Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Locked On Jayhawks - 11.8.19

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

Friday 5 picks; Self, Agbaji, Enaruna talk Duke, UNCG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up Jayhawk Nation? Welcome in to the Friday game day edition of Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks again for tuning in. I'm 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. Got a lot to get to today. Obviously we're going to preview UNC Greensboro. KU's home opener tonight as the Jayhawks 0-1 following their setback to Duke in the Champions Classic 68-66 on Tuesday. So they're going to face a Spartans team that won their first game 83-50 over North Carolina A&T. And it's not going to be easy KU comes in as a 14 and a half point favorite but

this is a team that returns four starters from last year due to the Spartans and they they lose the top score but they're always seemingly in the talk in regards to NCAA tournament and they were one of the last teams not to be invited to the tournament last year after making it as a 13 seed in 2018. So we'll certainly talk about that as the show goes on, but we're going to get our Friday five picks in segment two, and we're going to hear a lot from Bill Self, Tristan Inaruna, and Ochai Abadji as they were made available to the media yesterday. All right, well, first thing we're going to do is look back at this Duke game. We've talked a little bit about it, broken it down each of the last couple days since the atrocity that was the Champions Classic in which KU turned it over 28 times in that game,

which is two off a school record. And the total number of turnovers in that game of 44 easily surpassed the record previously held by a Kansas versus West Virginia game in terms of total turnovers. A 2015 matchup between the Hawks and the Mountaineers totaled 38 total turnovers, so 44 in the Champions Classic of all games between KU and Duke. And KU had the majority of those, of course, with the 28. Bill Self was asked yesterday if it was more because of his guys not taking care of the ball and just throwing it to the other team or out of bounds, or if it was more Duke's defense? There's no defense in America that can force 28 turnovers.

You've got to help them do that. But they did force their fair share, and then we got sped up, and then we contributed to it as well. We were awful in transition offense, and those were opportunities that we had to put points on the board. But if you go back and watch the tape, Duke's best offense was our offense. And usually when we don't play well, that's a big reason why. But that's a credit to them as well.

Just really uncharacteristic for the Jayhawks to turn the ball over that many times. And we talked about the ball security, how it was so good the first two exhibition games. Seven turnovers against Fort Hayes State and four against Pitt State. MIAA competition, but still KU was able to get in their half-court offense and kind of do whatever they wanted when they had possession of the ball. And without possession of the ball against Duke, they couldn't get anything set up. We have no idea what their half-court offense is going to look like this season. At least if you'd only seen that game, you didn't know much about the personnel. You'd be wondering who this Kansas team really is. Perhaps most surprising was the fact that KU's backcourt

and Devon Dotson and Ochai Abadji, they combined for 11 turnovers and had just two assists, just completely opposite of what you expect from not only those two guys, but from guys running the show at a perennial program like Kansas in general. Tristan Inaruna, who had a pretty solid debut, he had five points. He did have a couple turnovers himself. He talked to media members yesterday about what he thought caused the turnovers. I think everything, you know, we obviously it's a new group of guys and it's the first real season game. So I think all of those factors played a role in it um and uh you know just just like I said the first game you know things like that can happen um and I think

it's something that we can learn from that we actually aren't going to learn from uh because it's just not the way we play you know it's not the way we've been practicing so um I'm not really worried about it happening again. So the Jayhawks did do some good things. We haven't talked a lot about that after such an ugly opener, but the Hawks did do some good things, but it seemed like every time they did something good, it turned into something bad, such as a turnover, and a lot of the problem was in transition. KU looked out of sync in transition, didn't look comfortable, and didn't take advantage when they had opportunities. Ochai Abadji talked to media members yesterday about some of the problems in

that game against Duke. Some plays we had throughout the course of the game where we had the chance to make an extra pass or something like that, just playing unselfishly, giving the ball up earlier. I know I had some mistakes during the game when I had the opportunity to do that, but just giving the ball up earlier, looking for the open man when he's open, obviously, and just playing with each other and sharing the ball. Sharing the ball, really a staple of Bill Self's teams ever since he became a head coach, and now, of course, he's a Hall of Fame head coach, and that was not a Bill Self coach team. It didn't look like a Bill Self coach team, I should say, on Tuesday.

We're used to seeing a lot of assists on a lot of field goals, a lot of moving the ball around and sharing it, and like Ochai just said, that was not the case on Tuesday in the loss against Duke. Bill Self also talked about how this game, you know, he said earlier this week that it could be a positive if KU is able to spin it into a positive, but he talked about how there's definitely room to improve. I know that there's a lot of room for improvement, and I know that having Isaiah,

when he gets back out there, will certainly add a different dimension to it. I was impressed with how Tristan played, primarily in the first half, but we can't play our starters 38-38-35. We can't do it, and that's on me to get confidence in our young guys, but it's also on them to come in and play a way that gives our team the best chance, too. And that's the constant balance, right? We talked about how we didn't get a lot of bench production in this game. You had five points from Inaruna and then three free throws from Silvio De Sousa, and that was it. Just two field goals made combined for the bench. Jalen Wilson only played

two minutes. Christian Brown only played four minutes. And like Coach just said, you don't want the starters out there that often. I think maybe that was more of an emotional play for the coaching staff because, you know, it's a blue blood. It's a Champions Classic. You don't want to lose that game. I think moving forward, you'll see definitely a lot more of the bench, and hopefully that begins tonight against UNC Greensboro. One of these guys, like Coach said, at least one of these guys is going to have to step up, whether it's Inaruna, Brown, or Wilson, to kind of become that first freshman to really make an impact and be able to be the guy who's on the court and give these veteran guards, particularly,

a chance to come off the court and have a breather. And, of course, Isaiah Moss, we're not sure if he'll play tonight either, but that would be a welcome sight. Moss, whether he plays tonight or not, he'll have a week after. So if they decide to not play him tonight, KU's next game is not until a week from tonight against Monmouth. That game also at Allen Fieldhouse. So hopefully Isaiah is out there tonight, but if not, hopefully he's 100% by the Monmouth game a week from tonight.

Coming up in the next segment, we're going to hear more from the guys, of course. We'll go through our Friday 5 picks and obviously preview UNC Greensboro, the matchup tonight, and the home opener here in Lawrence at Allen Fieldhouse between the Hawks and the Spartans. The Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. The other four losses we've had in the Champions Classic, we've ended up being a one or two seed every year.

So I don't believe that that's a disaster by any chance. That's Bill Self talking about the four previous losses for the Jayhawks in the Champions Classic and how those seasons ended up finishing all right. I think that's fair to say. KU following their loss to Duke on Tuesday is now 4-5 in the event. Duke improved to 6-3, but just 1-2 against Kansas. The second game, interestingly enough, of that Champions Classic, the quote-unquote underdog won that one as well as Kentucky defeated Michigan State.

Michigan State was ranked number one in the country. They are just 3-6 in the nine-year history of the Champions Classic, and Kentucky is 5-4 four so pretty good parody throughout but duke at six and three has the best record ku falls to four and five they've not been over 500 yet they started oh and two and have been uh trying to claw their way back they were four and four of course before losing on tuesday but anyway point is bill self Self is not going to let this one loss get in the way of any potential success this team could have because just like many other games in November, December, even January,

what happens in the game does not really affect how people view your season. For Kansas, it's all about winning the Big 12 title again, getting back on that train and starting another streak, hopefully, and, of course having success in the ncaa tournament something that we always want all right we're gonna hear more from bill self he's gonna talk about devon dotson silvio de sosa and then of course the final segment will preview unc greensboro a little bit more but want to get into our friday five five lines i like in the upcoming sports weekend. And there's a lot going on. College

Hoops now is back into play. NFL football, of course, is in Week 10. And what a weekend it is for college football. There are so many marquee games this weekend, highlighted, of course, by LSU going to Tuscaloosa. That's number 2 versus number 3. Alabama is a 6-point favorite in that game. Big 10 battle. Iowa, number 18, is plus nine at number 13, Wisconsin. And then we're going to start in the Friday Five with another Big Ten top 25 matchup. It's number 17, Minnesota, hosting number four, Penn State. Penn State, of course, would be in the college football playoff ahead of Clemson if the season ended today. Minnesota is plus 7 in that game. Both teams are 8-0, and I like Minnesota with the points here

because 7 is a good number, and I just like what P.J. Fleck is doing with the Golden Gophers team. It kind of reminds me of the 06-07-08 Kansas regime with Mark Mangino just kind of slowly building the program up. Minnesota for the first time in 14 years beat Wisconsin in football last year and they're just they're on the right direction you know they're kind of you don't want to say small market because it's just a college but that's kind of the vibe you get you know they're not one of the marquee names in the Big Ten but here they are in the top 25 and I think that place will be rowdy. Minnesota covers the

7 against Penn State. One other college football line that I like, and we're going to stay in the Big 10, and I just hate this, but I like it enough to bet it. Maryland is plus 43.5 at number one Ohio State. Ohio State is going to be without Chase Young. That was just announced this morning that Chase Young potential NCAA impermissible benefit situation. He will not play perhaps college football's best pass rusher and I think that is just enough to let Maryland recover the 43 and a half. It's not going to be pretty but I think that is the right bet in that game. All right, I'm going to do the Sunday NFL game first. Let's go Baltimore minus 10.5 at Cincinnati for my lone NFL bet of the week. I really don't understand why this line isn't bigger. I get it's at Cincinnati, but Cincinnati is not starting Andy Dalton for, you know, I don't know if that's good or bad for

this bet. They're going with a fourth round pick, Ryan Finley at quarterback. But Baltimore is so much better than this 0-8 Bengals team. I don't understand why it's only 10.5. So normally when I don't understand why a line is what it is, I shouldn't bet it. But I'm not doing that this time. I'm keeping it Baltimore minus 10.5. I think they're significantly better than Cincinnati. And I think that game is a blowout at Paul Brown Stadium. All right, College Hoops games, and these are both tonight. Pretty solid slate of college basketball tonight, which we're all excited about. Of course, there's a lot of games on Fridays when college football is still going on,

and that's the case. All right, two teams I like tonight. In the Big 12, Baylor minus five against Washington. That game is being played in Anchorage, Alaska as part of the Armed Forces Classic. And I'm really high on Baylor this year. They're ranked 16th in the country. They've got a super sophomore in Jared Butler who dropped 30 in the Bears' first game. And Washington's a team that's lost four of their starters from last year.

They do add Quade Green, the transfer from Kentucky, but they lost so much of their production. And the other thing is these teams kind of play similarly with a zone. I think it's a bad matchup for Washington in terms of talent. I think Baylor covers the five points tonight in the Armed Forces Classic. Other basketball game I like, rounding out the Friday Five, the Catamounts for Vermont. They visited Allen Fieldhouse last year. I like them minus four at St. Bonaventure. Vermont

basketball has a lot of talent. If you guys remember when they played the Jayhawks last year, they have a lot of guys who can score. The Duncan brothers, Everett Duncan and Robin Duncan, and then Anthony Lamb is a stud. He's a senior. Steph Smith is a junior. He had a big game at Allen Fieldhouse. And then they've got Ben Shungu down low. I just like this Vermont team.

They return a lot of guys. They're a veteran team. And I think four points against not a very good St. Bonaventure team, even though it's on the road, should be easy enough for the Catamounts to cover. All right, so recapping the Friday 5. Two college football games. I like Minnesota plus 7 at home against Penn State. Maryland plus 43.5 on the road in Columbus against Ohio State.

NFL game on Sunday, Baltimore minus 10.5 at the Bengals. And then two games tonight in College Hoops World. Baylor minus 5 against Washington. And Vermont minus 4 at St. Bonaventure. We know the Jayhawks have a big game tonight. First game at Allen Fieldhouse, the official regular season in 2019-20, a season that there's a lot of high expectations for this talented and deep KU team. But it all kind of centers around Devon Dotson, right?

He's the guy who runs the show for this KU team, and he had a forgettable performance with that six-turnover, one-assist game against Duke. Bill Self talked about what he expects for Devon moving forward after watching that game. Run a team? Yeah, run a team. I thought that that was a game. You know, we said this before, and this is not a knock on Devon because I think he's terrific, but

that was a game before that Frank and Devontae loved to be a part of. It's a one possession game, last two minutes we're just going to get a stop, that type of situation. We'll grow into that, but it's still a little new to him maybe having that responsibility. But in order for and we'll grow into that, but it's still a little new to him, maybe having that responsibility. But in order for us to be a really good team, he's got to be that because he's the one guy that can do it, and I believe he will. There's no one more important to the success of this Kansas team

than Devon Dotson, and I truly believe that no one will take the loss to Duke harder than Devon Dotson. Such a competitor, he's not going to be happy with his performance. He's not going to be happy with the loss. And I expect a great game from him tonight. And moving forward, as I think he can certainly be in the conversation for not only Big 12 Player of the Year, but National Player of the Year come seasons. And we're going to hear more from Bill Self.

He's going to talk about some of the bigs. And then we'll hear from Self and the guys about UNC Greensboro in our final segment. First, let me tell you that with Roman, you can get a free online evaluation and ongoing care for ED, all from the comfort and privacy of your home. Just go to GetRoman.com slash locked to get a free online visit and free two-day shipping. The Locked On Podcast Network, the local experts on the biggest stories. Final segment here on this Friday game day edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Jayhawks taking on UNC Greensboro tonight, 8 o'clock at Allen Fieldhouse.

Shoot me a follow on Twitter at Sean Kellerman or at LO underscore Jayhawks to follow the show. You can message me or tweet at me, whatever you'd like. If you'd like some more content, anything else, let me know. Let me know how bad my Friday 5 picks are. 5-10-1 entering this, just went over those, the last segment, basketball entering. I'm hoping that's going to be a good thing moving forward all right we know what happened on tuesday with the loss to duke and we talked about how

there wasn't a lot of bench production to go along with the ridiculous number of turnovers to be quite honest but from the bench you get five points out of interuna on two made field goals and you get three made free throws out of silvio de Sosa, and that was it. And Silvio's a guy, he started the first exhibition game for the Jayhawks, and of course, as a junior, this is now his third year with the program. Even though he didn't play any games last year and played about half the season his freshman season, you know, he hasn't quite gotten into his groove yet, which I guess makes sense at this point when he hasn't played too much college ball. Here's Bill Self yesterday talking about Silvio he's thinking and and he needs to get his motor turned up I mean there were some you guys saw

there were some balls the other day playing way below the rim or backboard you know had a uncontested tip in that he went with one hand you know and stuff and and everything and he's more than capable. He's just thinking too much, you know. He'll get it. One guy Coach Self was pleased with in Tuesday's game was David McCormick. McCormick played 29 minutes, and he even played with two fouls late in the first half instead of Yudoka Azubuki or Silvio De Sosa

because Coach just felt like it was worth it. I mean, David was giving you minutes and Doak and Silvio were not giving coach what he wanted. And coach talked about how Silvio and David are still both kind of adjusting to this new role. He and David are both five men playing, playing a different position, you know, and so that doesn't mean that they can't play the four and the positions can't be interchangeable. But when you're going to play around Doak, you need to be able to do some things because Doak ain't going to move from very far from the basket. So those are things that he'll get better at. And certainly when he played two years ago, you know, our four

man was Fee or LeGerald. So it's a little bit different than what it is now. We'll certainly keep our eye on Silvio and David. And again, you limit the turnovers tonight. It'd be nice to be able to see what this team can do in the half court since Silvio, David, and Yudoka Azubuki are all guys that we think can work and can operate with their back to the basket. And we just did not get a chance to see that very often on Tuesday. UNC Greensboro, let's talk a little bit about them. First off, it's not a big name, right? You just played Duke, so is that going to be a problem when you're facing a mid-major team? Here's Ochai Abadji yesterday talking about that. Coaches definitely emphasize how big of a challenge this game is tomorrow, how good of a team they are, returning four starters and all

that. And their record last year was pretty solid. So a team like that coming in after a loss, you know, we got to bounce back and focus on that. This is a UNC Greensboro team that last year went 29-7 in the conference that Wofford and Furman are in. That's awfully impressive. It was a top-heavy conference. Wofford was 18-0 in the conference. Of course, they gave Kentucky a run for their money in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Then you had UNC Greensboro at 15-3, and then East Tennessee State and Furman were both 13-5 in their conference. So Greensboro, a 29-win team last year. They were a bubble team all up until the picks were revealed, the teams were revealed on Selection Sunday.

And some people said that they were the last team to not make it to the tournament. So they went to the NIT and won a game there. But it's a program on the rise. And, of course, we know all about players from North Carolina and how many different Division I basketball schools there are in Carolina, because it's kind of a basketball hotbed. So Greensboro, they do lose their top scorer from last year, but they return the other four starters. They won their first game 83-50 over the North Carolina A&T Aggies, and in that game it was Caleb Hunter. He's a sophomore scoring

17 points with 7 rebounds Isaiah Miller had 13 points six boards three assists and three steals and they had 10 different players score and four different players and double figures and a blowout win at home and it's just it's one of those teams that is a top tier team in their conference and that's who Kansas consistently schedules we know about Wofford how KU played them at home last year. Louisiana was near the top of their league last year. Kansas had a home date with them. And I talked earlier about Vermont and my Friday Five, how they are always going to be at the top of their conference and going to be veteran teams who are going to come in. They've got talented guys. They just don't play for big name schools. Here's Coach Self talking about the

Spartans. They're good They did lose their leading score from last year and he was a terrific player, but watching tape very impressed with Wes's bunch They switch defenses that were gonna press the whole game To slow people down and and then also look to steal as well and and they're they're really athletic Really athletic and so they match up with us, you know athletically looked at Steele as well, and they're really athletic, really athletic. And so they match up with us, you know, athletically pretty well. So they're not as big as we are, you know, inside, but certainly they've got a legitimate shot blocker that could be considered to be the best athlete on the court.

So I like their team. And, you know, if you look at last year, Wofford ended up beating them three times, but they beat each Tennessee state twice. And, you know, they were the last team I was told just the other day. They were the last team not to get in. And, you know, there was an upset in a conference tournament or they would have gotten that large bid. So, yeah, that's hard to do from a mid-major league.

So they obviously are very capable. The shot blocker Coach Self's talking about is James Dickey, and he averaged eight bores and two blocks a game last year. They also had Kyron Galloway. Both Dickey and Galloway had three blocks in Greensboro's opening victory. Should be a fun one. Kind of scary to hear that they could match up athletically with the Jayhawks since we have a lot of stellar athletes on our team but it's going to be a good battle I'd imagine and KU certainly is going to be ready I mean they they're going to be ticked

after their loss we don't like having a losing record by any stretch and going to be yet another test but hopefully in front of 16,300 the Jayhawks can get back on the right foot thanks so much for listening today. We got a chance to hear a lot from Bill Self, Ochai Abadji, and Tristan Inaruna. Looking forward to this game tonight, and we'll, of course, break it down on Monday, the next edition of Locked on Jayhawks. A product of the Locked On Podcast Network, the local experts on the biggest stories. And Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.