miles about some of the big-picture things regarding KU football. Football's next game is a road tilt in Stillwater, 11 a.m. kick on Saturday,

November 16th. All coming up next, this is the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Jayhawks in the NBA. Let's take a look here. We're going to do this segment on Thursdays. There's usually a lot of NBA action going around on Sundays and Wednesday nights in particular. So I'd like to recap the previous week and keep everybody up to date in Jayhawk Nation about how their guys are doing at the next level. So let's go back to Sunday's action. Andrew Wiggins, 21 points and 6 assists for the Timberwolves. Kelly Oubre is playing for the Suns now.

He had 15 points and 4 boards in 28 minutes of action. Markeith Morris, he's a piston, 13 points and 4 boards. And Devontae Graham on Sunday had 4 points and 8 assists. Sfee McIloot got 14 minutes. He had 3 points and a board. He also plays for the Pistons. Back on November 3rd, Marcus Morris had 28 points and 6 boards in 34 minutes. He seems to have found a bit of a niche with the Knicks in New York. And Ben McLemore, he's getting some run with a new team in Houston. He had 14 points and 3 threes on that game on Monday night.

All right, Devontae Graham, what a start to the season it's been for Devontae and Charlotte. Been out playing Terry Rozier. Graham, a couple nights ago, 35 points on 10 of 21 shooting. He had four threes, and he also had six assists, four boards, and three steals. So DT filling the stat sheet. And, you know, that's one of those guys that was here for four years, and it seems like his ability to grow here and, you know, become a better player throughout college, he's turning it on to

the NBA. I don't think anybody ever would have thought that a guy who originally signed with Appalachian State would have a shot in the NBA, but Devontae is doing that. He has an opportunity now in Charlotte, and he's taking full advantage. Last night, Andrew Wiggins, he scored 30 points, 11 of 21 shooting. He had six assists, 2 boards, 2 steals, and a block. And there were a lot of other Jayhawks in action getting it done last night. Joel Embiid had 27 points and 16 boards. Another double-double for a guy who's likely going to be a perennial all-star in the league. The Twins were at it again.

Markeith Morris, 22 points and 5 dimes. Marcus had 18 points and 4 boards. Ben McLemore had 3 points and a rebound for the Rockets and for the Pistons. Mekhi Luke got 15 minutes. He had 2 boards and 2 assists last night. Try to keep you updated throughout the season on where these guys are at in terms of their stats. We're about 8 games, 8 to 10 games in the NBA season so far. Marcus Morris Morris I mentioned

Mook has got a bit of a niche now in New York he seems to have found himself just better numbers across the board than his career he's averaging 18 points five boards shooting 43 percent from the field 85 percent from the free throw line and 48 percent from three so Marcus Morris off to a great start for the Knicks. Mentioned Devontae Graham. He has been obviously taking full advantage of this opportunity. He's averaging over 17 points, nearly seven assists, 43% from the field for Devontae, 47% from three,

and 82% from the line. Devontae getting a lot of minutes this year, and he is earning them. Hopefully that success continues for a guy who I think regarded by many as an all-time Jayhawk favorite. Mentioned Joel Embiid. As long as he can stay healthy, this man is a problem. He's only played 64 and 63 games each of the last two years, respectively. Hopefully he gets in a full 82 this year, and that he can stay healthy. That would be the only thing that would hold him back from being, as I mentioned, that perennial all-star. Embiid this year averaging 24 points and rebounds. You know him, he's always going to be getting the boards. Averaging a double-double

with 12 boards a game is Embiid. He's also dishing out 3.3 assists per game. Joel Embiid, one of the stars of the NBA. Kelly Oubre, he's a guy who he's put in already in his short time a pretty solid NBA career. He's moved around a little bit. He started in Washington, but now he's in Phoenix. He's a guy who's found his niche. 17 points a game. He is averaging in six boards for Kelly Oubre. He's 36% from three, but he's 49% free throw, field goal shooter overall for Kelly Oubre, who played with the Jayhawks in the 14-15 season. And he's another guy who kind of steadily has raised his game. His stats have steadily increased throughout his time as Oubre is now in his fifth year in the league. And Andrew Wiggins, we know all about him, how highly recruited he was,

how highly touted he was coming into Kansas. He obviously played with the Jayhawks in the 13-14 year with Embiid, and he's been with the Minnesota Timberwolves ever since he got traded over on draft night from the Cleveland Cavaliers. And in his sixth year in the league Wiggins is putting together a really nice season 22 points a game and five rebounds a game for Andrew Wiggins and the big thing with him has kind of always been his field goal shooting percentage he's hovering around 45 percent right now which is better than the past couple years 41 percent 44 percent for Wiggs the last couple years 34 percent from deep for Andrew Wiggins as well. He's also improved that free throw stroke,

which has been under 70% each of the last two years. Early stages of this year, Wiggins is shooting 74% from the charity stripe. So that's Jayhawks in the NBA. We'll recap that, kind of keep you up to date on our Hawks playing at the next level every Thursday. Another thing we'll try to keep you up to date on is Big 12 action going on. Of course, football and basketball both going on right now. Let's start with the hoops.

We know that KU lost their opener to Duke, and we've seen nine of the ten Big 12 teams play in action. KU the lone loser. Of course, they were the only team that played a competition anywhere near the level of Duke. But kind of recap, Baylor had no problem over Central Arkansas. They beat them by 44. that played a competition anywhere near the level of Duke. But kind of recap, Baylor had no problem over Central Arkansas. They beat them by 44.

These games were all on Tuesday when Kansas played. K-State was down early in this one to North Dakota State, but they ended up coming back, and they won 67-54. Cats were minus 11.5 in that game, so they covered just barely. Texas defeated Northern Colorado in Austin 69-45. Iowa State, they put on a show offensively 110-74 over Mississippi Valley State in Ames. Oklahoma hosted Texas San Antonio, and that was the Sooners on top 85-67. And Texas Tech, fresh off their national runner-up appearance last year, that overtime thriller against Virginia, they win in Lubbock on opening night, 85-60 over Eastern Illinois.

One game last night, it was Oklahoma State 80 and Oral Roberts 75. A couple teams with Bill Self-Ties going at it there, and the Cowboys survive by five. TCU, the lone team that was not in action earlier this week, they're going to take on Southwestern University tonight in Fort Worth at 7 o'clock. Tomorrow, three teams will be in action, including our Jayhawks, 8 o'clock in Lawrence against UNC Greensboro. Baylor is traveling to Anchorage, Alaska to play in the Armed Forces Classic against Washington, and West Virginia is hosting Akron.

All three of those games are tomorrow, and of course there will be a lot of teams in action this Saturday as well as Big 12 basketball is underway. Big 12 football, we know about some of the big games going on this weekend, and we're going to talk about those right now. Of course, the Jayhawks are not playing. Texas Tech is traveling to West Virginia in a battle of a couple teams near the

bottom of the conference, but then you've got a lot of big ones. Baylor at TCU. That game's at 11 o'clock on Saturday. K-State is at Texas, 2-30 on ESPN. Wildcats trying to stay hot. They're 6-2, and the Horns, of course, they're thinking Big 12 championship as well. They are feeling like a lot of different teams that they've got to win out to have a shot. And then the big one, Oklahoma is hosting Iowa State, first of back-to-back huge games for Oklahoma. Probably still the Big 12's best shot at making the college football playoff if Oklahoma is able to beat Iowa State and then beat Baylor next week. You never know, though.

If Baylor wins in Fort Worth this weekend, they would certainly have a case as well. You look at the Big 12 standings, the Bears are still atop at a perfect 5-0 in the conference and Oklahoma right behind them at 4-1. So if both teams win this weekend, that sets up for a monster game next weekend. Iowa State, Texas, and K-State are all 3-2. I mentioned Wildcats are in Manhattan this weekend. Oklahoma State is 3-3. That's KU's next opponent a week from Saturday. TCU 2-3. Tech and West Virginia are both 1-4.

And the Jayhawks are 1-5. So it should be an exciting weekend for Big 12 football. And of course, that will track Big 12 basketball as well on Locked On Jayhawks. Coming up next, we're going to talk about Kansas football and perhaps some things they can fix during the bye week and some areas they need to work on before that game against Oklahoma State November 16th at 11 a.m. Manscaped is number one in men's below-the-belt grooming.

Get 20% off and free shipping with the code LOCKEDON at manscaped.com. The Locked On Podcast Network, the local experts on the biggest stories. Let's finish things up today, talking a little KU football as the Jayhawks are idle this week, of course, but we haven't had a chance yet to hear from Les Miles after the K-State game, and we'll obviously not go over that game too much. It was kind of an atrocity if you're a Jayhawk fan.

It was a game that K-State controlled. The final score was 38-10. I mean, that's probably about right. It was 24-3 Cats in the fourth quarter, and twice in the fourth quarter, Kansas elected to go for it on fourth down in their own territory, and relatively deep in their own territory, because they felt like that was the only opportunity they had to stay in the game. And both times, K-State ended up scoring touchdowns, so they had two short fields there that they took advantage of, and then KU, the last drive of the game, didn't matter much, but they were able to score with under a minute to go. Manny Miles, his first career touchdown as a Jayhawk, ran it in, and that made the final

score 38-10, but all in all, it was dominated by the Wildcats. Frustrating, it was a game K-State was just a five-point favorite in this game, and it was frustrating not only because of that, but because there was finally buildup. I mean, the traffic in Lawrence was unlike anything we had seen on a football game day in quite some time, but, you know, of course there's a lot of purple in Lawrence, but there are a lot of KU fans out there too, and it was frustrating to to see but it was nice to see that David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium was packed it was completely full, sold out

for the first time in 11 years and Les Miles when he spoke to reporters after the game before he even allowed questions said he had to talk about that atmosphere I never so enjoyed an environment and atmosphere I can only tell you that our guys truly appreciate those people that were in in the stands and rooting for the jayhawks i uh i did not notice a lot of purple it looked like to me that this was bought by guys from Kansas and gals that wanted the Jayhawks to win.

And it was a loud stadium, and it was a Jayhawk loud. It was a good sight to see. There was a lot of red in the stands. It was an initiative begun by some of the KU players, since blue and purple can kind of fade together at times. KU football players wanted the students to come out in red, their Jayhawk red, and that's what we saw, a lot of crimson in the stands. And it was great. Unfortunately, you know, those fans hit the exit late in the third quarter, early fourth quarter,

when this game was not in doubt. So that was unfortunate for sure. And I know the guys are disappointed they couldn't put together a better showing in their rivalry game. And for Les Miles and Chris Kleiman, this was their first taste of the Sunflower rivalry game. And for Les Miles and Chris Kleiman, this was their first taste of the Sunflower Showdown. Here are Les Miles' thoughts on that. I think it's exactly the style of rivalry that I'm used to seeing. Close proximity, people who knew other people. They know us, we know them.

And it was a hard- certainly a hard fought game i uh yeah they're pretty talented perhaps no wildcat more talented than their quarterback skylar thompson he didn't really hurt the jayhawks through the air just 9 of 16 129 yards in the win but thompson just killed k on the ground. Running first was Thompson, 17 carries, 127 yards, and three touchdowns. We didn't see a lot of quarterback draws, which K-State featured a lot in their win over Oklahoma and Manhattan, but a lot of speed options and a lot of scrambling, to be quite frank. Skyler Thompson, three touchdowns on the ground, really hurt KU. Overall, the ground game for K-State completely controlled this game,

part of why they were able to out-possess the Jayhawks 38 minutes to 22 minutes. In terms of rush yards, 342 for Kansas State and just 61 for the Jayhawks. Offensively for Kansas, Carter Stanley was 13 of 23, 115 yards, and two interceptions in the game, so certainly not his best game as a Jayhawk and not what we expected after back-to-back great performances from Stanley and the KU offense. First two games with new offensive coordinator Brent Dierman, the offense surpassed 500 yards total, but that was obviously not the case against a much stingier K-State defense. And one of the problems is that KU in each of these last three games, and really

it's been a problem all year, they have not been able to start fast offensively. Les Miles after the game reiterated that many times, and here's him talking about the importance. Not started fast in the last several games, and it's what we've got to work to accomplish. We put ourselves in a bind, and they expect us to come find our way out of that hole. And we're not going to do that. We're going to do that. We're going to start fast. We're going to take this week in the open week

and pursue improvement. Certainly starting fast has got to be the key piece. We are thinking and hoping that Carter Stanley will be KU's quarterback when they take the field next on November 16th against Oklahoma State. Stanley did leave this game about midway through the fourth quarter with an apparent knee injury in favor of Manny Miles, who ended up scoring the lone touchdown of the day for the Jayhawks. But from everything we heard, at least after the game on Saturday,

was that Stanley should be okay. It shouldn't be anything serious. Of course, Les Miles has a press conference on Monday, and I'm sure he'll be asked about the health of Stanley. But we hope that number nine will be back there, and we hope that he can lead this Jayhawk offense back to what they did the first couple games under Brent Dierman and lead this Kansas team back to a win not out of the question yet that Kansas could sneak into a bowl but obviously they're going to need a lot of help three and six

are likely going to have to win out in order to be invited to a bowl but we're not going to put away faith until that is the case all right well this show we've heard from Bill Self and KU players some more reaction from their loss in the Champions Classic on Tuesday, and we'll preview, of course, the UNC Greensboro game tomorrow night on tomorrow's show. We've also looked at Jayhawks in the NBA and talked about

action around the Big 12, basketball and football in full swing now in the 2019 season. Tomorrow's show, in addition to previewing UNC Greensboro from the basketball side of things, we'll hear more from Les Miles and KU football, and of course we'll have our Friday 5 picks.

We tried to right the ship 5-10-1 so far in the first three weeks of the Friday 5, and now we've got basketball as an option, so a lot of lines to look at moving forward. Hopefully we can get some winners this week. I am Sean Kellerman. Thanks so much for listening. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Sean Kellerman. Follow the show on Twitter at

LO underscore Jayhawks. We'll catch you tomorrow for the Friday edition of Locked On Jayhawks, a product of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. And Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.