Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - One Complaint + Kansas Jayhawks Tournament Path From 2nd Round Worries to the West Regional

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Making a complaint about the NCAA Tournament committee plus the path ahead for the Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team, from reasons to feel cautiously optimistic about Round 2 against Arkansas/Illinois to what the most (realistic) ideal path for Kansas through the West region would be in avoiding Connecticut and TCU. Whose Stat Line is it Anyway.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we're joined by Nick Schwert. We're going to be talking KU basketball, complaints about the seeding, and plenty more with their first and second round matchups, as well as a Who's Stat line. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence.

Nick Schwert, you can give him a follow at Nick underscore Schwert on Twitter. You can find him with the Wave in the Weep podcast and on 610 in Kansas City. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts, and you can also find us on YouTube. On today's edition of the show, we're going to be talking a little KU in the NCAA tournament, fan complaints about the seeding, and a little whose stat line is it anyway. So I want to start right there with the fan complaints, Nick.

I think it's healthy. I think it's healthy that everyone is allowed one complaint, one complaint about the NCAA tournament. You can't be the guy who's mad about Oklahoma State and Rutgers not making it and A&M being a seven seed and where Kansas, you got to pick a battle. You got to pick one. I think everybody gets one freebie complaint.

So would you like to file? Would you like to file one complaint on public record about the NCAA tournament? Well, then, yes, I will file one complaint. And I'm going to file one complaint that is also a million complaints. But the reason why you can't get mad at me is because everybody will be represented in my complaint. My complaint is that the NCAA selection committee is only consistent in that they are inconsistent in their seating process from year to year. And Derek, it's no different, even though they're completely different groups of people, it's no different than the college football playoff committee.

They do the exact same thing. And I want to, I want to be the first to tell you, this isn't an accident. It's not like a, Hey, how do we make this better? How do we get better at this? So people aren't so upset with our seating and who we are putting where? No, no, no, no putting where no no no no no they know exactly what they're doing and they don't care that they're doing it the selection committee loves that all night on sunday and all morning on monday people are talking about the controversy in the seating who got in who didn't who got put in the wrong region who's on the wrong seating line who got the toughest draws?

They love that. It creates conversation and it gets people talking about their event. It is not an accident. I'm not saying that they purposely put Kansas in the West just so people will talk about it, but they feel bad about it. That's what bothers me, is the inconsistency on which this committee acts on every single year. And they purposely don't tell you much throughout the season. They don't give you definitive guidelines. They don't tell you if your team does X, then Y will happen,

because they don't want you to be able to use it against them on selection Sunday when they decide they're going to change their mind because they think there's a better matchup in this region or a better storyline in that region. They are making a television product reason why the NCAA tournament is a billion dollar event. Billion with a B is because it is an amazing television product. And they know that too. The NCAA is well aware that this is a television product as well as a sporting event. All I ask is that you are consistent. All I ask is that from the beginning of the season to the end of the season, I have a good understanding of what these teams need to accomplish to put themselves in good positions to win. And they've changed this right with the net ranking,

which I think is utterly useless. The quadrant system is so arbitrary and pointless. And yet that is the guidelines which we have to go off of. So even though I don't agree with it, I, like every other KU fan, am paying attention to the quadrant wins throughout the season. And all of a sudden you realize, wow, Kansas is setting an NCAA record for quad one wins only to find out on Selection Sunday that, no,

the reason why Houston got into the Midwest over Kansas is because of quad one and quad two wins. They have a better winning percentage. Okay, so is it winning percentage? Is it margin of percentage? Is it margin of victory? Is it competitiveness at this point? I don't really know. And that's what makes it somewhat frustrating. I don't really feel bad for Kansas. I'm just annoyed that year to year. I don't know what it is that I'm supposed to be valuing or paying attention to.

Well, I also, I never know who the committee actually is it's almost like the shadow head figure of like oh the tournament committee you know we reference it so much but i don't know is it something where it's different every two years like maybe that's why it's inconsistent maybe they're different people each and every year that i don't totally know do you think it would have been a lot simpler or do you think people would have been less mad if the committee would have just came out and instead of kind of spewing some BS about, um, yeah, the, the quad one plus quad two. And, um, we were worried about Kansas having too many big losses, whereas Houston lost close and all those things. Do you think it would have just been easier if they would have just came out and

easier to stomach and they would have just said, yeah, we just think Houston's better than Kansas. You know? Yeah. At first you had me there for a second. Cause I thought you were going a different direction with it, but if you, if they just came out and said, eh, you know, kind of scrunched their brow up and saying, well, we're not really sure about Kansas. I don't know. They've lost too many games that we didn't really like. So we bumped them down a line. Now, if they did that from year to year, you, it would turn into a different sort of line, but like, well, you know, I hope they're in a good mood today. I hope the committee didn't stub their toe getting out of bed today. And they're in a grumpy mood and they're going to

knock us down a seed line. I think it's all about, this is what's so weird is that college athletics, unlike professional sports, leave everything up to a group of people in a way that pro sports, it's pretty simple. Win this game, you're in. You can literally control your own destiny in professional sports. There is no real controlling your own destiny in college basketball. You can kick ass and win your conference and rack up impressive wins, but ultimately there is a collection of people that are deciding your fate. And as long as that is the case, which it will all, I mean, it always has been the case, at least

since they expanded the tournament, I guess we could go back to how it was in the 1950s and have a 16 team tournament. And then every team who won their conference just gets in like that. That would make things a lot simpler. I don't know if it would make things more enjoyable, but you know how it is. It doesn't matter whether we're talking college basketball or you are arguing about politics with your friends. As long as we are allowing people's opinions to factor into the equation, someone's going to get annoyed. Someone's going to get upset. And ultimately you're wonder what was the point of all of that, which is kind of where I feel today.

Okay. I do want to ask you one question as it relates to the actual, like on the court stuff, before we get to a break here, you said last week or maybe two weeks ago, how you've kind of felt like this Kansas team is a little more, I don't know, upset proof, I guess would be the way of putting it that they don't lose to bad teams. You've seen the draw. Arkansas and Illinois is the 8-9.

Do you feel comfortable that they'll get out of the first weekend? Do you still feel the same way? Yeah, I do. I do. I think that would be, I'd be mildly surprised if they don't get out. I wonder about Bill self and his availability moving forward. I wonder about Kevin McCuller. And those are two massive losses for Kansas that I think both had an impact on why they played the way they did versus Texas on Saturday. But, and I'm not picking this team to get bounced in the second round. Are you hinting at something? Do you think they could get upset in the second round? I mean, I think they could. I think Arkansas is a scary team because they have the type of talent that scares you because they're, they're inconsistent,

but they can be good, right? Like Anthony black is probably going to be a lottery pick at the point guard position. And he's six, seven. So how is DeJuan Harris going to deal with that? Nick Smith is supposed to be a lottery pick at the shooting guard

position. Like they have a lot of young talent. Honestly, though, I actually tend to feel better about KU advancing through the second round when they're playing another like power five team than when it's the opposite. Like, think about some of the heart wrenching losses for KU fans in the second round when they're high seat. UTEP, Northern Iowa. I think about some of the other games, though, where they played power five teams and you've worked yourself uh self up into this fuss about like oh no they're playing 2017 you're playing michigan state in the

second round or 2018 um you're or not 2018 2016 you're playing yukon in the second round and these like historically teams that do well in the ncaa tournament they've tended to do better in those types of games so um i'll i'm picking them to get by the second round but also i'm to a point where i don't think it would shock me if like arkansas beat them because i do think arkansas is very talented arkansas is ranked 20th on ken palm okay okay we got it but but arkansas still has to play a game this weekend you know like they they have to play illinois it's not as though the selection committee said, Arkansas, you know what? Ken Palm likes you,

so why don't you go ahead and just get rested for that game against Kansas in round two? They've still got to win a game. Let me say this thing about... It's the Kansas thing to do because this team's always so damn good that all we're worried about is who is the team that they're going to overlook and lose to,

right? We do it all the time. And it's fair because that's the perks of being Kansas and being a one or a two seed every year. I've watched Arkansas almost as much as any team in the country not named Kansas over the past three weeks because they had a really good close to the season they played well they played Kentucky on senior night on the same day with Kansas lost to Texas they played at Tennessee and they played who's the other game I'm missing at Alabama, Alabama. Yeah. I watched them play games against three good teams, three tournament teams. And I kept waiting for them to show that, Hey,

this team's kind of scary good because that's you're right. They've been that sort of team where it's like, okay, they're kind of feisty. They play really fast. They play up tempo, good defense. You know, show me something. Show me a little fight here before the tournament. Get me excited about you. They lost every game. I kept waiting for them to just win a game, not win all three, not win two, Derek. Can you just win one? And they lost, and they lost, and they lost. They played Baylor in the Big 12 SEC Challenge. They lost that game too.

Do they have a good win on the resume? Can we sift through the resume and find the game where I saw Arkansas look like they belonged versus a top 15 team in America. I don't see it. Now, yeah, they're good enough to compete, but can you get one upset before I start talking about this being the team that's going to take down one-seeded Kansas?

All right. Well, Illinois beat Kansas in a secret scrimmage, so that's the big one there. No. All right. We'll get more into this like upcoming path. We do have to get a quick message real quick. FanDuel, the official sports book of Locked on Jayhawks. It's the midway point of the NBA season. Now is the time to download FanDuel Sportsbook, America's number one rated sportsbook app. New customers get a no sweat first bet up to

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Don't miss your chance to get your no-sweat first bet up to $1,000 in bonus bets at fanduel.com. That's fanduel.com to learn more. Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. So looking ahead to KU's path, not just the second round, but overall as a whole, I think the biggest difference to me this year, because one of the things that you see, you hear a lot lot from from ku fans given year to year is oh no

that team is a terrible matchup that you have to play in the elite eight or in the sweet 16 but a lot of times those teams don't end up making it there right i think the biggest difference this year with this bracket is that it's it's almost like hey if one of those teams loses out there's another one like it's just the depth of good teams that you have in your region this year i think ku is fourth among the teams in their own region on ken palm bart torvik so it's obviously a very very tough region if you had to pick like the most ideal path for ku to try to make a final four realistically like i'm not talking oh i played a 15 seed lead like realistically what do you think that path would look like okay so i'm not just picking a bunch of upsets i have to so all for for the sake of this

conversation how about i stick to the top six seeds okay perfect is that is that fair um i think the first team i would look at and say okay I would take that over the other Gonzaga despite being a three seed is not a team that scares me all that much you talked last week and I'm sure you talk you've done this a lot in the past by kind of looking at the criteria these are the towards sorts of teams that that go far in March and looking at Ken Palm adjusted offensive efficiency versus defensive efficiency. Gonzaga is one of those really lopsided teams, right? They wouldn't qualify for your national championship contenders because they're first in offense, right? Number one offense in America.

That's going to immediately people are going to point to them and say, how are you going to get stops? We just saw Kansas' defense fall apart in the second half versus Texas. How are you going to stop this Gonzaga offense? Gonzaga ranks 76th on defense. And I would, I would challenge someone to go back and tell me how many of those teams with an offense or a defense ranked outside of the top 50 or ranked outside of the top 70.

How often do those teams make deep runs in March? Like I wouldn't be shocked to see Gonzaga get bounced in the first week into the tournament. So if you're telling me Kansas had an elite eight matchup versus Gonzaga, a team with a small fan base that doesn't travel all that well in Vegas, I would take that all day. So if, if you're telling me,

okay, Kansas has to play one of these teams realistically to go to the Final Four, I would take Gonzaga over TCU. I would rather face Gonzaga in the Elite Eight than I would rather face TCU. TCU is the exact type of team that scares me. They are one of the most experienced teams in the country, and they've shown that they can play against you. They've shown that they can play you tough. That was the worst game of the season

when they came into Allen Fieldhouse and absolutely dog walked Kansas for 40 minutes. So Gonzaga would be the most realistic path in terms of the sweet 16 matchup. I would again, now I'm just going to pick on the West Coast Conference. I would much rather face St. Mary's over UConn. I mean, UConn is an analytics darling. Like, that team is, what are they, fifth in Kempom? Fourth in Kempom? Something like that.

They're just really good. They're a really complete team. And there was a point in time early in the season, non-con. So take it with a grain of salt. Around the same time, Kansas was kind of starting to falter when they lost to Tennessee. That was when Gonzaga was playing in, I don't know what preseason tournament that was, where they looked like the best team in the country.

So I don't know if they still have that in them. Maybe it's the UConn. They may, I don't know if they still have that in them. Maybe it's the Yukon. They may. I don't know if it's the name recognition, the fact that they've done this a few times before where they're not necessarily one of the favorites. Yukon kind of scares me, so if you told me St. Mary's and Gonzaga, two West Coast teams to get to the final four,

I think I would view that as a pretty favorable path. To your point on the gonzaga thing defensively of the last 80 final four teams that goes back to 2002 so that's pretty simple 80 teams 74 of the 80 had top 50 defenses gonzaga is on the outside of that obviously say that again 74 of the last 80 final four teams were top 50 on defense, and every national champion, if you go to that, too, was top 44 higher. I'm telling you, it wouldn't shock me to see them get bounced in the first weekend. Like, if you did, like, TCU-Gonzaga, I think that would be a great game. I would feel pretty good about TCU beating Gonzaga.

That's what I have in my bracket. All right, let's finish up here. Whose stat line is it anyway? So the first one that I have for you is Big 12 tournament totals. You total up the three games played this year for KU in the Big 12 tournament. This player made 23 games, zero points. The 0 for 3 field. He did have four rebounds, but he also had zero assists to one turnover. 25 minutes in three games, zero points.

I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with my gut here. God, did he score against Iowa state? Hmm. I don't like this, but I'm going to go with Ernest today. That is incorrect. It is another bench player.

That would be one. Mr. Bob. That was my, that was, that was the two i was battling between he's just i mean fell off man i mean there were there were a lot of games throughout the season where it was like that but this is really kind of hit a new level here at the end of the season

i don't know what happened because early next one the year okay go ahead okay you're sure all right uh this one big 12 as well these aren't totals these are averages seven points per game nine of 22 from the floor that's 41 so you know not very good but not horrible either uh 2.7 rebounds per game also uh 0.7 assists to 1.7 turnovers per game. Hmm. Oh, man. Six points per game.

Nine of 22. Is that KJ? Is Joe Yesifu? Wow. Wow. Joe had seven. KJ? It's Joe Yesifu. Wow. Wow, Joe had seven. That brings his season average up, doesn't it? Yeah, like four a game.

See, that's the thing. I was viewing it as a negative stat line. I was viewing it as like, oh, that's pretty bad for KJ. But in turn, if we're talking about Joe, all of a sudden, not looking too bad. Yeah, a different bar. I have one. I do actually have a full, but it's a team one. This is the last one for you. 62 and a half percent from three point range.

That is 10 for 16. This is a bit of a trick question. Wait, is this a this is a player is this is a player this is a ku player in a specific scenario i have to guess the scenario too no you can just guess the player and i'll tell you the scenario i bet if you have bonus points if you get both okay is it duan harris like in the ncaa tournament or something scenario. I bet if you had bonus points, if you get both. Okay. Is it DeJuan Harris like in the NCAA tournament or something?

That is DeJuan Harris in the NCAA tournament. Yeah, I'm back, baby. I will you. Yeah, I knew that he was his scoring average is up in the tournament. I mean, it's not much, but I think he averages like seven a up in the tournament. I mean, it's not much, but I think he averages like seven a game in the tournament.

All right. The last one I have for you is a team comparison and shout out to Graham Doran for this, who does bracketology work and has been coming on Rock Chalk Sports Talk because he pointed this out to me. And now I love this comparison. Houston is 31 and 3 nick on ken palm they have the number 92 strength of schedule there is another team that is 31 and 3 and they have the number 106 strength of schedule houston obviously got a one seed

would you like to guess what team this is and what seed they got a one seed would you like to guess what team this is and what seed they got so they have the same record but a a better strength of schedule is that right no houston is 92nd this team is 136 so it's a worse strength of schedule but like it's not much worse right 92 to 136 okay um i mean i'm guessing it's not a major conference team but it's a team that made it in the tournament so i don't know. Kennesaw State. The correct answer is Florida Atlantic, who got a nine seed. Interesting.

What is Houston's best win on this season? Virginia, I think, is a four seed. St. Mary's is a five, and then beat memphis once or twice twice yeah it's interesting and here's and here's the issue with the selection committees in football or basketball everything's always about what you did this year right it's always about your resume this year, but it takes a couple years for people to start paying attention to you. It takes a couple years for people to start like really giving you maybe credit for not playing in a major conference. And I just, I have a hard time believing

Roast Beef State, right? Could come out and do exactly what houston did and get the same credit like yeah they may they may wind up on the three line but are they winding up as the number two overall seed unless you have put together the five or six year run that houston has probably not yep well he's nick schwirt you can give him a follow at nick undersource schwirt on twitter waving the wheat 610 anything you want to plug or anything else no man yeah we'll have a new episode of wave in the week coming out later this week where we'll uh talk about a lot of the things that we just talked about so if you just want more of what you heard we got it for you there we go

all right i'm derrick johnson we'll have a preview for the first round matchup in our next episode, which will probably come out like Wednesday at some point in time. You can give us a follow wherever you find our podcast or on YouTube at D Johnson radio on Twitter. Have a good rest of your day. You can catch me on rock truck sports talk later in the day from three to six later.