Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - MONEY GAP? Kansas Jayhawks Face DISADVANTAGE in NIL Spending - Can They Still Contend???

Starting point is 00:00:00 The money ain't there for KU compared to some of these other teams, and it is a harsh reality that we're dealing with right now. You are locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on to Eric Johnson here, and on today's episode, we're going to break down KU baseball, some of the latest news with college football. We'll get to the top players left in the transfer portal,

Starting point is 00:00:34 maybe some names or new ones for KU. And we'll start right here. Is KU in trouble from a money perspective? I don't want this to turn into is KU poor? Because clearly they still have a good enough amount of money to bring in guys like Tyrant Stokes and make certain impacts. But it does also feel like the top end of the spending in the sport is starting to get away from Kansas at a very real level.

Starting point is 00:00:58 There was a interview with Sean Miller, the Texas head coach, on the field of 68 with Jeff Goodman, and he was asked the question, how many 20 or more million dollars are there in college basketball this offseason? And John Miller responded, he said, quote, educated guess, sometimes you don't have all the information. I would say 20 to 25. Now, again, he literally says they're educated gas. He says you don't have all the information. So that's not a number that, like, I don't believe that. I don't think there's 20 to 25 personally. But if he's thinking that much, then does that mean that it's at least in the ballpark? Could it be 15 to 20? And if it's even 15 to 20, the idea here that the numbers that's been kind of floating around for KU this offseason is

Starting point is 00:01:43 that they were going to have $14, 15 million with the chance to maybe raise it to 16 to 18, if the right situation kind of arose itself. And that would mean that if you're spending 15 and there's 20 to 25 spending 20 plus, Kansas is by far out, you know, not like a top 25 spending team. So do we need to re-coordinate our expectations to be like, if you can even get a top 15 team out of that, like that's a good season, right? Now again, you have to take that with a grain of salt. One, he literally again said educated guess. Two, what is the incentive for Sean Miller saying, yeah, there's only a couple of them. It's us in another school. Because if you were Sean Miller, And you want to make sure you continue to have high spending rosters.

Starting point is 00:02:29 You're not going to come out there and say, yeah, we have the highest spend roster in the country. It's going to be awesome because two things. One, what if Texas ends up being like an eight seed this year? Then they're going to look back and be like, what the heck? We gave you all this money and you weren't very good this year. And he'll be like, well, there were like 20 other teams who spent this much, even if that's not true. He can at least go back to this now. The flip side, too, is him being, you know, if all these donors, especially Texas where it is a football school are like, wait a minute,

Starting point is 00:02:53 we're paying more for basketball than these other schools. I'd rather direct some of that money to football. And he's like, no, I can't let that happen. So there is incentive for that number to be stretched. Now, I will say this. Rob Doster also followed that up with the social media post, who also works for Field of 68. And he said he received a message from an insider involved in the NIL space,

Starting point is 00:03:12 who said the most expensive roster costs about $30 million. He said he expects another program to surpass that figure once the roster changes are finalized. I feel like Duke would be the one that I kind of look to if I'm just like guessing who that school would potentially be. I have no idea who the other one would potentially be. But like that is insane. That is absolutely insane. Like when is this going to stop? Like the donors can't afford to keep doing this, right?

Starting point is 00:03:41 Over and over again, spend $30, 40 million in roster because the numbers keep going up, you know? And then it's like, oh my gosh, like where's Kansas going to be in all this? So that is certainly a little bit scary there and does make it feel like Kansas is playing. a different game than some of these schools, right? And then you look to where we're at in the offseason right now, right? Take all this information where we're at the off season. KU again, landed Tyron Stokes. That was a big deal.

Starting point is 00:04:05 They've landed some other, you know, Keanu-Daz, solid edition. Leroy Blighted, solid edition, right? They've got a good freshman class coming in. But certainly right now with the bit of, I don't know, almost like stalling, I guess would be kind of the word that the off-season has come to where there hasn't been not just like, There hasn't really been any movement recently, not just like it doesn't seem like we've heard anything about a visitor recently. It doesn't seem like we've heard much about, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:32 player news, even though over the last couple of days. It's like how aggressively are they pursuing more players at this point in time? And that doesn't mean they're not. That could all be done, you know, behind closed doors. If it's international players, a lot of times that ends up being harder to get information out. So that stuff's all possible. It does feel like right now that the idea is, okay, they're not being too progressive right now. They are kind of sitting and waiting and that if they do make that one other move of a potential rotation player, like that might just be it outside of like adding, you know, roster fillers and depth pieces and stuff like Grant Mordini's of the world. So based on all that, it does make you feel like, yeah, KU is at a severe disadvantage

Starting point is 00:05:13 with some of the money compared to these other schools. And this all ties back to, you know, this idea. This was reported by KU Sports.com earlier that the universe of Canada is. This athletic department projects a $14.9 million deficit for the fiscal year of 2026. That was following about a $12 million deficit in the fiscal year of 2025. And obviously, a big reason for all this is driven by the $300 million plus gateway football stadium renovation project and everything that kind of comes with that. Now, obviously, the idea here, I'd imagine for KU is going to be to take on a little bit of debt over these next couple of years. and hope that once everything is done, that you start to get a surplus of revenue from it and are able to pay that off while you're making money in the long term. So it's almost like Kansas has to

Starting point is 00:06:04 deal with this in the very short term. And then you hope that the long term gain is worth the pain, so to speak, right, which makes it more difficult. But even if they are able to gain more out of this, like, I don't see the world where they'd be at the top dollar spending 30 million. Like, let's say the stadium wasn't the thing right now. Sure. Maybe Kansas. would be in the $20 to $22 million roster range. But are they really getting up to $30? You know, so that's where, too, I think this is important. I think it does get misconstrued sometimes.

Starting point is 00:06:33 And I understand. I get it. Like we are as people like, you want it right now, you know. I do think this is the right play at the end of the day. I know it stinks that like Kansas is having to funnel all this money and donors are having to funnel all this money to the football stadium to get it completed. And listen, I personally. I'm not a fan of the Gateway District.

Starting point is 00:06:54 I loved having the new stadium. I loved the new stadium what it looks like and what it feels like going in there already. I think they needed a new stadium. Like those are all great. Personally, not really a fan of needing to spend money to add a bunch of like, you know, offices and restaurants and stuff in that area. Like that feels like money that I would rather use elsewhere. But that's neither here nor there. It was of, of utmost importance for Kansas to figure out the football team and the stadium, right?

Starting point is 00:07:21 Because from a long term sustainability thing, I know it'd be nice right now to be like, man, I wish KU basketball had enough money to go out and get a Milan mom Chilovich to pair with Tyron Stokes. I know that would be awesome. But does that one year or two years where you add one extra of those players, would that be enough to all of a sudden like long term where are you going to be? And from a long term perspective, it is clear with the money that the Big Ten and the SEC are paying schools, they're going to continue further themselves from these other leagues, from these other

Starting point is 00:07:54 conferences, from these other schools. And your best chance at getting any sort of opportunity for your Kansas to jumping to the Big Ten or the SEC, any chance in the world involves your football program being at least decent, involves you having, you know, not a 100-year-old stadium that needs renovations. It involves having the new stuff. It involves, you know, being up to par in that area. So I know it sucks from a short-term perspective, but from a long-term sustainability, the best chance for Kansas to make money in the long-term with the big boys, this is what they have to do for this short period of time. Now, the question is with that potential lack of money with where Kansas is at and takes as one donor, stroking an extra $3 million check and then boom, you have enough money to get another potential starting level player for KU basketball. But with KU's current roster and if they get one more bench piece, is that even enough at this point in time? Or like going back to the money conversation, knowing what we know is, is it, I know with Kansas basketball we're so used to every year the expectation is final four national championship, big 12 championship, right?

Starting point is 00:09:03 Obviously not in those orders. But right now I look at it. You know, Mark Torvik has them 11th in the country. And, you know, adding some of these players would boost them a little bit. like Abdi Bashir makes them more on offense and defense. Dennis Parker races their offense just slightly, right? Like they're both marginal gains, but neither one changes Kansas from being,

Starting point is 00:09:24 you know, a top 10-ish team to being like a top five team. That's not the case at all, right? They're both marginal moves. And if we're talking about like, first of all, that's not a bad place to be if you're like, hey, we're a top 10ish team. Like good things can break your way all the time.

Starting point is 00:09:41 Like, shoot, man. On Torvick right now, Now, Yukon is 10th in the country, and they're going to have Final Four national title hopes. You know, Louisville, who spent the world on the roster this year, their ninth on Bart Torvik. So, like, just because where you are right now, Kansas still would have a shot at being a final 14. But it does feel like that world of, hey, you're going to be one of the, you know, four or five teams that we most talk about. Like, if you went into the NCAA tournament this year thinking it was going to be one of whatever, Arizona, Michigan, Duke, Florida. maybe you would have picked one of the two seats.

Starting point is 00:10:15 I wouldn't have had Yukon in there. They obviously made it to the title, but you get what I'm saying. Like, you would have had a handful of themes that you felt like were in that upper upper echelon. Maybe it was only three or four. It feels like Kansas isn't going to be able to get into that party right now,

Starting point is 00:10:27 but can they be in that next year? Yeah, I absolutely think they can, but it is concerning from a long term where the money is kind of going here. The good news is the stadium's going to be done sooner than later, and that's going to be a huge boon to KU down the road. But can they figure out a way just to get a little, bit more over the hump for this year. That kind of remains to be seen. Let's get some of the biggest

Starting point is 00:10:48 names still in the portal. This is locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel. The NBA playoffs are here and every possession matters. If you're looking to get even closer to the action, Fandual has a great offer to get you started. It is for new customers. You can bet $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Just turn five bucks into $150 in bonus bets for just getting started. You can check the stats, the trends, the matchups for making your pick. Then you can put together same game parlay or your future bet who's going to win at all, right? You can even get the NHL playoffs, which are super excited right now. How about the baseball? You bet Royals team total over or maybe you do team total under because then you have, if the Royals go under on their runs, you win the bet. If they go over on

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Starting point is 00:12:14 Who are some of the top players still left in the portal at this point? time. We'll take this by position. I think looking at the point guard, combo guard kind of position, including those auto one. And to be clear, I'm not going to count the guys who would need a fifth year, right, who would either need a waiver from the NCAA or would need to sue the NCAA if this five and five does pass and be like, hey, it should be retroactive. I want to win my suit, right? If that happens in the world of players like Javonte Campbell and Dazain Mingo and some of these guys that come into play. But we're not going to include those right now. I didn't know if I should include this guy or not, because technically he is one that would need the fifth year,

Starting point is 00:12:50 but he might not have to. And that would be Rob Martin. So Rob Martin is the high point guard, who averaged 16 points per game, four assists, good driver of the basketball, really quick guard, gets the free throw line a lot, shoots him really well. He needs to get a red shirt.

Starting point is 00:13:08 So he had a season, like 12 games. He has to apply for a waiver for that. So he theoretically could get eligible without the fifth year thing happening, even though it would be a fifth year. So kind of a weird dichotomy there. If that were a possibility, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:13:19 I feel like he'd be able to go somewhere and be a starter, but, you know, in a world where he could be your sixth man and I've made this joke before, but KU's done well with an R. Martin off the bench, like that would be a good thing for KU. Jalen Curry is another name that I find kind of interesting here as a potential backup ball handler. We have a deep dive coming out on him. So I'll share more on that on the deep dive. Sosh Gavl Yugov, probably mispronouncing that. He's kind of interesting from Santa Clara.

Starting point is 00:13:46 you want a three-point shooter, 36% from three, but over 10.6 or 10.6 attempts from three per 40 minutes. Like, that is a lot. Like, let's see, Leroy Blyden, excellent three-point shooter. He was taking 6.6 attempts per 40 minutes. So if you want another three-point shooter, like, you couldn't go wrong there with a guy who was a really good three-point shooter on team who obviously did well in the NCAA tournament. I haven't seen a ton on Tijon's sane from what we state. He's a bit of a smaller guard. You're talking like 5-10, maybe not even that much, but he could be a scoring dynamo off the bench, 17 and a half points per game over four assists per game. I kind of like his game a little bit, gets the free throw line a ton as well, shoots free throws a very, very well,

Starting point is 00:14:31 had a big PER rating of 21.5, which is really good for a guard. So I'd be very in on Tijon Sane as well. Jaden Jackson, some relatively interesting stats. Jalen Smith would be kind of further down bench pick from East Tennessee State. I was kind of impressed a little bit of Diaz for Long Beach State. You're talking about a 6-2 senior guard, about eight points per game. He had a 19.9% defensive rebound rate for guards. That is better than Flory had of a defensive rebound rate, which is that going to translate up all the way? No, but like, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:15:10 I just found that kind of interesting. okay three point shooter, pretty good two point shooter. I don't know. I'm probably just kind of enamored with the rebounding for him specifically there. And then if you're looking a little further down too, if you're looking again for maybe some efficient three point shooting, Christian Bliss at Delaware, he's six foot four. So he has good size. He's a good rebounder guard. You're talking over five rebounds, over five assists per game, 39% from three. That would be one that would be kind of mentioning also a guy who gets to the free throw line a little bit there. Moving over. to the shooting guard position. We still await victorious Miller, whatever's kind of happening there.

Starting point is 00:15:47 It seems like that one's kind of gone for KU. Ethan Copeland, kind of an interesting name from Stetson, 15 points per game. You're talking about a pretty good steel rate. And there's your three-point shooter. Copeland 41% from three on 9.4 attempts per 40 minutes. He also had a really good on-off net rating. Stetson was about 25 points better, per 100 possessions when Copeland was on the floor. So I'd be in on that. This is one that actually there was like a reported interest from KU by, you know, one of those social media sites that I'll probably do a deep dive on later this week. Jeremiah Johnson, another six foot four guard. He's from Campbell. So big step up in competition, over 15 points per game, 36% from three. Another guy who gets the free throw line a ton makes him

Starting point is 00:16:32 in an 87% clip. And another one where the on-off numbers are really good. Like Campbell was like 22 points better per 100 possessions when he was on the floor. Obviously, Abdi Bashir is. well, there was some news on KU have an interest like the beginning of the offseason, but nothing has come of it with Kobe Williams from Missouri State. I haven't seen him sign anywhere. That would be kind of your bench scorer and shooter. James White was the recent one. I've kind of come out against that, and that would be a really bad addition for KU.

Starting point is 00:16:59 And then here's one kind of, I think, further down the list where if you just look at the raw stats, it might not jump off the page, but Noam Doverat, I don't know if that's the pronunciation, from Miami. He'll be a senior. He's a 6-5 shooting guard. who basically he's just a shooter, right? He's an offball player. He's not going to handle the ball a lot,

Starting point is 00:17:18 but 47% from three on 9.1 attempts per 40 minutes. If you just strictly want a shooter, that's not a bad option. That's probably pretty cheap. Looking over at the wing position, you still got Milan, Momchilovich, Tunei Yesafu in the portal. Jordan Berks, really good shooter and offensive player for UCF, though that might be above KU's pay grade when you look at those players.

Starting point is 00:17:41 Hamad Musa, another interesting player, but sounds like Michigan is all over him. We definitely love for KU to get involved, but I don't know about the possibility there. Dennis Parker Jr., we just did a deep dive on, obviously big fans of his games. Paul Jobat is kind of interesting because he played the 4-5 at Omaha, but he was at, I think it was Miami a year before. I forget it was a Power 4 school, and he was a small Ford out of high school in there. So I don't know if you classify him as a wing or a Power 4, but you're talking about somebody with a 19% of a rebound, right? Again, that's like Florida badunga numbers better. 41.5% from three point range and a good shop locking number with good P.E.R.

Starting point is 00:18:18 That would be an interesting one for Joe Bet who wouldn't have to go far from Omaha to Kansas, obviously. And I think he's originally from France. So get a little international flavor for KU. Jadis Jones from Lindenwood. If you want a good rebounder off the bench, this is 6-5 guard who averaged eight and a half rebounds per game. Excellent offensive rebounder. Really good on two-point shots, but you're not really getting anything from three. point range. So that might eliminate whether you want Jadus Jones or not. Ty Rogers, but that's a guy who hasn't

Starting point is 00:18:46 played in a couple years due to injury. Maybe look at Isaiah Johnson, Aragu, who has a good defensive rebound rate, really good two point percentage, okay, three point percentage. Again, if you want to swim in the depth of the pool with the three point shooting, Rashid Jones at Coastal Carolina, almost 15 points per game, six foot six, good size, good assist numbers, and shot 36 percent from three on pretty good volume as well as an 81% free throw shooter. So those would be ones that I'd be, I guess, looking at for the wing position. If you're looking for a power forward to kind of back up Keanu Dawes,

Starting point is 00:19:21 if you could get Robert Miller the third to do that, that'd be great. But I feel like he's going to have an opportunity to get a bigger role than that. But yeah, sure, I obviously love it. If you could do that, not a lot of the power forward position, right? David Fuchs at San Francisco is an incredible rebounder. he's like 6-9-245. So how much of a power forward is he is? He more of a center.

Starting point is 00:19:44 And the same is true for Philippe Brankovic at UTRGV, who's like really efficient score down low, can shoot the three a little bit, good free-throw shooter, but he's six foot eight, 265 pounds. And then if you are looking for another center, it's pretty dried up unless the five-and-five thing happens and were to be a bit retroactive. Now, Austin Maurer at Seattle could be a good flyer take. He's seven feet tall, good defensive.

Starting point is 00:20:09 rebound, solid offensive rebound numbers, solid block numbers. And he had a really big impact for Seattle if you're just looking for a developmental center to put behind the guys you have and see if he pops into anything. Same kind of idea with Jacob Benarby at UNLV. And I haven't seen, for Gerald Colonel, I don't know, he has to, I think, get a waiver for another year. But that's an excellent defensive center. Maybe that would be one you could get kind of later in the game for cheaper if that was possible. So I, I guess the point going through here, there's not a lot of obvious names left in the portal. I do think for Kansas, you're looking at getting that, you know, guard, wing shooter off the bench.

Starting point is 00:20:47 And then I think any other addition after that is either one that a donor wrote a big check for you to try to go make a move for one of the big names or you're trying to go overseas and bring in because there are still a lot of interesting international players out there. So we'll do some deep dives on international guys as well as some portal guys still coming up as well. All right. Let's get you some of the latest news, including some potential college football news. This is locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Indeed, workplace chaos, deadline stacking up, inbox overflowing, and the one position you have to fill is still sitting open. When the pressure's on and you need the right hire, this is a job for Indeed sponsor jobs,

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Starting point is 00:22:26 All right. So a recent, I don't know, it's not a rule change necessarily, but a recommendation, I guess. And I don't know how often the NCAA follows this, but you would think it's a pretty strong. recommendation. So this comes from the American Football Coaches Association, right? So like this is the people who are making up your sport. So this will be a, again, it doesn't mean they have to take the recommendation, but you would think it's going to have a strong word in their ear. And they are recommending the elimination of conference title games as part of a proposal to compress the season and conclude it by the second Monday in January, while also expanding the playoff field. So this becomes really, interesting because if we separate these out into three things, like my thoughts on having the season done by the second Monday in January, great. That's how it should be. We should not be,

Starting point is 00:23:20 you know, continuing to interlope the college football playoffs on the NFL playoffs. That's not how this works. It's not good for the sport. You're just getting it crushed by the NFL. So love that. Getting rid of the conference title games. I actually love that at this point. Like in a world where we had two teams in the title or four teams in the title, the conference title games made sense because it's one extra game to try to determine a small amount of teams getting in. Now that we have all these teams, double digit teams, I say double digit because I don't know what their recommendation for expanding the field is, like how many we're talking here. But regardless of if it's 12, if it's 14, if it's 16, if it's 24, like the conference titles aren't going to matter

Starting point is 00:24:06 anymore you win or lose you're you're in like we saw it with alabama Alabama Alabama loses to Georgia and nothing happens they're still in the cultural playoff this year is like you know nine seat or whatever they were so I look at it from that standpoint and I'm like this is just an extra game that's probably penalizing the team who's in it just give the conference title to the team who has the best record of the regular season because at the end of the day even if even though it it is silly that we're going to have all these unbalanced schedules instead of this and you can have a team who wins the conference who isn't actually the best team in the conference well okay realistically they probably still deserve to make the playoff at least if we're

Starting point is 00:24:42 expanding the field anyway um the other part of this is this like why don't you just again like it's so stupid we have these giant conferences can we just like split these up into like eight team conferences where you play everyone in your league once and then we don't need a conference title game because you have the full round robin or something like that and maybe that's something they can do by splitting divisions but point being i am fine with them getting rid of the conference title games at this point because of how many teams are making that those extra playoff games basically become like a conference title game in the end. So I think that's smart.

Starting point is 00:25:10 Now, what I don't love is expanding the playoff field. I feel like we, we keep expanding things at this point just for the sake, just for the standpoint of, hey, the NCAA wants even more money. We can, like, at some point, there's going to be a, there's going to be a cliff here. There's going to be a cliff of like, we keep watching the games. And so they're like, oh, we can keep selling them and making more money with more inventory. Eventually, there is going to be a cliff, right? and it's going to hurt them kind of in the long run.

Starting point is 00:25:37 So we'll see when that necessarily happens. I guess the argument for, you know, Kansas specifically, though, is if they're expanding the playoff, it increases the low likelihood of a season that Kansas could make the playoff, you know, doesn't mean they're going to, but you look at, you know, 2023, for instance, they would have been in prime position to make it had they have just won one of those, you know, games against either Texas Tech or Kansas State or something like that.

Starting point is 00:26:01 So that would have been kind of cool, although would it, Was it more cool to beat up you on a V in a bowl game or would it have been more cool to lose to Georgia in a playoff game? I'm not entirely sure the answer to that. It would be cool to make the playoff nonetheless. But yeah, that'll certainly be something to keep an eye on and on where we go with the football side of things. All right, that'll do for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including our YouTube page. Check out our Jalen Curry deep dive coming out as well.

Starting point is 00:26:27 And we'll see you next time on LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - MONEY GAP? Kansas Jayhawks Face DISADVANTAGE in NIL Spending - Can They Still Contend???

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