Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - O Canada | Kansas Jayhawks Looking Into Nginyu Ngala to Fill Bill Self's Roster?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Bill Self might be learning how to speak maple syrup and Tim Hortons. They could be going to Canada to get their next pick up a electric scoring guard in Nginyu, Ngala. 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? Derek Johnson here. This is Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day and thank you that every day is catching each and every episode of the show. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcast

Starting point is 00:00:40 including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of LOJ, we're going to be talking Nginu N'Gala. He is a Canadian guard or playing in Canada at the university level, who seems like Kansas might have some interest in according to Mike Vernon. And so where does this go for KU? How exactly would he fit into KU? Potential fit will get to all that and some of the latest news around Kansas with the KU football field and KU women's basketball schedule, KU baseball, some interesting news,

Starting point is 00:01:13 both additions and subtractions. We'll get to all that on today's episode of the show, which is brought to you by Monarch money. And with Monarch, you can take control of your finances use code locked on college at Monarch money.com for 50% off your first year with monarch money. Okay, so who is this guard from Canada, it is in Guinea in Gala. He is a five foot 10 guard from Montreal, Quebec. So that is the French speaking area of Canada. So I don't know if that means he

Starting point is 00:01:42 speaks French or not. But he started attending the collegiate level with Dalhousie in the 2020 to 21 season. He played four seasons with Dalhousie. Now, the first of those being the 2020 to 21 season. Obviously, that was the COVID year. So that technically did not count against his eligibility. So then he's a second year freshman and continues on

Starting point is 00:02:10 and plays his four seasons, three that count at Dalhousie. And then he uses his extra year to this past season play for, I don't know if it's Laurentian, Laurentian, which is a different school at the collegiate level. And so Canadian college basketball is very interesting. I think it's probably a little bit more widespread than like the US is where like the worst teams in Canada probably are

Starting point is 00:02:36 more equivalent to like NAIA Division three teams, Division two teams in college basketball, whereas the best teams in Canada are more equivalent to the better high majors. I don't know that they're as good as they are now, but like a couple of years ago, there was a school called the Carlton College and they used to play a lot of like, I remember there were stories about them beating Wisconsin and Ole Miss and some of these big, you know, programs. I think they played a game against Duke. I can't remember if they won or not. But they were like a dominant force in Canada. And like they were beating some of these other teams, they had an interesting style. So it made it tough for your summer exhibitions. But like some

Starting point is 00:03:13 of the best teams are some of the best. But it's a wide range, right? You could be on a team that is more equivalent to being like a division two school, right? So it becomes kind of interesting in terms of the level of play that you're at. And so you look at what he did his first season again, he's at Dalhousie, and that was the COVID season. So again, doesn't count. I don't even think they played a season in Canada, unlike the US. So he's just there. And it doesn't count. So in the 2021 to 22 season, his I guess freshman season, you would say, with Dalhousie, really good

Starting point is 00:03:44 season, they went 24 and 5 they went 12 and 2 in the league they won their conference championship essentially and he was on the all rookie team by putting together a season in which he averaged 11 points per game at 3.6 assists per game he didn't have the best shooting percentages, but you know, did produce at a decent level as a freshman there. Then in his second season at Dalhousie, they go 20 and 1512 and eight in the league, they make it to the semi finals of the conference tournament. And that season his numbers really go up 17 and a half points per game for in Gala. And I think he goes by I

Starting point is 00:04:20 don't know if it's gear G is like the nickname he gets called the 17 and a half points per game as a sophomore in Canada 4.3 rebounds per game he does it shooting 46% from the floor 40% from 392% at the foul line so 46 4092 on the shooting splits really impressive there he had 58 assists compared to 44 turnovers so not quite the assist to turnover you would like but you but that is over three assists per game. He also averaged over two steals per game that season.

Starting point is 00:04:52 Then his third season at Dalhousie, they go 26 and 14, 11 and nine in the conference. Again, they win the conference and they end up making it all the way to the semifinals of the U Sportssports tournament, whatever you want to call it. So I guess that would be the equivalent of like the final four for them because U-sports is what like the Canadian NCAA essentially is. And that season in which again,

Starting point is 00:05:15 they win the conference championship and stuff, he puts up 15.1 points per game. The field goal percentages go down. He's down to 40% from the floor, 31%% from 389 at the foul line. So continue to do that well, 4.3 rebounds per game, he gets closer to two and a half assists per game, and he's averaging about a steal and a half per game. And I think he's had to deal with injuries throughout his career. Because you look at it, and he played 14

Starting point is 00:05:42 games his first season 18 games, the second 19 games, his third. This past season, he played his most games played 22. He started all of them. And that was for Laurentian, who I mentioned, you know, he transferred to he not as good of a team 16 and 14 overall 11 and 11 in the league. He ends up scoring 15 points per game, 4.6 rebounds per game on 40% from the field 39% from three on very high volume he took 153 threes in 22 games. So you're you know, looking at like seven threes per game out of him at 39% he also shot 76%

Starting point is 00:06:19 at the foul line that was 20 less attempts than the year prior and 69 assists compared to 53 turnovers. So again, some turnover issues there, but you're getting over three assists per game and you're getting, you know, over a steal per game. Overall, total it up for in gala. This is somebody who in Canada, which again, it's tough to tell, okay, what is the level of competition here. But clearly, he's been on some winning teams, I think probably

Starting point is 00:06:44 safer to say that he's on the upper echelon of that. But clearly he's been on some winning teams. I think probably safer to say that he's on the upper echelon of that. But 73 career games played over four seasons in Canada with 1080 career points scored at almost 15 points per game career 85% free throw shooter career 36% from three point range with 117 steals in 73 games. So there's something you know, the good player he was he was named the first team all conference pick in the 22 to 23 season. He was named all tournament team in the 23 to 24 season. He was named a third

Starting point is 00:07:13 team all conference pick in the 24 to 25 season and was named the school's male athlete of the year. So again, you're talking about somebody who, you know, produced at a very good level. From where he he was right, he had a career high of 37 points in the game, he had a career high of 12 rebounds, he had a career high of seven steals, he had a career high of nine three pointers made in a game, this guy can play. He also though played for Montreal Alliance, or I don't know if he tried out for him or what that's like a professional team. So I don't

Starting point is 00:07:46 know how the eligibility works here. Again, that's that's five years of college essentially fourth account without the COVID year, but it's in Canada. Would that be viewed the same way as you know, people who played four years at an AI level or you know, four years at the D two level that are now transferring up to get one year the guys who went to Juco to play that one year of NCAA basketball, right? Or is it different because you're an international player? I don't know. That

Starting point is 00:08:09 probably is kind of the big the hurdle here of how KU would approach this. But if KU has interest, if they have interest, that probably tells you that they've at least poked at it to see if this is something that that is kind of entirely possible. Now, when you look at the scouting report here for in Gala, I think the stats tell you one thing, the stats tell you this somebody who can shoot the three ball well. He's not going to be super efficient from two point range. Going to be a good free throw shooter, maybe a little too many turnovers.

Starting point is 00:08:37 He's going to get you good steel numbers and then injury concern, I guess, would be the other one. And I don't know that for sure. I just you know that he's not playing in all the games. So it's, you know, you're kind of assuming there. When you watch some of the highlights, when you watch some of the film on this kid, really good shifteness, really good quickness.

Starting point is 00:08:56 I would say really good straight line speed as well. Like when he gets out in transition, he's fast just in general. But even though he's fast, I think he's even more quick than he is fast, like very good agility. Obviously he has to be because he's a below six foot guard and he can just really create his own shot.

Starting point is 00:09:17 He can really knock it down at a high level off the dribble. How that translates to a bigger level, how that translates against better and bigger and longer athletes, those are real questions. But, you know, I think there have been some people calling him and I forget if it was Mike Vernon who said there's somebody else, the Canadian Coit. I think there's some credence there, right, to the idea that this guy's like a diggy Coit coming from Canada. And so you don't know how it's going to translate over. But that's kind of the idea here. And like I said, it would be more diggy coy than anything. I will say this, if you watch some of the film, I'm not at all comparing

Starting point is 00:09:52 him to play. I'm not at all saying he's gonna be like this player. There are sometimes where he takes a jump shot, where I swear it's the same like shooting form again, just the shooting form. That's all I'm talking about here. A Frank Mason. I don't know what it is like when when people go under the screen and he does a pull up or a pull up mid range. It looked eerily similar to Frank,

Starting point is 00:10:10 which I thought was just kind of cool. Again, these games not Frank. He wouldn't come in and be Frank. You'd be more in that diggy quite type of role for KU, but you know you got two scholarships open. So how exactly would he fit in with Kansas will get to that next.

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Starting point is 00:11:28 Don't forget you make Lockdown College football or Lockdown College basketball, your second listen every day. Okay, so how would N'Gala fit in with KU? So I think what he would add to the team would be more shot creation, he would add more shooting in general, he'd be a good three point shooter, he would come in and be one of your best three point shooters, you would be one of your better shot creators on the team. He would add more quickness to a team that I think has a good

Starting point is 00:11:48 amount of quickness in athleticism, and he would certainly add even more of that. He would not add more positional size. He says a lot of that throughout the roster. He wouldn't add that. He wouldn't add the wingspan. But is it OK to have somebody who's like that when the rest of the roster is? Absolutely, it is for KU. I don't know what the level of defense is. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:12:06 It's impossible to say on the highlights. Now, some of the stats, some of the steel numbers tell you that he's at least pesky there. We know that Diggy Coyote was somebody who actually pressured the ball pretty well for KU, but he wasn't the best defender overall. And some of that was just specific limitations of his height where it's like,

Starting point is 00:12:22 there's only so much you can do. This kid's a little taller, I think, than Diggy Coyt. I think he's actually maybe even, I don't know, it's easy to say this when he's playing against Canadian competition that we don't know the level of play. He might be actually a little quicker though and more athletic than Diggy Coyt. So you could convince me he is going to be a better defender than what you got from Diggy Coyt, but I wouldn't necessarily put the billing that I'm expecting him to be like, you know, Marcus Garrett or something in the back court. Maybe he can just hold his own a little bit more there.

Starting point is 00:12:50 Right. And then just in general, like you don't know how the game's gonna translate. You don't know how the efficiency is gonna translate. Obviously, if he was somebody who was shooting, right, he has that one year where he plays really well for Dalhousie in really his biggest year, his sophomore season,

Starting point is 00:13:03 where he does shoot in the mid 40s from the field. He shot 40 from three, but a lot of the other seasons, he's closer to 39, 40% from the field. Is that something where against better competition, maybe he could shoot 35% from three for KU, but would he only be shooting 40% on two point shots for KU? And then it's like, okay, what is the efficiency level here? But you could also make the argument, okay,

Starting point is 00:13:24 if KU adds him, there's no guarantee he's going to even be part of the rotation. And if he is, it's probably specifically to come in and shoot threes and score from the outside for KU. So how much does that really matter? Right? Like how much on ball is he going to get outside of a late in the shot clock? We need you to create a shot or is it going to be more so? Hey, I'm running around a screen. I'm going to catch and I'm going to shoot and then if that's the case, like maybe that stuff doesn't matter as much and so that is where the possible role kind of comes into play

Starting point is 00:13:51 right that diggy quite role the guy who was kind of your eighth or ninth man who is on the fringe of being a consistent Bill self rotation player who in a specific game if he's hot, if he's feeling it from three or the players ahead of him in the rotation aren't playing well or Bill Selfs annoyed that they did something or annoyed at the way they practice, you have this veteran older player that can come in and maybe in that specific game play 25 minutes. But then there might be another game he does not play.

Starting point is 00:14:18 Or maybe there might be another game where he plays four minutes, right? He comes in, starts over one from three, misses a defensive assignment. You're on the bench for the rest of the game, right? That is a specific role that, you know, KU might already have covered if, like, if the eighth man ends up being Samiz Calderon, maybe the ninth man is Cole Rosario, and maybe Rosario is in that role, right?

Starting point is 00:14:36 But it doesn't hurt to have more options to do that, especially after you lost Noah Shelby. And maybe that's what this is. Maybe this would be a Noah Shelby replacement, somebody who can be kind of your 10th or 11th man, who it's like, if you really need a three point shot, maybe you just bring him in for a possession at the end of the half.

Starting point is 00:14:50 At the very least, he's a practice player. He's a good scout player for having a shooter out there. And best case scenario, if it all comes together and it all hits, then it ends up being more than that. There's probably somewhere in between there that you would say, okay, it's somewhere between the Noah Shelby and the diggie court roll, depending on the level of outcomes of what he

Starting point is 00:15:10 could possibly do. And if you're in Gala, like it totally makes sense, right? He probably you're going to go, you know, make more NIL money, even if you're the 10th 11th man at Kansas, then you would, you know, I don't know, playing professionally in Canada on like a rookie contract. I don't know that for sure. But like, I feel like that would kind of be the case. Right.

Starting point is 00:15:32 So is this a take or not? I kind of said this on yesterday's episode. Thank you every day. As if you already caught that with Lucas Scorich was like, at this point, you have two scholarships open. You know, there isn't really an alternative to like, Oh, well, I don't know if they should take this game because they should take this guy instead. You're kind of at just a point now where it's just like, OK, anybody you add most

Starting point is 00:15:52 likely is going to have to fight just to even be in the rotation. So it's like if you can find somebody with like one specific good skill set or that can just do something good for your team and happens to be cheap enough that they fit into the budget of this current roster. They're not going to cause you to move around your NIL. They're not going to cause you to have NIL headaches. They're going to be a good teammate. They're going to fit a specific role, even if it's a smaller role for your team. I'm not going to say no to that guy, right? So this would definitely be a take for me in that sense, right?

Starting point is 00:16:29 But I wouldn't necessarily expect it to be like, oh, they got this kid and now he like you're still going to have Elmarco Jackson and Melvin Council and Jaden Dawson and Darren Peterson. That's four guards on its own who are going to be handling the ball or going to be in at the one, two and three who are going to play in a lot of minutes for KU. So like there's no guarantee there's going to be handling the ball, who are going to be in it, the one, two, and three, who are going to be playing a lot of minutes for KU. So like there's no guarantee there's going to be a big amount of minutes for a guy like Engala. But I do like the idea there. I do like the idea that you're getting creative, right?

Starting point is 00:16:53 Trying to find somebody who can have talent and I do think is probably a better athlete than maybe you will get credit for coming in and can be a good three-point shooter. And at the very least, like, if that helps you in practice, and at the best case scenario, if it's diggy quite where there's a couple games we point back to in the same way we did with diggy quite where there was, you know, maybe a game here, there was like, yeah, diggy, quite was awesome. That game diggy quite helped win them that game. You know, that I think would be a success. In addition, this in if you did get an addition this late in the game, and, and you know sitting on two open scholarships at this point in time, but also I think is it pertains to both Scorch and in Gala. If Kansas doesn't get either one and they just go into the season with 12 scholarship players, I think that's fine too.

Starting point is 00:17:38 But obviously if you have the two spots open and you can make it work financially, why not? All right, let's finish up latest news. KU football stadium, KU baseball news, KU women's basketball news, we get to all that next. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. Again, don't forget to make Lockdown College football your second listen every day. So some KU baseball news, both a subtraction and an addition to the team. Let's start with the bad news so we can end on a high note.

Starting point is 00:18:06 Cooper Moore, but this one we kind of already knew. Cooper Moore had entered the portal, and there was talk that, OK, depending if he gets drafted or where he wants to get drafted, he could either go to a new school and enter the portal or go to the MLB draft. Well, turns out he winds up transferring, so not doing the draft route. I don't know he winds up transferring so not doing

Starting point is 00:18:25 the draft routes. I don't know if he got drafted or not. I'm assuming not if he did this or maybe it was just later than he wanted to. But he goes to LSU, which is, I mean, they're the what back to back national champions. So you can understand that he probably got a good payday to go there. So that'll be interesting him being at LSU, he leaves Kansas. The good news for KU though is this KU gets commitment from Daniel Lopez, who is a high school player who had 81 strikeouts and 49 innings at the high school level. He was drafted

Starting point is 00:18:56 in the 12th round by the Baltimore Orioles. And that actually means that he's probably a better player than where he was drafted. Usually how it works like the high school kids, if you're not like drafted in the first, like, I don't know, three rounds or something, a lot of times you're going to go later in the draft unless teams have like an overslot deal prepared for you. Because basically how it works, especially now with with teams being able to pay and NIL and stuff, is that, um, you know, okay, it's kind of a risk for an MLB team to take a high school kid, I guess is the better way of putting it, because they could take them and the kid could decide to go to college and then you don't end up with that draft pick. So that's why unless you're one of those guys who is like, oh, this high school kid is going to be a first round pick, like, of course, he's going to sign.

Starting point is 00:19:38 He's going to make multi-million dollars to sign with that team. Of course, he's going to sign with that franchise as opposed to go in college. Once you get to a certain point where it's like, if I'm going to be a seventh round draft pick as a high schooler, you might just be like, at that point, I'll go to college, right? I'll have fun college experience. I can try to boost my draft stock. Now I can get paid in college.

Starting point is 00:19:59 And so if you're really like a sixth or seventh round talent as a high school player, that might cause you to drop to the 12th round where a team is like, okay, if we lose out on not signing our 12th round pick, like, that's fine. We lose out on not signing our sixth round pick, like that might be kind of a problem for us. So you probably have an even better talent here. And the fact that he picks KU that that kind of helps fill things in a real way where yes, KU was losing Cooper more sounds like

Starting point is 00:20:22 Dominic Bailey is going to be back. I think overall at KU might not have. We'll see if somebody else breaks out or develops into being that KU can kind of have their co-Aces again. But it might just end up being that KU has their ace with vaguely and hopefully he has more of a the consistent season he had as a freshman as opposed to this past season where there were those highlight moments,

Starting point is 00:20:41 but there are also some lows. But I think it's going to be more depth on the pitching staff overall, both in the bullpen and the starting pitch. I think there's going to be more depth overall for KU and we'll see if somebody can emerge as that Cooper Moore other co-ace kind of replacement for KU. The KU football field, they're laying down the grass, which is kind of cool to see. I saw they were like laying down. It looks like on the center, the Jayhawk doesn't have the head,

Starting point is 00:21:07 which I don't know why. I mean, obviously there's going to be head. They're just going to for Halloween, they're going to leave it till Halloween. It'll be the headless horseman Jayhawk, the special Halloween edition. But no, I don't know why that is. I don't know if that's because are they like,

Starting point is 00:21:20 is the body permanent? And they're going to change out the head. Like some games it'll be the regular Jayhawk, which I know they announced that'll be the main one. But then some games it will be the war hawk. Some games it'll be something else where that part will be painted on and the body will be permanent. I don't know. That would be kind of interesting. But I think the cool part that everybody's drawn to is the end zone.

Starting point is 00:21:38 They released the I don't know what to call it, like mock sketch or whatever it was when they announced what Jayhawk logo is going to be on the field. Then you saw the wheat in the end zones. I think it looks even cooler, like the actual picture than the graphic. I don't think the graphic did it enough justice. Like people noticed it and they're like, oh, okay, that's kind of a subtle cool thing. The actual paint of it looks really cool, especially with the blue and the wheat. That's going to look awesome in the end zone. was cool and I think Travis Goff pointed this out on Twitter that like you could see how close the the end zone seats were to the end zone and kind of getting that close knit

Starting point is 00:22:14 experience for the football field that I think is going to be really cool and I'm just getting even more excited and more geeked up for the start of the football season and being there for the Fresno State game and kind of seeing. You know, the stadium for the first time in person during a game, right? The last piece of news here is the KU women's basketball non-conference schedule is out. So this will be an interesting season for them, because obviously this will be the third season for some I Nichols, who was really good as a freshman, got even better last year. KU and her both had to deal with some injury stuff.

Starting point is 00:22:44 But now they've got some other good freshman teammates joining her. Keely Parks comes in. Libby Fandel comes in. Like these are highly recruited freshmen that they're adding to the team. And then you have some other kind of contributing role players that are back in the fold.

Starting point is 00:23:00 They added a transfer center this off season. I don't know if the roster is complete yet. We'll see for KU, but it'll be an interesting season for Brandon Schneider and company. And so it'll be Fort Hay State exhibition, Kansas City, then Northwestern St. Lamar. Those are games to kind of get them eased in. The first big one is the Missouri game.

Starting point is 00:23:19 They're going to be playing at the T-Mobile Center on a Saturday, November 15th. So that should be pretty cool to see that game at the T-Mobile Center. Then they'll get. So that should be pretty cool to see that game at the T Mobile Center. Then they'll get Minnesota and Alan Fieldhouse. They got Oral Roberts, the Fort Myers tip off Northwestern, Missouri State, Denver. And then I guess Haskell is not an exhibition game. So that's kind of interesting that that one got on there.

Starting point is 00:23:36 But yeah, I mean, they're going to need those freshmen with Keeley Parks and and Libby Fandel and Tatiana Brown to be contributors on this team. And they're going to need some I I Nichols to continue her ascent. She's been awesome so far. Going to keep needing to be on that trajectory. I think a good season for KU women's basketball this year would be contending if not making the NCAA tournament this year. And then for the following season, you would at that point have some of these really good

Starting point is 00:24:01 high school recruits that you brought in this year who are freshmen. They'd be sophomores, some I Nichols would be a senior. And that year you'd kind of be hoping for, okay, can we be like a top 25 team? At least that's how I view it. All right. Though for this episode of the show, you can find us anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We'll see you next time for another edition of Locked on Jayhawks.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - O Canada | Kansas Jayhawks Looking Into Nginyu Ngala to Fill Bill Self's Roster?

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