Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Locked On Jayhawks - 12.3.19

Episode Date: December 3, 2019

Les Miles' message to returners; Doke and Devon talk dominance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everyone? Welcome in to the Tuesday edition of Locked on Jayhawks. I'm your host, Sean Kellerman. I'm a 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. Thanks again for joining me today. Beautiful day here in Lawrence. I'm going to check in on course KU basketball. We've got a week, week and a half off. Kind of interesting. Don't have that too often, but kind of a weird schedule with KU taking place in the Maui Invitational.

They played last Wednesday, of course, week and a half, and it'll be Saturday. This Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse against Colorado, who's ranked 20th in the country. So we'll talk about that a little bit as the week goes on. But a little bit later in the show, we'll recap the Maui Invitational. We'll continue to talk about that, continue to celebrate a great tournament, a great victory. We'll hear from Bill Self and the guys. Got a few extra days of celebration.

And then we'll hit Colorado hard here at the end of the week. Bill Self will meet with reporters on Thursday. We'll also hear from KU players on Thursday and Friday's show. But over the next couple days, we'll hear from those guys kind of talking about the Maui Invitational. Bill Self will talk about big picture for winning a tournament like that and what that can do for this team. And of course, we'll take a look at Jayhawks in the NBA. We'll take a look at some of the big college basketball games, not only in the Big 12, but in the country tonight. There's a lot of big games going on tonight, Big Ten ACC Challenge in particular.

But right now we're going to talk about KU football. We wrapped up the season on Saturday with that unfortunate loss to Baylor, a top-10 team that came in, and they were not taking KU lightly at all. Five offensive plays, Baylor had two touchdowns. It was 14 to nothing right away, and for a Kansas fan, that was tough to see from the very beginning because while this KU offense showed spurts throughout the year of being able to be high-powered against a top-10 team like that, you really don't want to get down early, and unfortunately that was

the case. KU had all sorts of gaffes in this game. Their quarterbacks combined to throw four interceptions. There were two fumbles on punt returns, which is really not characteristic of this KU team, not characteristic of a Les Miles coach team. You could kind of hear the frustration in his voice. Played a sound clip from Coach Miles at the beginning of yesterday's show. Just kind of couldn't understand, didn't understand why the execution wasn't there.

Maybe the focus wasn't there. KU wanted to send the seniors outright, but unfortunately the 23 seniors had to end their career with a bit of a dud as the Bears won it 61-6. Baylor now will, of course, take on Oklahoma on Saturday, 11 a.m. in the Big 12 championship game. And the winner of that maybe has an outside shot at reaching the college football playoff, but we shall see when that happens. So Coach Miles, he talked after the game, obviously, about the seniors and what they've

meant to this program. Specifically, on the offensive side of the ball, you're losing Carter Stanley and Daylon Charlotte, Hakeem Adeniji. On the defensive side of the ball, you're losing Carter Stanley and Daylon Charlotte. Hakeem Adeniji. On the defensive side of the ball, you're losing notable guys like Bryce Tornadin, Mike Lee, and Hassan Defense. So the secondary is going to be an area where KU is going to need to bring in guys who are immediately going to impact this team in a positive way. But Coach Miles also spoke about the returners of this team. What was Coach Miles' message to the returners of this team. What was Coach Miles' message to the returners of this team,

the guys who will be back and trying to sort of take the next step for this KU football program? We have work to do, and we'll take every mistake that we made in this season final, and we will dot the installation with exactly why and what and how it happened. And we will take spring ball and improve. And I told the young guys that would return that they will have to, in the next three weeks, set their own practice schedule, their own workout schedule, I should say, for the weight room,

and get it started because we don't want to finish seasons like this. No one wants to finish a season like Kansas did in that 55-point trouncing at the hand of the Bears. Actually, the schedule did not work out great for Kansas. The first Big 12 game was perhaps your most winnable game, was the West Virginia game at home. KU was four and a half point underdogs, and they ended up losing by five, 29-24. And then you played TCU on the road. That was a game that you wish you would have given yourself a little bit better of a chance, because TCU, a team that finished 5-7 in the conference like West Virginia did, but the Frogs were on their game that day.

They led 38-0 at halftime. And those are two games on the schedule that you saw as winnable games. And when you got past those, you defeated Texas Tech. Your last four games were all against top 25 teams, which is a very rare thing to happen. Big 12 is strong this year, especially in terms of top to bottom rather than maybe top heavy. You've got Oklahoma, but they lost to K-State. You've got a lot of teams in the mix. So just kind of how the season ended, you knew it was going to be a struggle, particularly the last four games for KU, and, of course, it was that.

So now looking into next year, of course, on Lockdown Jayhawks, we'll continue to talk about next year and kind of the personnel KU will have, the newcomers that will come into this program as that comes on, as Les Miles has already gotten to recruiting and everything like that. But there's a lot of key guys who will be back. We know that they're going to be back for next season. Specifically on the offensive side of the ball, you've got a ton of playmakers and Puka Williams, Stephon Robinson Jr. and Andrew Parchment notably. On defensive side of the ball, we saw some good things from Caleb Sampson,

Malcolm Lee, Gavin Potter. You'll get Drew Prox back. So so there are some pieces but obviously you're going to need to bring in some guys who are going to be able to contribute right away as well here's coach miles talking about his guys there's not a guy that that i practiced with that did not enjoy improving and being better and i think that you'll find that uh that they'll look to do that. They'll look to take this game specifically into their meeting room, into their practice schedule, and look to improve. I don't think there's any question that that team, that group of men, doesn't realize that they're a lot better than how they played today. An excellent motivator and an excellent recruiter is Coach Miles.

And in terms of recruiting, which he said he was going to get to right away, he thinks that this Kansas program is in a much better place on that front than they were a year ago. Considering where we were at at this time last year, we're miles ahead and we'll have an opportunity to you know to be in a lot of real quality homes so I think our recruitment will will be very positive. You just hate the fact that the Baylor game on Saturday was the last game for this team because you could see the improvement.

It was a roller coaster. We know there were some duds like the K-State game, the Baylor game. Those ones really hurt. But we saw the Texas-Texas Tech game. There was so much excitement. Kansas football was fun again when KU particularly was scoring on offense. Coach Brent Dierman came in, and he was able to light a fire under the offense. And now it's about getting the right guys, getting the personnel that you need

to contribute and to compete in the Big 12. You've got to get to six wins every year. That's the goal no matter what. And I think no matter how the rest of the recruiting season goes for this Kansas football team, who, by the way, already has a top 35 recruiting class, I think expectations next season should and will be, all way, already has a top 35 recruiting class. I think expectations next season should and will be, all right, we're going to get six wins. We're going to be bowl eligible.

And, of course, that's the hope, bringing in Coach Miles and kind of getting the scholarship numbers back to where they should be and everything like that. We'll hear more from Coach Miles tomorrow. He's going to talk specifics about recruiting and about where this KU team needs to look in terms of positions on that front. So we'll hear more from Coach Miles. And, of course, any time any news comes out about Kansas football during Locked On Jayhawks, be sure to keep you up to date on that as well. Treat yourself to the meal you deserve

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part of the LockedOn Podcast Network, the local experts on the biggest stories. K-State was the only Big 12 team in action last night, and they took on a winless Florida A&M team. And the Wildcats won it 76-58. K-State had lost two consecutive games to Bradley and Pitt. So they are off the snide a little bit, defeating Florida A&M in Manhattan in front of 7,400 people. Xavier Sneed led the way with 18 points. He had four boards and three assists.

Mike McGurl hit four threes in this one. He finished with 16 points. Only other Wildcat in double figures was Cartier Jada. He had 11 points and seven assists. The Cats did turn the ball over 20 times against a team that entered 0-5. So K-State still dealing with some struggles in the early season, but they are 5-2 now after that win last night. A couple games going on tonight in terms of men's hoops.

Baylor hosts a bad Maryland Eastern Shore team. That game's at 6.30 in Waco. Texas will host UAB 7 o'clock in Austin. And TCU will host Illinois State 8 o'clock in Fort Worth. Those are the games going on tonight. We'll recap those, of course, tomorrow. Let you know how the conference did as the conference is struggling a little bit now. Only KU at 2 and Baylor at 18 are the teams ranked in the current top 25 in the AP poll.

But a couple teams on the outside looking in that have an opportunity with some big wins this week to get back in the top 25. Dayton, KU's last opponent. They're ranked 19th in the country. They will take on Houston Baptist tonight. Butler, ranked 24th, will travel to Ole Miss. Of course, Baylor, I mentioned, they're ranked 18th. Memphis is at home.

They're hosting the Bradley team that just defeated K-State. And Florida State, ranked 17th in the country, travels to Bloomington to take on the Indiana Hoosiers, who are a perfect 7-0 themselves. But the big games tonight, Michigan, who went from unranked to ranked 4th in the country. They are number 4 and taking on number 1, the Louisville Cardinals. That game at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville one versus four early in the season that'll be an exciting game absolutely and for Michigan it's a chance to kind of back up what they did in Atlantis they defeated Iowa State North Carolina and Gonzaga so now another tough

test for Jawan Howard and his 7-0 Wolverines other big game it's a rematch of the Elite Eight game in last year's NCAA tournament. Also a part of the Big Ten ACC Challenge, it's number 10 Duke and number 11 Michigan State. Two teams we're familiar with from the Champions Classic. Of course, they were both ranked in the top four before the season started and heading into that Champions Classic, but they both had to deal with some struggles. Michigan State has a pair of losses, and Duke, of course, lost that game in which they were 28-point favorites to Stephen F. Austin at home about a week ago. So 10 versus 11 all of a sudden, Duke and Michigan State, whoever loses that game, you got to think is going to be a little bit concerned. Their fan bases are not going to be pleased with that. But Michigan State

won the Elite Eight game last year. We know Tom Izzo has had his struggles with Coach K, but he'll try to make it two in a row with a victory tonight at the Breslin Center in East Lansing. So a couple big games tonight. We'll recap those, of course, on tomorrow's edition of Locked on Jayhawks. All right, bringing it back to our Jayhawks, we know the story of the Maui Invitational Championship game was Yudoka Azubuki and Devon Dotson. Those two named the co-MVPs of the tournament, and they came up big, both setting career highs against Dayton. Doak had 29 points on 12 of 15 shooting, and Dotson had 31 points on 11 of 16 shooting. What's interesting about this one is that it was all about Obi heading into this, right? Obi Topi topping the guy who many project as a lottery pick in the upcoming nba draft and he ended up getting his he finished with 18 points but udoka azubuki certainly

got the better of obi different type of players but kansas big was just a little bit better in this one here's udoka talking about the battle with obi it was a battle between me and him um i mean he was really good. I mean, they tried to play inside out with him. And then when he got the ball, he tried to, you know, make plays for his teammate. And also my teammate, he trusted me enough to give me the ball and I did the same. We know Doak was great. We know that he's pretty much unstoppable in the post and it's good to see him finally healthy after dealing with so many issues. You know, he has had wrist issues on both of his wrists since he's been at KU, and they've cost him a majority of two seasons.

So hopefully Doak can stay healthy and continue to be a dominant force for this Kansas team. Bill Self, very happy for his big man, happy to have this guy on campus still, and certainly happy to have him in the low post the one thing about Doak is he doesn't move very far from the basket so what Kansas has had to go to a lot this year is the four guard lineup here's coach self talking not only about Doak's performance but about how he's just better when there's four around one he gets more touches when we play four guards around him as opposed to another big just because the floor spaced a little bit and and uh but you know he's a you know he wouldn't be here if he hadn't been hurt you know two of the last three years and and and only play uh you know he's only played a year a year and a half uh going into this year and he's a senior so he hadn't caught many breaks

health-wise but but he has developed and he's worked really hard on his touch and his free throws. And even the ones he missed actually looked good tonight. So I'm proud of him for a lot of reasons. And how about his free throws? Three for three in overtime for Yudoka Azubuki. He finished five for eight, so he's just two for five in regulation. But Kansas needed both of those points, didn't they, as we went to overtime tied at 73.

But you've got to give it up for Doak. He's had to deal with so many questions throughout his career about the free throw shooting and the fact that he not only finished some and ones, but in overtime, when the game was tied at 75, Doak got fouled, and you're thinking, oh, man, you've got to get at least one of these, and he hits both of them. This is a fatigued big man who struggled his entire career with the shooting stroke, particularly from the charity stripe. He was able to knock down two big points for Kansas,

and more than anything, it was a comfort level for the Jayhawks at that point. Like, all right, well, we got a lead again. We got points out of this possession. The problem we've run into with Doak in the past is so many empty possessions when he's gone to the free throw line, and that was not case in overtime when Kansas needed it he was the dominant force when he came out for a blow it was all about Devon Dotson closing out the victory as KU won the Maui Invitational defeating Dayton in overtime 90 to 84 we're going to continue to talk about Yudoka Azubuki and Devon Dotson after this break. We'll hear more from Bill Self and more from Devon as well.

This is Locked On Jayhawks, a product of the Locked On Podcast Network, the local experts on the biggest stories. Jayhawks in the NBA last night. Marcus Morris and the Knicks against Frank Mason and the Bucs. Neither of our Jayhawks in the NBA last night. Marcus Morris and the Knicks against Frank Mason and the Bucs. Neither of our Jayhawks played in that game. Marcus out with an illness, and Frank Mason III actually did not get in that game. A big Bucs victory. Joel Embiid had 16 points and 11 boards for the 76ers

as they defeated the Jazz 103-94. And then Kelly Oubre and the Suns are in Charlotte taking on Devontae Graham and the Hornets. And the Hornets led this game with a minute to go, 104-97. The Suns would score 12 consecutive points to end the game, and Phoenix won it 109-104. Devontae in this game had 15 points and 13 assists, continuing to put up numbers.

Kelly Oubre had 23 points, and he also had the two biggest shots of the game. He hit a three to make the score 104-102 in favor of the Hornets, and then he put the Suns on top of the three, 105-104. So two straight threes from Kelly Oubre were huge in this game, leading the Suns to that comeback victory 105-104, so two straight threes from Kelly Oubre were huge in this game, leading the Suns to that comeback victory as they win in Charlotte by five. Good to see our guys out there when it matters most and getting some run. Jayhawks tonight, Sfima Kyluk, Markeith Morris, and the Pistons take on the Cavaliers in Cleveland.

That game is at 6. Ben McLemore and the Rockets are in San Antonio battling the Spurs at 7.30. And that is it in terms of games tonight in the NBA for our Jayhawks. So if you get a chance, check out our guys in the league. All right, bringing it back, we talked about Yudoka Azubuki last segment, how dominant he was. And let's hear from Devon Dotson talking about how nice it is to have a big man inside that can be so dominant.

Dominant, man. I mean, they ever send a one at them, you know the result when they do that. So he's the most dominant big in the country, and he imposed his will today. Knocked down some clutch free throws. He played awesome. We saw a couple games earlier this year where teams were not doubling down, tripling down, or trapping Doak in the post. And like Devon said, when they're sending one at him, that's what's going to happen. So I expect many teams moving forward to double down on Doak,

force him to kick it out, and force his KU team to hit shots from the perimeter, which we know has been kind of up and down this season. Here's Devon continuing to talk about the big fella. When he has it going, you know, the tension's on him, and that opens up for, you know, other players. And so, I mean, it's just kind of a, you know, a punch. We read the defense, take what's given to us. We know that, you know, we can get the ball down low. We're going to go there every time. We know if they're doubling you know we gotta look for some other things so um

you know my job is to put pressure on defense make plays for others and myself and um try to get the win that's what devon dotson does best right making plays for others and himself we've had so many good point guards under bill self he likes the undersized guys you know we've had so many good point guards under Bill Self. He likes the undersized guys. We've had Sherron Collins, Russell Robinson, Mario Chalmers. How about Tyshawn Taylor? Tyshawn Taylor and Thomas Robinson in 2012, that's what this performance from Devon and Doak reminded me of. Just those are the focal points of the offense. He got some pieces on the outside, but the offense runs through these guys, and it was a two-man game throughout. Pretty much, if these guys are on, they're unstoppable. Thomas Robinson, he was a National Player of the Year candidate in 2012. T-Rob had 28 double-doubles. Now we're starting to see

Yudoka Azubugi start to put up those numbers, and Devon Dotson is doing everything as a point guard as well. So you've got the one-two punch between these two guys. Here's Bill Self talking about that one-two punch of Devon and Doak. I was excited. You know, you look at it different things. You know, Doak didn't turn the ball over. And so he was patient on the post. He didn't dribble as much. So there were some positive things that he did that was very good. And Dodd, I don't know how he has the energy to play that fast. He's a, he's a well-conditioned, well-conditioned dude,

but that, that, that's the best one, two punch we've seen. Maybe with anybody in a while in our program. And maybe coach self indeed is referring to Tyshawn and T-Rob. And that was seven years ago, the one,

two punch that those guys brought together. And Devon and Doak certainly showed that throughout the Maui Invitational and especially in that victory over Dayton. On tomorrow's show, we'll hear more from Bill Self. He's going to talk about what winning a tournament like that can do for the players. And, of course, we'll have fresh sound from the guys and from Coach Self from the press conference that's coming up on Thursday. And as the week goes on, we'll preview the top 20 matchup,

number two Kansas and number 20 Colorado. That takes place Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse. It should be a great one, great atmosphere. Students will be pumped to get back in the fieldhouse. I know the players will be too. And it should be a great time. It'll be good to kind of refresh for a week and a half and get back to it. Also on tomorrow's show, we'll hear more from Les Miles.

He'll talk about recruiting and where Kansas is going to look now as the football season has come to an end. Thanks so much for tuning in. This is Locked On Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. And Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.