Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Locked On Jayhawks - 12.13.19

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

Bill Self gives update on Jalen Wilson, previews KC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everyone? Welcome into this final edition this week of Locked On Jayhawks. I'm your host, 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. Hope everyone's had a great week gearing up for the holiday season. Make sure you get your shopping done or at least have an idea of what you're going to get your loved ones for this holiday season. Make sure you get your shopping done or at least have an idea of what you're going to get your loved ones for this Christmas season. For our Jayhawks, they've got a game tomorrow against the new Kansas City Roos, formerly known as the UMKC

Kangaroos. They recently in July rebranded. They want to be known as Kansas City's college team. So the Kansas City Roos, that game will be tomorrow at Sprint Center. And then Kansas has a week off while the guys take finals. December 21st is a battle. It'll be likely the number one ranked Jayhawks taking on another top 25 team in Villanova. That game, 11 a.m. tip, the 21st in Philadelphia. And then the 29th, as Kansas will have a week off for Christmas, 29th KU's back after it.

They take on Stanford in California and that game is at 2. So some exciting games coming up for KU before the Big 12 conference season hits us hard. January 4th opening at Allen Fieldhouse against West Virginia. So should be a lot of fun. We're going to hear a lot from Bill Self this show. He's going to talk about how he's going to get creative with two bigs in the lineup when that's the case. He's going to talk about where this team is defensively and compare it to a team of the past that he's had at KU. He'll also give an update on Jalen Wilson as well as the KU freshman broke his ankle way back when and has been rehabbing and coach giving a timetable for Jalen, so stay tuned for that.

Of course, we'll go through our Friday 5 as well as I look to climb back to 500. And we'll take a look around the Big 12 and our NBA Jayhawks. And then the final segment, Coach Self is going to talk about some of the struggles this Kansas team has had in this game particular at Sprint Center. Maybe not necessarily every game at Sprint Center with the Big 12 Championship taking place there, but this specific Jayhawk shootout, there have been some struggles, so we'll hear Coach talk about that. And he'll preview the Kansas City Roos as well, who are a 5-6 basketball team. First thing I want to get into, though, is talking about the Jayhawks, Ochai Abadji.

Abadji, he's really been a star of the show the last couple games, at least statistically. Against Colorado, Och had 20 points and 12 boards, and he followed that up with an impressive performance again against Milwaukee. He had 22 points in that game and pulled down 8 rebounds, So Ochoa averaging 21-10 over the last couple games. And maybe that's something we didn't see earlier in the year, especially in the rebounding category. Ochoa, a guy who can jump out of the gym. We saw that right in front of us against Milwaukee when he finished off that alley-oop from Devon Dotson with a reverse slam. So Ochoa, he's got some bunny hop to him.

And we know that he is as athletic as anybody out there on the court at any given time. And for Coach, he's happy with Ochi, and here's Coach talking about number 30. He's playing with a much freer mind. He still can improve some things passing the ball, because I think he's a much better passer than what he's shown. But no, he's playing with a free mind mind. He's not remembering makes or misses near as much. He's just thinking about playing. To me, he's rebounding the ball. You worry about things that you can't control. You naturally shoot it better. He's definitely doing that. Coach has said in the past, too, that if Kansas can get 35%

at least from three from Ochiai Abadji and Devon Dotson and then 40% from Isaiah Moss, then KU is right where they want to be from beyond the arc. Marcus Garrett has not shot a great percentage from three in his career, but he continues to work on that shot. Hopefully it can at least be a viable force from beyond the arc as well. But, man, everything looks better when you're hitting shots. And five out of six, the first six threes for Kansas against Milwaukee,

three out of three from Ochai and two out of three from Devon threes for Kansas against Milwaukee three out of three from Ochai and two out of three from Devon two guys who can really stroke it and that'd be huge for this offense in terms of opening up the interior and stretching out the defense a little bit as well one thing we've seen a ton from from the Jayhawks this year more than we anticipated and even more than coach self and the rest of the coaching staff probably anticipated was KU going with the four-guard lineup rather than the three-guard, two-big lineup. Kansas entering this season thinking that the bigs is going to be their biggest advantage over any given opponent with Doak, McCormick, and DeSosa just really hasn't worked out that way. Part of that is the competition that Kansas has faced and the fact that they're facing a lot of four-guards lineups.

So defensively it makes more sense for Kansas to match them on that front. But Coach Self, he talked about how the other part is the offense just looks better when there are four guards out there. And Coach is saying maybe there's something that he can do to make it a little bit better when KU runs out two bigs. I need to be creative to do some things to make sure that we can keep better spacing and not allow that to happen as easily when those two bigs are in the game and and and you know I've never been a guy or coach to run plays after a miss you don't run plays that's what I think.

You know, you flow into what you do. Well, maybe when we play big, maybe we need to run some plays off a miss because the plays will be designed to keep them apart. You know, maybe doing some things like that to help them more. But that's not how I've ever wanted to play and certainly goes against how we played. But still, for this particular team, maybe that would be good for us. That's very interesting.

Coach has always been stingy on defense, but he also likes to get out in transition. Maybe not quite as much as the Roy teams that we saw before Coach Self got here, but Coach wants to get the ball off a miss and get running, is generally how Coach Self wants to run things. So it would be interesting. It would definitely be a slower pace if Coach were to get creative and do that. And he wouldn't do it throughout all 40 minutes of a game.

But talking about maybe he can get creative and decide, you know, we just got to get to our half-court offense rather than try the transition game when we've got two bigs in there. So very interesting stuff. Other thing that's been a hot topic about this KU team is how locked in they have been defensively. Coach talking about where this team is, and he compared it to a pretty good defensive team, the 2005-2006 Jayhawks, when they had some pretty good players.

Here's Coach. When we had those freshmen, Mario and Julian and Brandon, along with Russell and Sosh and Darnell and that group, I think we led the country in field goal percentage defense playing three freshmen and two sophomores. So, I mean, and we didn't switch. We didn't switch anything. So you had to be tough enough to fight through everything

and you had to learn how to show and cover and help. And so, you know, we won a national championship and never switched anything. So, to me, I feel like the way that we do it now is easier to guard other teams' actions because, you know, switching obviously is harder to screen. But I don't think we have that mindset that those teams had, not by any stretch yet. And the core of that team, of course, the guys mentioned, went on to win a national championship a couple years later

with that same defensive mindset. So hopefully this team, we know what they can do on the perimeter with the likes of Devon on the ball, Marcus Garden, pretty much anybody, Ochai off the ball in transition. We know those guys have a lot of talent defensively, so that's been a hot topic as well, something to continue to watch as the season rolls on. Next segment, we're going to get an update from Coach Self regarding Jalen Wilson.

And can Jalen come back at some point this year and be a factor for the Jayhawks? We'll also go through my Friday Five and take a look around the Big 12 and the Top 25 as well. And stay tuned for the final segment. Bill Self will talk about Sprint Center and the Kansas City Roos. This is Locked On Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Before we get to my Friday Five, let's, as always, take a look at the action last night in college basketball.

First, the Big 12. West Virginia had no problem taking care of Austin Peay. It was 84-53, Mountaineer victory in Morgantown. A couple of Mountaineers with double-doubles. Emmitt Matthews Jr. had 16 points and 10 boards. And Oscar Sheebly, the other big that they have aside from Derek Culver, Sheebly had 14 points and 10 boards. He's a freshman that is going to pose a threat for the Jayhawks

and every other team in the Big 12. The West Virginia Mountaineers won the rebounding battle 50-28 in that game over an outmanned Austin Peay squad. Other game in the Big 12, laying an egg was Iowa State at Hilton. They hosted Iowa, and the Hawkeyes not only defeat the Cyclones in football this year, but they do the same in basketball. Iowa wins it 84 to 68. Iowa was up huge in this game. At one point it was 20 to 4. Luka Garza pretty much controlled it for the Hawkeyes. He had 21 points, 11 boards. Tyrese Halliburton, he's continuing to put up numbers

for Iowa State, but he's just not getting enough help from the other guys. Rasier Bolton, George Condit, some newcomers to the Big 12. They're nice players, but right now it's a lot of Halliburton and not much anybody else for Iowa State as Iowa wins it 84-68. Some games going on this weekend. None tonight, but K-State will be at Mississippi State. Central Michigan is at Texas. Nichols is at West Virginia. Lamar at TCU. And Oklahoma is at Wichita State. All of these games

are on Saturday. Perhaps the most intriguing of those games, the Sooners and the Shockers, five o'clock on Saturday. One Sunday game in the conference as well. Oklahoma State at Houston, where Quentin Grimes currently plays shooting guard. That game is at 2 o'clock on Sunday between the Cowboys and the Cougars. All right, top 25 action. There were no games last night. Tonight there's one game. Colorado is still ranked 24th in the country. They will not be next week, as they lost to Northern Iowa earlier this week in Boulder. They're at Colorado State tonight are the Buffaloes at seven o'clock. And then take a look at some of the numbers or some

of the big time games for Saturday's slate. There's some ranked matchups. First, Oregon and Michigan. Michigan continuing to have a tough schedule as the 10th ranked Ducks are in Ann Arbor to face the 5th ranked Wolverines. That game is at 11. 13th ranked Memphis is at 19th ranked Tennessee at two o'clock Saturday. And sixth ranked Gonzaga is at 15 Arizona. That game is at nine o'clock Saturday. Other games in the top 25, number one Louisville hosts Eastern Kentucky. Number 16 Michigan State is at Oakland. Number 18, Butler is at Southern. Villanova, number 20, hosts Delaware. Number 12, Auburn, one of the five unbeatens remaining in the NCAA. They're ranked 12th. They're hosting St. Louis. Number 22, Seton Hall is at Rutgers.

Number 23, Xavier is at Wake Forest. Number 8, Kentucky, hosts Georgia Tech in an interesting game, I think. Number 14, Dayton, they are hosting the Drake Bulldogs, who have a couple nice wins this year, and they could pose a threat to the Dayton team. So it will be interesting to see what that line is when it comes out. Sunday's games with top 25 teams. Number 17, North Carolina, hosts Wofford at 3 o''clock, remember the Terriers won in Chapel Hill a couple years back and then number 3 Ohio State, one of the other unblemished teams

they are at Minnesota Sunday evening, 5.30pm that's a look at the Big 12 and the top 25, a lot of action going on this weekend, alright let's get to the Friday 5, last week I went 2-3 to slip one game under 500. 19 wins, 20 losses, 2 pushes since I started this segment. Now there's again, not a ton of lines out.

Some of the lines for Saturday's games really don't come out until late Friday night, which is unfortunate, but we do know that there are plenty of NFL games in action this weekend, and there's some college basketball games going on as well. I'm going to start with two college basketball games. I think you can feel comfortable laying 17.5 for Indiana at home at Assembly Hall

against a terrible Nebraska team. This is a Nebraska team that lost by 19 points to both George Mason and UC Riverside at one point this year. I was watching a Nebraska-Crayton game, I think it was last week, and Crayton led that game at 1.37-4, if I'm not mistaken. So Nebraska, not very good. Fred Hoiberg has his hands full as he transitions back to the college game. The Huskers are 4-5.

They're 17.5-point dogs. I like the Hoosiers to cover that in Bloomington tonight. Colorado, this is a team that came in to Allen Fieldhouse, ranked 20th in the country. They lose to the Jayhawks, and then they couldn't cover or win against Northern Iowa earlier this week. And Colorado now has to go on the road to face Colorado State. The Buffaloes are minus 6 in this game, but I still think you should take them. Colorado is too talented to drop another game, and I think they cover the six points.

Tyler Bay, McKinley Wright, and company, they're going to take control of this game, and I think this is a get-right game for Colorado. Buffaloes minus six. All right, let's look at the NFL games taking place on Sunday. A couple teams that I've stuck with, and I probably shouldn't continue to do so, but I just like it. Carolina's getting a full seven points at home against the Seahawks. Seahawks have been impressive, incredibly impressive actually, in one score games. They're

nine and one this season in games decided by seven points or less, and they're laying seven on the road at Carolina. Yes, Carolina's a mess with Kyle Allen at quarterback and no current permanent head coach, but I'm sticking with the Panthers plus seven. I think they're going to rise up on their home turf and at least cover the seven against the Seahawks, who I think are still a little bit overrated. I don't think the Seahawks are good enough to win a Super Bowl. They're good enough, obviously. They got the MVP candidate candidate Russell Wilson. They're winning all these close games. That's good, but a lot of their games are close. I think Carolina keeps it closer than seven. Another team I like, the Houston Texans. They are plus three at Tennessee. There is no hotter team in the NFL than the Tennessee Titans, led by Ryan Tannehill,

but I'm not giving up on Deshaun Watson and company yet. If I'm getting a field goal, I think the Texans can definitely stay within three. I hope the Texans win that game straight up. I think they're a better team than the Titans, but the Titans continue to prove me wrong. So maybe they can do it again this week. That being said, I like Houston plus three. Other game is also in the NFL. Hate to bet it, but I'm going with the Cowboys. Cowboys, it's a rare day that they are home underdogs, but that is the case. They're one-and-a-half-point dogs at home against the Rams. The Rams are hot. Jared Goff's feeling it.

He's got Tyler Higbee involved all of a sudden, and the Rams are looking good. Cowboys need this win in a bad way. They're 6-7 tied with the Eagles atop the NFC East. Cowboys are 4-2 with Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott. Cowboys are 4-2 overall and 4-2 against the spread when they are home underdogs. So I think that bodes well. I think the Cowboys get right in this game against the Rams, although it might not be pretty.

So one more time going through my Friday 5 this week. Two college basketball games tonight. Indiana minus 17.5 against Nebraska. Colorado minus 6 at Colorado State. Three NFL games. Carolina plus 7 at home against Seattle. Houston plus 3 at Tennessee. And Dallas plus a point and a half at the Rams.

That's my Friday 5. All right, bringing it back to KU Hoops. Bill Self touched on many things at his press conference yesterday, and one of those things was heralded freshman Jalen Wilson, one of KU's top recruits heading into this season. Of course, he broke his ankle very early in the season. Initial timetable was that Jalen could come back maybe late January, early February. Here's Coach yesterday giving an update on Jalen.

Jalen's doing fine. Like I said before, he's range of motion. He's still in his boot, but he's on the bye. He's doing different things. And I think the boot, I don't know exactly the date, but the boot should be coming off here relatively soon. It's been, I think it's been four and a half weeks, something like that. So it should be coming off soon.

And I really think we'll have him on the court in some capacity the first week or two of January. That's great to hear. That is a great timetable. If he could be back in a month or so and potentially be a productive piece for this team moving forward, that would be great. So we'll continue to update you on that should any more information about Jalen Wilson come in as Kansas continues to try to get some bench play going with Inaruna and Brown, particularly the freshman, maybe Wilson when he comes back can be a spark as well. Coming up after the break, we'll hear Coach Self. He's going to talk about Tristan Inaruna and Christian Brown, and he'll also preview the Kansas City Roos as KU travels to Sprint Center

to take on the Roos tomorrow at four o'clock. Treat yourself to the meal you deserve and have your favorite restaurants come to you with DoorDash. Right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter promo code LOCKEDON. Listening on the go? If you can't visit DoorDash right now, you can find this and all other offers from LockedOn sponsors at LockedOnPodcasts.com slash offers.

This is LockedOn Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, the local experts on the biggest stories. Well, Joel Embiid clearly heard some of the criticism he was taking from Charles Barkley and company before his game last night as the 76ers defeated Boston. And Embiid put up these numbers, 38 points, 13 boards, and 6 assists. Sixers improved to 19-7. There was some criticism going around about how Embiid wasn't as good as some of the other top-tier guys in the NBA like Giannis and Harden, or maybe wasn't performing as well. Barkley said something about how he picked the Sixers to go to the finals, and now there's no way that could happen. Embiid basically said,

he's right, I haven't been good enough, but he put up monster numbers last night. Pistons played. Markeith Morris had a pretty good game. 16 points and three boards in 17 minutes. Svee played 12 minutes but did not score. That's the only Jayhawks in the NBA action from last night. Games taking place tonight. Of course, there's games throughout the entire weekend. But tonight's games, Ben McLemore and Houston are at Orlando. Embiid and the Sixers host the Pelicans.

Devontae Graham back in action. He and the Hornets are in Chicago to take on the Bulls Wiggins and the Timberwolves host the Clippers and Marcus Morris and the Knicks who had that big win against the Golden State Warriors the other day they are in Sacramento tonight Mook had 36 points in 36 minutes for a bad Knicks team that picked up that victory all right so let's talk about Kansas bench a little bit. We haven't talked too much about them. Of course, we've touched on Silvio De Sosa and how maybe he's still a little bit rusty from having to miss out last year. And I'm sure a couple more games, maybe that'll be it

for Silvio to be able to get back on track. We know that it took him a while. His freshman year, of course, coming in after playing high school basketball, and now he's kind of relearning everything at the college level. So Silvio, a guy Kansas thinks they can get more production from. We talked about how Jalen Wilson could come back at some point in January. That would be great to see. But we know what we're getting from Isaiah Moss. He's going to come in. He's going to be a scorer. Coach talked about how he wants Isaiah to be even more aggressive offensively. And then he also touched on two other pieces that Kansas needs out of their

bench if KU wants to be the complete team they think they can be. Tristan Inaruna and Christian Brown. Here's Coach talking about them. To me, Tristan Inaruna is one of the best athletes on our team. He's one of the best athletes. But I think thinking-wise, he gets tied up where he doesn't play to his athletic ability. Christian Brown was the best loose ball getter, extra possession guy we had during the entire months of September and October. Nobody close. But we haven't seen that in the game yet because he's just worried, well, do I get back? He's just worried not to screw up. So I think experience will help with that as much as anything. We got to see that pair of freshmen get a little bit more run in the game against Milwaukee.

Brown played 15 minutes in that game. Hopefully similar story tomorrow against Kansas City, who Kansas will be heavily favored to defeat. And speaking of that game at Sprint Center, remember the game last year, Kansas pretty much had New Mexico State beat down and out early in this one and then they almost gave it away. I remember Mitch Lightfoot was big for Kansas in that game but it's kind of been a game like I mentioned at the top where Kansas has struggled a little bit. Here's Coach talking about maybe some dull atmospheres that he's run into at Sprint Center

maybe not quite as much energy as he'd like. It's not that the attendance is poor. It's not that fans are bad. It's not anything like that. It's just that I think that when you get outside your building in a neutral site-type setting, even though it's not totally neutral, but it could be this week, I think sometimes people want to be entertained. And then when you don't play well or play boring

and they're not entertained, I think it can become kind of a dull atmosphere, and I think that's kind of what we've had over there. We haven't had that problem in the Big 12 tournament, but certainly when there's more energy and that kind of stuff. But in this particular game, it hasn't been a great game for us as far as us playing well. Now, there's some advantages of playing in Kansas City, obviously, that we like. But as far as us bringing the same energy, I don't think we've done that consistently.

Yeah, and I'll have to respectfully disagree with anybody who dubs Sprint Center as Allen Fieldhouse East because it's not exactly the same atmosphere. No disrespect there, but it's definitely more of an arena NBA type atmosphere, which is totally fine. It just doesn't compare at all to the fog. Take a look at the Kansas City Roos. They're just five and six this year. They have two losses to Big 12 teams, both 18 point losses, one to Oklahoma State and one to Iowa State. The Iowa State game actually KC kept pretty close until the Cyclones ran away with it. Javon White leads the Roos with 12 points a game, 7.5 rebounds per game. Four others, though, average 8 or more points per game, so a relatively balanced squad.

They don't shoot very well. 33% from beyond the arc are the Roos. And how about the rebounding battle? Kansas City, 364, their opponents 363. So that's an area that Kansas, certainly with their size, can take full advantage of. One good thing about the Roos from a Kansas City perspective is that they force nearly 17 turnovers a game. 16.5 turnovers forced. They turn it over themselves about 13.5 times a game. They also have 103 steals, so there's going to be some

action on the perimeter. They've allowed just 64 steals from their opponent, so pretty good defensive perimeter team looking at the numbers, but Kansas obviously, they bring a much bigger threat than any opponent that Kansas City has faced thus far. Their size, athleticism, defensive prowess, and of course, all the talent and tools they have on the offensive end as well. Here's Bill Self previewing the Roos. Their scores are pretty, you know, can show that they've really improved. You know, I haven't seen all the games yet, but I've watched some. But, you know, when they went to the Bahamas, they played pretty well to beat George Washington and East Carolina.

And then the team they lost to, if I'm not mistaken, in the finals was Liberty, and Liberty's still undefeated. So they played, and they played Iowa State good. I mean, that score wasn't indicative of how close that game was. So I think that they're playing, you know, pretty well, and they certainly play, you know, Bill plays a ton of guys, plays, I think, 10 plays a ton of guys, plays, I think, 10 guys all double-figure minutes, and, you know, they have balanced scoring, at least, you know, leading scorers averaging 12. So, you know, obviously there's a lot of guys between 8 and 12,

but, you know, I think they're certainly much improved. Well, hopefully it's a fun atmosphere tomorrow at Sprint Center, and hopefully the Jayhawks come out with the same energy that Bill Self has been impressed with every game this season. Kansas is 8-1 in all nine games, whether it's Duke or Chaminade. Coach was talking about, as we heard on yesterday's show, one thing they've done is they've come out with the same energy, no matter the opponent, and certainly been locked in from the beginning.

We saw that, of course, against Milwaukee. KU got out to that 45-15 lead early. Kansas City, I think, is going to be a similar opponent to Milwaukee, a team that Kansas should win handily, but you certainly want to come out and play well so that you can be feeling good heading into the off week. And then, of course, the big battle with Villanova a week from tomorrow, which is an 11 a.m. tip on the 21st. Of course, on Monday's show, we'll recap Friday 5. We'll recap this game. And then throughout the week, we'll hear all sorts of content from Bill Self and KU players. Coach Self talked at length about Devon Dotson at his press conference yesterday.

He's got some great cuts that I'd love to share with you. Of course, we'll hear post-game sound from him and the guys as well. Should anything come up regarding KU football recruiting, keep you up to date on that as well. Thanks so much for listening. Sean Kellerman signing off. Locked On Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. And Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.