Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - ONE SPOT LEFT: Will Bill Self Fill the Final Scholarship for the 2025-2026 Kansas Basketball Team?

Starting point is 00:00:00 One spot left for Kansas basketball this off season. Is Bill Self gonna even fill it? Are they gonna leave it unfilled? Are they gonna still go for one of these international bigs? Let's break it all down on this episode of Locked On Jayhawks. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks,

Starting point is 00:00:23 part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on? Derek Johnson here. This is Locked On Jayhawks. And thank you for making it your first listen every day, whether you're tuning in on our YouTube page, or anywhere free and available, you get your podcast negative every dayers catching each and every episode of the show show including some pulling a little extra weight this week with some of our extra episodes of Cole Rosario and Paul and be a committing to KU we're going to get into one spot

Starting point is 00:00:52 being left on the KU basketball, I guess scholarship availability at this point for KU where the roster stands. And are they going to go somewhere from here? Are they going to have an opportunity to fill it with one more player? And if they do, who would be the best candidate to do just that? Plus, we'll have a fun announcement at the end of the show. Plus some of the latest news with KU basketball and other sports. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by

Starting point is 00:01:19 Game Time that just announced Shohei Otani is going to be pitching on Saturday against the Kansas City Royals. You can get tickets at Game Time. And if you download the game app today, great account and use code locked oncology at $20 off your first purchase with game time. Okay, so one scholarship open for KU right now the current roster stands is this the guards on the roster for KU Darren Peterson, Melvin Council, the transfer in from St. Bonaventure, Jaden Dawson, the transfer from Loyola Chicago. Marco Jackson the returner coming off of the season ending injury.

Starting point is 00:01:49 Jamari McDowell coming off a redshirt year. Noah Shelby coming off a redshirt year the former transfer who was a walk on last year and earning his way to the scholarship this year at least I think I don't know I guess technically they could use him as a walk on player now the walk ons have been grandfathered in if they wanted to add two more players but I don't know what we'll see if they even add one more player so that wouldn't be necessary and then you have the new edition with Cole Rosario kind of a two three guard wing whatever you want to call him from the high school ranks ote corbin allen

Starting point is 00:02:18 from nearby oak park as a true freshman coming in is kind of a guard wing type as well. So lots of guards there. Then as far as like true wings, I would say Trey White and Samiz Calderon would mostly qualify for that. Obviously, Dawson and Rosario play a bit on the wing you would think for Kansas but White will be a senior transfer in from Illinois. Samiz Calderon will be a freshman. And then you have the Senate Center Group, which features Florida Dunga coming back into a sophomore year, Paul and be a into his freshman

Starting point is 00:02:51 season is what he was declared as in price and tiller will be a redshirt freshman after joining early and taking a redshirt year. So 13 scholarship players on the roster for KU normally get 15 but you're minus one because of the final lost scholarship of the sanctions from the NCAA Sylvia DeSosa case. So that puts you at 14. So you could potentially have one more player. Now, in the past, like in previous years, before the rev share stuff happened, the scholarship numbers for basketball were just 13. So theoretically, Kansas is playing on that playing field, right? So they could view it as like, you know, we have as many guys as we would in a previous season. You

Starting point is 00:03:33 know, let's just roll with this, right? Because things if you're talking about making another edition, I think the biggest the biggest hurdle potentially to doing that would probably be a money thing, if you're Kansas, would be whether it's figuring out the NIL situation or more aptly figuring out the rev share situation. For international players, again, I don't know with the new rules with rev share if international players still can't really make NIL. There's work rounds, right?

Starting point is 00:04:04 They just pay them when they're home and they do like events and stuff but like it makes it a little bit harder you have to jump through more hoops maybe there's more of a set number with the rev share and you look at it and the roster is pretty expensive for KU I know there was that report though like North Carolina their roster was at like $14 million and you look at the roster and you're like oh that's a little bit underwhelming for what it is I

Starting point is 00:04:24 think you're gonna see this throughout college basketball, the teams aren't gonna be as deep this year. I think one reason why is because the COVID fifth year players for the most part have filtered out. Obviously there's still some players that are getting, you know, extensions from the NCAA, so to speak, or winning their appeals to get that extra year. But for the most part,

Starting point is 00:04:42 a lot of those players are gonna be gone. And also you're seeing more players opt to, you know, instead of I don't know, like Duke added a center from Rice, who was averaging like two points per game just because the teams in Kansas and Duke and some of these good schools perspective, like there's not a lot of guys who are wanting to sign up to be the 10th or 11th man on some of these rosters. But let's just say, for instance, Darren Peterson's getting like $3 million from KU.

Starting point is 00:05:10 That could be more, that could be less. Adidas seems to be paying him some sort of money. So maybe it's less with KU specifically, but I think KU is probably pwnin' up a good amount when we know that AJ DeBonta is gettin' like, what was the reported number? Somewhere between like five and seven million for BYU. So let's say they're

Starting point is 00:05:25 giving three to Peterson. Let's say you're given one and a half to Florida Badoonga. Let's say Council Dawson white those three transfer additions plus El Marco total around $3 million for the four players that would be an average of 750,000 per player. And that might be in big undersell. To be clear, like it seemed like the kind of throw around number for a power five starter was like one million So he'd see those guys might have cost one million and marco is a former five star recruit So like I don't know he could be causing a million, but let's just say three million total for those four

Starting point is 00:05:57 That would put you between those four plus peterson plus flurry at seven and a half and again That's a conservative estimate. Um, then we throw in say, I don't know, a million dollars more total for Tiller plus Calderon. And again, it could be more because Tiller was a like top 25 recruit, like Tiller might be getting a million per year. Then we add in, say, like a five hundred thousand for McDowell, Shelby and Allen combined. And again, that could be even more like what if each guy's making 200k so it'd be a little bit

Starting point is 00:06:25 more. But at the minimum, just from all that math that puts you in $9 million for this season, then their two latest editions, Cole Rosario, he had a bunch of schools after him, he could have stayed in the class of 2026. So you had to probably pay him more to get him to move to the class 2025. Right? Like Duke wanted him for the class of 2026, but not for the class 2025. So you would have had to pay him more to get him to move to the class 2025. Right? Like, Duke wanted him for the class of 2026, but not for the class 2025. So you would have had to pay him more to get him to jump up, you probably had to pay him a little more not to get him to visit those

Starting point is 00:06:52 other schools. Right? So that probably was a pretty penny to get him to come to Kansas, probably was pretty costly to get him be able to come to Kansas, especially considering he was at another school before with NC State that he had to decommit stuff from. So let's just say the two of them, Mbia and Rosario total one and a half million. And again, you could conclude it's two million, but at one and a half,

Starting point is 00:07:12 that pushes Kansas to spending close to $11 million on this roster, and that is the conservative approach. If you take the aggressive approach where you are like, okay, no, I think that guy's actually making more than that. And I think that guy's making more than that. It's very easily that you could get this roster to being somewhere between 12 1314 $15 million on this roster. So the reason I bring this up is I'm not sure how much money is left in the budget at this point for another player, unless it

Starting point is 00:07:40 would be kind of a Corbin Allen type player, that is maybe more of a long term depth developmental type piece or maybe you're digging quite kind of fell into Kansas laps last offseason like in August, maybe if something like that happens, they're just going to leave it open and see what comes of it. And if a player, you know, can't find another school or doesn't like the offers they're getting, then maybe Kansas gets a cheap deal in late August. But I think the idea of bringing on that other game changer, maybe bringing on that other good international center or other good international recruit, I don't know that at this point,

Starting point is 00:08:15 maybe that's just something that they don't have the money for. And maybe that was a calculus by Bill Self to say, whatever amount of money they had left before they added Cole Rosario and Paul M. Bia. Maybe at that point in time, they were sitting there going, listen, we could try to play the bidding war game, the try to get them at a little bit lower costs with both of these guys, but then it might stretch out and we might lose one of them. And we could try to take that risks that we can add three players or we can just you know, overbid so to speak, or we can make sure we have the best offer for both of

Starting point is 00:08:50 these kids. And then we won't be able to afford a third player, but we'll get these two guys we really want. And I wonder if that was part of the calculus. And that is something that maybe happened for Kansas, I have no idea. I guess we'll find out if they add another big piece, then it'll be like, oh, no, yeah, clearly they had a little bit more money there. But I think there's also a chance that like maybe it just allows you to carry over a little bit of money in the next year's budget. Like if so, that's a nice cherry on top. Second of all, if indeed they are done,

Starting point is 00:09:22 or the last piece would more so be just again, that kind of small edition more so like a Corbin Allen, then it would be like one of the good international bigs. I think that would probably also imply which I do find interesting. That would probably imply that they chose Paul and Bia over the other European bigs, which I find interesting because I think Paul and Bia is I think you get an argument with Conan. I think Conan is a more ready

Starting point is 00:09:46 player overall, but he's a four or five type big who's more mobile and Bia is more of the style that I think for but doing doesn't have so maybe Bill Self wants to keep playing that way with the bench big. And I think maybe as higher ceiling. But like if you're talking about the comparison of a gay Demir versus Paul and Bia, I think Demir is definitely the better player now. But where you get into it is you could also say, okay, maybe it was much easier

Starting point is 00:10:09 to get in be eligible than Demir. Right? Like we already saw Demir tried to get eligible with UCLA a couple years ago, and it didn't work out right and things change from then to where they are now but it was already signed with Nancy State. So you get to a point where like, well, I think Demir is a little bit better than him be a but maybe he has a little bit higher potential higher ceiling, because of the giant wingspan. And we know we can get him eligible. And so maybe you prioritize him over those guys.

Starting point is 00:10:32 But I do find that at least a little bit interesting now. But you know, now the debate becomes over whether they will use that final scholarship or not. I think if I was guessing what's going to happen, this was something I was just kind of fully guessing I'd no intelligence guessing a couple weeks ago, they're like, it wouldn't shock me if they did only add, you know, two more players for that to some of the reasons we've kind of talked about here. So I don't know that I'm expecting them to add another player. In

Starting point is 00:10:55 fact, I might starting, I might be ready to kind of go forward with that this is going to be the roster. At the same point in time, things can change, especially with NIL, even though the clearinghouse situation throws a wrench into that. And it is at least a possibility. So I do want to at least discuss like if they do go down that route, if they do use the final spot, let's discuss what they could even do. Even if again, right now, it might not be what

Starting point is 00:11:19 they wind up doing in the end. This episode of the show is brought to you by Game Time. Have you ever decided at the last minute to head to a ballgame with friends or family? Maybe it's game day, and you suddenly realize you want to be in the stands. That's exactly where game day game time comes in. It's the easiest way to grab last minute tickets without the stress of money. The money you save on tickets, you can splurge on food, drinks, merch, or even invite a bigger group to come with you. Game time makes it all possible. Game time makes buying tickets fast and simple.

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Starting point is 00:12:54 but let's say they do use that final scholarship on somebody. And just to make this more interesting, let's say it's not somebody who is more of a long term kind of developmental piece. Let's say they do want it for one more like player that can at least compete to be a rotation player. I think obviously you go over to overseas. I talked a little bit about Kareem Konan, the big from Turkey. I think he would certainly still make sense for the roster because it's a roster that

Starting point is 00:13:20 doesn't have a lot of guys who can play the four. I mean, you can play tiller at the four if you want to play too big basketball. You Trey white probably going to get a heavy dose of minutes at the force means Calderon can play the four. But outside of that, you know, and it's like, is Calderon gonna even be in the rotation is tiller going to even be a consistent rotation guy, right. So you start to end up with a situation where it's like, okay, having another guy

Starting point is 00:13:42 who could potentially play the four play the five for you give you even more depth and give you another big man where you could play some minutes here and there of too big basketball to vary your lineups and be different depending on the matchup you're going up against. That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. A Gajamir would be the one that you know, I'd be all about if you could make it happen because I still think he is a possible game changer. You know, it's

Starting point is 00:14:03 funny, you look at the recruiting ranking that came out from 24 seven sports with him be a ranked outside the top 200. Now I don't know how much I look into that to be like, oh, okay, well, because most kids, if you brought in a freshman who's ranked outside the top 200, you would not expect that player at Kansas to, you know, be in the rotation to really be on the on the floor very much in year one, you'd probably expect them to be a redshirt candidate. I don't know if that's kind of backdated to the idea of when he was 18. And now he's two years older, and he's developed more or that it's just hard to,

Starting point is 00:14:32 you know, give grades to international guys and kind of have a good comp there. But that does tell you that maybe there is a little bit more rawness than you know, we brought him up as a raw prospect, maybe it's even more than you might have thought. And so it's the idea that okay, I think Mbiyah is going to be the backup center. But what if there are some issues in translating, you know, that level of play he was at in France at the under 21 league to build self, to where you go out and get another sure thing and Ege Demir, who's maybe a little more ready right now. And then it's like, oh, if in be a beats out to mirror, that's a great sign of what and be a would end up being because of the length and the potential and the wingspan. And again, it deepens your bench a little bit more, it allows you if you want

Starting point is 00:15:17 here and there, you can play a little bit more to big lineups, if that's something that is of interest to build self. And that would still be the kind of home run finishing edition for me, even if I don't know that I'm expecting it to happen. Now there are other guys available. You know, Cam McDowell visited KU. I don't think that's going to happen. It felt like definitely it was like, okay, Cam McDowell or Cole Rosario. And maybe McDowell was a backup plan to Rosario.

Starting point is 00:15:42 I don't know. I guess there's still a chance McDowell has to go through the eligibility stuff. And it seems like there's actually some off the courts stuff there for McDowell too. So I don't know how feasible that ever was. There's some guys who at one point seems like ages ago, there was at least some sort of public KU contact with John bugs who, you know, like I have a unhealthy man crush on and Jarvis Moss, but it feels like those have kind of subsided. If KU

Starting point is 00:16:09 did add Demir or bugs, I would be a very happy person over here. Again, though, I don't know how likely it is that that any of that stuff happens. And the fact that, you know, there aren't any like new names that we're hearing about probably tells you that they are closer to being done. But maybe that doesn't mean they're, they're just sitting there, like I said, to see if a digi koi situation happens or if you know, they they can get like maybe Paul and Bia does serve a little bit as insurance for they still do want one of Conan or Demir, but for

Starting point is 00:16:43 the right price and if they can get eligible and adding in via when it's like, okay, we know we can get the sure thing right now allows you to play a little bit of now we can wait it out on that other guy. Now we can wait it out on this recruit because if we don't end up getting them, we still have our bases covered. Whereas like, if you were going all in on say, when the Bryce dessert stuff was happening, it's kind of like you're in a situation where it's like, okay, if this doesn't happen, if you were going all in on say, when the Bryce dessert stuff was happening, it's kind of like you're in a situation where it's like, okay, if this doesn't happen, and you string

Starting point is 00:17:09 along in the process, and you wait two months, and you invested your time and resources, and theoretically, some of your money, because you had to hold it, assuming it was going to go there, and then you couldn't use it elsewhere, that would have put you in a very problematic situations, okay, you're in a much better situation now, regardless of what they ever do. But yeah, if you added Demir from here, I like where the roster is at at

Starting point is 00:17:29 this point after adding and being Rosario, I would love it if they could add a Demir or bugs, I guess even at this point in time. All right, let's finish up. We got a fun little announcement to get to and then some of the latest news as well. This is Lockdown Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us on the show and where you get your podcast and or on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Please subscribe. We're trying to get up to 4k by the time we get to football season. It's going to be an uphill battle. We think we can do it because I believe in you. Okay, our fun announcement for

Starting point is 00:18:02 the day is that we're going to be doing a trivia contest over at Johnny's tavern in West Lawrence. We did it last year. And we're bringing it back. We're doing it again this year. So shout out to Kyle Martin and Andrew Filer for helping put this on and really, I mean, they're they're doing even more stuff probably than I am with with putting it on. So thank you to the M. And yeah, July 27th. That is a Sunday.

Starting point is 00:18:29 It's going to be at 6 p.m. at Johnny's West in Lawrence. So if you're interested in signing up for the event, you have to reach out because you do have to register your team in advance of the event. And it's teams of up to six, the doors open like an hour earlier. Basically how it works is it's like a smackdown trivia thing where it kind of has a fun twist on the normal trivia where, you know, each group has their trivia questions, but also it's like once per half they can if

Starting point is 00:19:00 they don't know the answer, they can smack down another team and force them to answer it and get points. So it's fun way of doing it. It's all k you basketball stuff. A lot of k you basketball categories. But yeah, July 27 6pm Johnny's West in Lawrence, there is going to be prizes, gift cards, apparel, cash. But if you want to register your team, reach out But if you want to register your team, reach out jhawk trivia at gmail.com that is jhawk trivia at gmail.com. If you're interested in getting registered or you want to learn more about it. So that'll be fun coming up at the end of July. Some of the

Starting point is 00:19:37 other latest news across the country or I guess across KU athletics. Let's start here in Premor picked Notre Dame. Premor was the number one recruit in the class of Kansas for football in the class of 2026 in what is a good class of K of football players and a good chunk of them a lot of them have already committed to Kansas. It's been a really good ride for KU and it felt like, you know, they were getting all these guys wasn't going to help them in the

Starting point is 00:20:07 recruitment of primer and it seemed like they they did really well that this stick with it to the end with primer but in the end he picks Notre Dame out of state. And obviously you would have loved for him to choose KU he would have been the ultimate cherry on top of the Sunday here that the KU was built with an already impressive recruiting class under Lance Leipold already with two tight ends in the class. So at the very least, you feel like you still do have some good tight end talent even without

Starting point is 00:20:34 him. But there is a little bit of a win there. It's kind of a bittersweet. Like the bitter is that you didn't get him. The sweet part of it is at least he didn't pick Kansas State. And for so many years, Kansas State is dominated in state recruiting. And Kansas has gotten a majority of the guys so far in this class of 2026. Now we'll see if this leads to

Starting point is 00:20:52 momentum down the road if this is a continued thing or if it's a one year blip on the radar. But it would have felt like K State was winning a lot back if they would have won the recruitment of Ian Premmer because it would have been like, Oh, well, you got all these guys, but we got the dude who is, you know, being nationally recruited by Oregon and Notre Dame and on and on down the list for Ian Premmer. So just kind of an interesting recruitment there. But one that, you know, Kansas continues to recruit the state well. And right now with him picking Notre Dame

Starting point is 00:21:23 instead of K-St state. It is a big difference in the class of 2026 between the two rivals even though for most years previous it was Kansas State kind of doing this to KU. So we'll see if KU can keep the momentum going but you got to start somewhere and they're kind of starting here in this class of 2026. Transfer news for KU baseball. We've mentioned some of the big transfers they've already added to this point. David Hogg is a transfer from LSU. LSU is consistently one of the baseball powerhouse one of the best programs in the country. They were the national champions in the 2024 season of baseball.

Starting point is 00:21:55 He came in as a top 100 recruit in the country. He goes to LSU this past season play sparingly 12 games played for him with limited at bats this past year. But again, this is a true freshman at a loaded school where probably a lot of times gonna take you time to get on the field a little bit more. But again, a top 100 crew he's playing in the Northwood Summer League right now, which a lot of these guys play in summer leagues. He's hitting over 290 as over an 800 OPS right now. So he comes over

Starting point is 00:22:21 to Kansas, and I'd imagine he'll be somebody that could very well play and be a starter right away for Kansas. That's a big time get. And Dan Fitzgerald continues to work his magic. It's funny, a lot of these players, they've been able to, you know, you find your diamonds in the roughs with Juco recruits or players transferring in from D twos. And now maybe with the success that the program has had, you're starting to get the attention of some guys who are highly recruited guys that are maybe looking for an opportunity for playing time to go to a winning program. And just I think really

Starting point is 00:22:53 speaks to what Dan Fitzgerald is building and has built to this point in Lawrence. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find our show 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 LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - ONE SPOT LEFT: Will Bill Self Fill the Final Scholarship for the 2025-2026 Kansas Basketball Team?

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