Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PLAYER SCOUT: Kohl Rosario Ready to Breakout in Year Two for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Is this going to be a year-two breakout for Cole Rosario and how much would that be a boon for KU? 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 up, Derek Johnson? This is Locked-on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And on today's episode of the show, we'll get some of the latest news, mentioning baseball news, certainly to get to for KU. we'll go right here to start though. Cole Rosario getting to his player preview. We'll get to his floor versus ceiling debate. But let's start just with a little bit on Cole this first year and get into our kind of three to one,

Starting point is 00:00:46 our three biggest strengths, two biggest question marks and final thought on Rosario. Because this is a player that I think a lot of people are earmarking for a breakout season this year, right? And I think it would be very helpful for KU for that to be the case. It's one of two returning players. Now, Rosario, funny enough, I view him as more like a 6-4 player, but I was looking at his like official listing on KU's roster. He was six-six. I don't think I'm quite buying that one that wouldn't be new. Most colleges, you know, they bump him up, right?

Starting point is 00:01:18 I'm thinking more closer to 6-3-6-4, right? But certainly his vertical ups make him play above that high. Make him play like with his ability to jump. He was a four-star recruit over on 24-7 sports when he came in as a top 75 player overall in the class after reclassifying up. And that will be a second year player for KU who will turn 20 years old in January in the middle of the season. And you look at what he's done.

Starting point is 00:01:43 And you go back to his final year at OTE, where he's playing for the YNG Dreamers or the young Dreamers, I guess, where he averages over 15 points, over five rebounds, shoots 46 from the floor, 30 from 3, 84th foul line, good rebounder over five per game, active on the defensive end, two and a half stocks per game for him. And then in the next-gen Adidas tournament looks really good in the course of those three games. 15 points per game, shoots 42% from three point range over three rebounds per game, over two assists per game, almost three steals per game. And there were high expectations for what he could be.

Starting point is 00:02:22 But reclassifies up, joins KU. And he ends up being a starter overperforms in the early off season. but it doesn't carry over through the entirety of the season. So for the year, he winds up playing 28 games, over three points per game, plays about 12 minutes per game, 41% from the field, 27% from 3, 75% at the foul line, 1.3 rebounds per game for him. And interestingly enough, had more offensive rebounds than he had defensive rebounds, 0.3 steals per game.

Starting point is 00:02:50 Tough to take too much from the stats just alone when you're talking about the KU stats, but we're going to do that anyway here, right? And again, a very interesting up and down. because he starts the first six games of the year for KU, then he becomes a bench piece, then he eventually becomes somebody who loses favor in the rotation entirely. And then he gets an opportunity late in the NCAA tournament in do or die mode for KU, and he looks really good.

Starting point is 00:03:14 You know, it's only a nine-minute sample size, but it's five points on two-for-two. It's two rebounds. It's making hustle plays. It's looking more confident and poised when he was in there, which I don't think I ever questioned the athleticism or the jumping ability. of Rosario, it was more so. He just never really looked comfortable in the early going to last season.

Starting point is 00:03:34 Maybe the opportunity to kind of slow play it along, being on the bench a little bit more for those several weeks, and then getting that opportunity in the tournament will lead to more confidence and kind of that breakout summer and year for Rosario here. And what's interesting when you look at some of the team metrics, which again, you're talking 28 games played 11, 12 minutes per game. It's not a huge sample, but it did rate him well on the defensive end of the floor. And on offense, the efficiency numbers being as low as they were, that's where from the metric

Starting point is 00:04:03 standpoint that it wasn't really pulling its weight, right? So let's get to the three, two, one. We'll start with the three biggest strengths here. I think the big strength for me is the archetype of what Rosario is, is somebody who fits into any roster, right? Whether you have a too big lineup, whether you have a small ball lineup, whether you have a lineup that's built around one superstar or you have a lineup that's built around shooting or athleticism like no matter how you're building your team you can use a col risario on the team you know

Starting point is 00:04:35 having somebody who can be athletic who can jump out of the gym who can the potential is to shoot three points or three point shots at a very high efficiency and be a bit of a playmaker on the defensive side of the ball and get you extra possessions with their rebounding ability that's going to play for any team as a role player or an off ball star, right? I mean, and analytically, he's what you want. He dunks. He takes threes. Like, those are analytically, you know, high-end, high-ranking shots, right? And funny enough, like, he took a total of one shot in the short mid-range and long mid-range combined a season ago. But he's also solid in transition. You like that, too. It's just the archetype of him, if it does hit, being a good three-point shooter who can get you

Starting point is 00:05:20 extra possessions with steals and offensive rebounds and is somebody who can play hard, be athletic, and use that athleticism to at least, you know, be the positive defender. That is an archetype that works on any team and is a winning archetype, right? Another big strength for him is cutting. You think of him as being a spot-up shooter, but because of his athleticism, his cuts become very dangerous for opposing teams if you fall asleep, right? Because he does have the ability to throw down a dunk off a cup. He doesn't have the ability to, you know, run in and throw down a dunk on an alleyup

Starting point is 00:05:54 similar to how we saw Bill Self use O-Tag Paghii as a cutter, right? And again, not a huge sample size here is we're talking most of the stuff with Rosario. He was only in the 41st percentile for frequency here. But he was in the 99th percentile in points per play on perimeter cuts. So that's really cool because sometimes for younger guys, you don't always get it with the offball movement stuff. It seems like Rosario gets it, right? And if the three-point shooting comes around, that even becomes even more dangerous because you can do it more often with the amount of times teams are going to really respect you from three and face guard you.

Starting point is 00:06:29 And then the last one here is the offensive rebounding. He was in a 92nd percentile in offensive rebounding rate among guards. So among guards, one of the best offensive rebounders in the country. And like, think about this. Bryson Tiller was your four man, who at times would be your five man when Flory would go to the bench. Bryson Tiller had a 7.1% offensive rebound rate. Cole Rosario is a two guard. He had a 6.9% offensive rebound rate, right?

Starting point is 00:06:55 And so basically you're getting the same offensive rebound level from Cole Rosario, who you're playing at the two as you are with Tiller, who you were playing at the four and five, right? So that is a really good skill to have and one that can get you extra possessions if you're Kansas. Two because question marks for Rosario this year. What is the three-point shooting going to be? because the archetype is that he is a good three-point shooter or that he will be or that he potentially is,

Starting point is 00:07:20 but we haven't seen it quite yet. When you're looking at the OTE level, you're talking 30%. And when you look back at the game logs and the box scores, it's very boom or bust. It's a game where you might hit four or five. It's a game where you might go 0 for six, you know. But then he goes off at the Adidas next gen tournament. But when you look at the game logs there, even though it's 42% over three games, it's really one game where he goes off and the other two, it's not as much.

Starting point is 00:07:43 So more of a streak shooter in the prep level. Unfortunately at Kansas, it wasn't streaky shooting. It was just poor shooting. And a lot of the shots missed by so much, man. So much so that it just, he didn't look comfortable out there. It looked more like a mental thing than anything, right? So I guess the question is this. Like, one, is he just a streaky shooter where he's going to have good and bad games,

Starting point is 00:08:06 but it's not going to be super consistent? And two, have we falsely portrayed him as more of a shooter than he really is right now. I think the shot is going to come around at some point, but are we sure he's not just a low 30s percent three point shooter right now, right? And he was in just the 13th percentile as a perimeter sniper, which if if the number is anywhere close to that this year, it becomes a lot harder to play him big minutes because you think of him working off of Stokes and Kenny who are good passers. It works a lot better if you're able to knock down those threes, you know? And so if it is a bit of of a confidence thing. I would think last year in the way it finished and having another off

Starting point is 00:08:46 season, getting a year older will help him with some of those things. But that's going to be a huge thing for Kansas because they need Colorsario to shoot well. And then the second question that he have here is can he be even more helpful on the defensive side of the court here, right? Like like I said, the defensive team metrics actually liked what he did in year one. His on court impact was positive on the defensive side of the ball. But I think there is more meat on the bone. for making an impact like one, can he become a true three and D threat where he can be one of the best defenders on the team in addition to having the three point shooting? He has the athleticism to make it work, you know? And if he's guarding ones and twos at the college game, like he's going to

Starting point is 00:09:28 have enough side. Like if you're guarding ones, even he's going to be bigger than a lot of those guys at the college level. And then can you make a possession impact on the defense event? Because we know he's a good offensive rebounder. He was really good at getting steals. at OTE, the steel rate didn't transfer over to his time at Kansas so far, right? Again, limited sample size, but he was only in the 21st percentile in steel rate among guards. So that's a number that I like to see go up, right? When you're talking about somebody as athletic as he is, you would think that would lead to jumping passing lanes and turning that into easy dunks. I think that goes back in line with the, you know, were you lacking confidence to make those

Starting point is 00:10:10 moves in the same way from the three point shot. So I want to see that number go up. And then the other one is defensive rebound. Listen, you're going to want him leaking out in transition. So that's going to prevent him from going all out on the defensive glass. I think he's going to be a better offensive rebounder than defensive rebounder. But he was in the third percentile for defensive rebound rate last year. And for a guy with his size and athleticism and jumping ability, can he at least get to

Starting point is 00:10:38 average on the defensive glass four years? position and make KU more sturdy on that end with you playing there as well. And then one final thought here. You know, Cole is a super interesting prospect here because if it doesn't work out this year, he becomes a transfer candidate. Like, let's just speak real about that here, right? Like, but if it works out mildly, you're probably a rotation guy. I mean, we'll get to the ceiling and floor here that might have a chance to be a starter

Starting point is 00:11:05 coming back for another year, Kansas. If he breaks out, he could even be an NBA. guy sooner than later. So there's such a wide range of possibilities here. But I really like the idea of what Cole Rosario can be. He seems to be a really hard worker. I'm bullish that he can have a breakout season for KU. But, you know, I also thought about that that would be the case with some other role guys that never quite happened to KU, right? But I just see so much functionality in his archetype. Again, I like the hard worker aspect that you kind of hear about, everything I think hear about him is that, you know, I don't know, I personally just want him to succeed. So it should

Starting point is 00:11:45 be a really fun and intriguing year to watch what a Cole Rosario can do this year for Kansas. Let's get to the possible floor ceiling and predicted outcomes here. Could Rosario even be a starter for this year's team? We'll get to that next. We're brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. The biggest stage in world soccer's here in every match feels like it has potential for a memorable moment. One goal can completely change the energy of the game. It can shift momentum and alter the outcome in just an instant. That's what makes tournament soccer so exciting from the opening whistle to the final kick. Now, Fandu's given soccer fans another reason to get locked in on every match with every goal pays.

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Starting point is 00:12:59 You can also, like this is a fun one you can do, same game parlay, different shot takers or corner kicks or goal scores, or you can even bet on the method of victory, right? You can pick either team an extra time at plus 650 or USA specifically in extra. time at plus 800. A lot of fun combinations you can do over a Fanduel from the opening whistle to the final kick. Let there be goals on Fandual visit, fanduel.com to get started today. You can join our everyday air club at locked on jhawks.supercast.com to get the ad-free version of the show. Okay, possible outcomes here for Col Rosario. Let's start with the floor outcome. I think the floor outcome here is similar to what it looked like in his freshman year.

Starting point is 00:13:43 like we saw it with el marco jackson for instance where he was a slightly better version i would say this past year of the version we saw as a true freshman um the shot was a little bit better for omarco in his second season of play third and total with the program than year one as it was for kansas but you know some of the the i don't know decision making or this and that weren't or were pretty similar to early on. So like what happens if Cole Rosario is like, okay, he is slightly better shooting from three, he's 31% instead of 27%.

Starting point is 00:14:18 But for the most part, he's the same guy as he was last year. I think because some of the guys you would look at to be contending with Rosario right now at the back end of the rotation are all young players and freshmen. I think he's still in the rotation. I guess the world where he winds up in the fringe of the rotation

Starting point is 00:14:37 is that like Dennis Parker is clearly better than him. And then what happens if like, okay, part of the thing you're counting on with Cole is to be a three-point shooter. But again, if that stays streaky or doesn't pump up enough, are you better off going with Luke Barnett minutes where it's just like, hey, we think he's the best shooter on the team. If we're trying to bring in a guard for shooting, like let's just throw Barnett out there, right? I think that would be the floor is that, yeah, it's pretty much the same as it was last year. The three-point shooting still doesn't come around. I'm not expecting that to happen, but I think even in that scenario, you're probably talking about in the top nine of the rotation to where you're at least on the fringe.

Starting point is 00:15:11 I think the ceiling outcome here, I mean, sky's the limit, right? Like the ceiling outcome is Rosario comes out and he is one of the best offensive rebounders on the team. He is getting you a steal per game as an opportunistic defender. He is shooting mid to high 30% from three point range. He's throwing down a bunch of dunks in transition. I mean, I think the ceiling looks a lot like what Grady Dick did as a freshman. And obviously this would be a second year season for Cole Rosario, but just with less size.

Starting point is 00:15:42 Like Grady decks like six foot eight. Rosario is like six foot four. But I think similar in terms of, you know, Grady was getting a handful of rebounds per game, good three point shooter, similar, but not quite the same. Like maybe not quite as good of a three point shooter, maybe not quite as good of a rebounder or have as much size, but that type of archetype player for KU that can work off kind of your star forward. And the same way Grady worked off of Jalen Wilson, that Cole would be able to work off of Tyrant Stokes, right?

Starting point is 00:16:12 And I think the ceiling outcome here legitimately for Cole Rosario is to be starting, right? If one of those two guards with Leroy Bliden or Taylin Kinney just isn't ready enough, or maybe they are both ready, but Rosario is just that good, could you work into being a starter at the two spot for KU? or could KU even, you know, steer into playing small where Dawes is in at the five, Stokes is the four, and you have Rosario in at the three, you know, if he's that good, he'll work his way into this.

Starting point is 00:16:44 And then you get the conversation of like, if Rosario is that good and he is a 38% three-point shooter and getting you five rebounds per game and scoring you, you know, 10 to 13 points per game, does the NBA start calling? And does the buzz start heating up on Rosario at that point? And I think my predicted role, Again, kind of comes in between where these two are.

Starting point is 00:17:07 I think it'll be a close competition with Dennis Parker, depending how much the three ball comes around for both guys, because both guys, I think, have some questions there. With Parker, we've seen it proven more after last year at the collegiate level, but when he's at the Power 5 level, he was closer to what Rosario, you know, shot a season ago. So that's going to be a big factor in who winds up with more minutes between two guys who are similar.

Starting point is 00:17:28 Parker can play the two through four, Rosario more of a two, three, a little bit smaller, I would say, than Parker. But similar in terms of they're going to eat up kind of two and wing minutes for you on the outside. And both are going to give you some rebounding in addition to ideally some floor spacing. So I see Rosario settling somewhere between KU's sixth man to eighth man role, where he's definitely in the rotation. He's playing around 18 to 22 minutes a night. He's hitting some threes. I think it is going to be kind of a streaky thing where he shoots, you know, 33%, but you'll have

Starting point is 00:18:02 some nights where he hits three or four, you'll have other nights where he's 0 for 3, 0 for 4 and is able to get you some extra possessions on the offensive glass. He'll finish some games when he's playing well. And then if that happens, like if you told me Cole Rosario is going to give you 20 minutes per game and shoot 33% from 3 and look improved from last year and again, be a really nice role player for you. I think you would feel confident in that guy taking another step forward going into the next season where you'd say, hey, let's, let's give him an NIL raise to come back and potentially be a

Starting point is 00:18:35 starter on the following year's team. I think that's kind of my predicted role for what happens there. And then, so this year would be kind of a good role playing season where he's the sixth, seventh man or whatever. And then the following season, he becomes a starter for KU. That's kind of my expected path year, right? And the impact on KU based on which of those outcomes happens, I mean, it is gigantic. Like, we actually just did a whole episode on this, not this, Monday, but a Monday before on the impact of if Col Rosario and or Paulumbia can hit their ceiling versus if they don't. So please check that one out and thank you the everydayers if you already did. But yeah, it's just the idea that like KU needs as much three point shooting as possible.

Starting point is 00:19:15 Well, here's one of your top guys that you expect to have that. KU needs to find a way to get more possessions with better rebounding. He has the opportunity to do that. KU needs to improve their steel rate. You know, he didn't do it last year. But again, when you look at his OTE stats and what he is archetype-wise, he should be able to help with that. So then you look at the idea of like, he doesn't have a ton of returning players. There has to be a bit of leadership here.

Starting point is 00:19:37 And it's a lot harder to be a leader on a team if you're the ninth man than it is if you're the sixth man or in the starting lineup. So there is a lot resting on the shoulders of just how much quarters are you gets better going into this season. Let's finish up with some of the latest news. KU baseball has another commit and some other news. And then a lot of former Jayhawks who are now off in the NBA are moving. all around. We get to all that next. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks again for joining us on the show. Don't forget to check out all of our other episodes of the show.

Starting point is 00:20:17 We've had plenty of different basketball and football conversations over the last week or so. And we'll continue to do that here on Locked On. Okay, some recent KU Baseball news. The first is a commit for KU baseball. Riley Lyle, who is a, you guessed it, player from the junior college ranks where KU has had so much success. He's a right-handed. pitcher from Cowley County Community College, six foot two, originally out of Sterling, Oklahoma. And it says he's only a freshman here at Cowley.

Starting point is 00:20:48 So that is obviously a very good thing because now with the new five and five, like, this is the beauty of the five and five. This is what I was saying of like, I think the five and five is a huge advantage for Dan Fitzgerald because a lot of these high school recruits that teams are going to bring on to their roster. Are they going to even be there five years anyway? Like how much of an impact is it really going to have? Versus for KU, you know, a lot of the guys they're bringing in from the Juco ranks. You know, if you come over after two years of Juco, in the old way, you only had two years. Now you'd get three. And in this case, a kid coming over after a freshman year at Juco,

Starting point is 00:21:24 he stills four years. So it's like he was a regular freshman to begin with, but really impressive stats, 31 innings of work, 2.32 ERA. He had a one whip, which is really good there. there and 46 strikeouts in 31 innings over 13K per 9. That is ridiculous numbers there. So those are good enough numbers that, you know, I don't know the competition that Cowley is going up against. I do know that, you know, in the area in the region, tends to have really good Jukosports, whether it's baseball, football, basketball,

Starting point is 00:21:54 whatever. So that would make me think that he could come in and be an impact, you know, reliever right away for KU. So that's nice. And maybe one of the guys who helped recruit him is John Coyne, who just won the D1 Baseball Assistant Coach of the. are very well deserved there. And the awards continue to pile in after a great season for KGio baseball.

Starting point is 00:22:12 Some NBA news of some former Jayhawks making moves. O-Tagbaji and Jaylon Wilson, both part of the Nets. Well, they had their restricted free agent tender declined. It doesn't necessarily mean that they won't be part of the Nets. It just means that it's basically like a cap hold thing, like basically allows them to have more money and bidding for other teams. So that does make both players, though, unrestricted free agents. They could go anywhere. And we'll see what ends up happening with, uh,

Starting point is 00:22:36 which I and Jay Will. KJ. Adams, meanwhile, trying to attempt to return from his Achilles injury. He'll be on the Golden State Warrior's Summer League roster and try to play well enough there that he can, you know, earn some sort of deal, whether it's internationally or with a G-League team or two-way contract with an NBA team or whatever it is. Same for Zeke Mayo. He'll be on the Hawks Summer League team. No idea how that impacts his potential availability with the Jayhawks TBT team. So I'll keep an eye on that. Grady Dick was a part of a Kauai Leonard trade.

Starting point is 00:23:10 Or I think as I'm talking, it's just nearing agreement. Is it rumored? Does it actually happen? I don't entirely know. But it sounds like Kauai Leonard's going to be going from the Clippers to the Raptors. And part of the package going back to the L.A. Clippers would be a part of it. And so now you have a couple of Kansas kids, Kansas high school kids, Grady Dick from the Wichita area, Keaton Wogler, who they just drafted from the Kansas City,

Starting point is 00:23:33 Shawnee area on the same team. And I hope Grady can, you know, this is a big year, right? You look at like Grady and O'Chai trying to kind of carve out roles a little bit more in the NBA. I think Jay Will's had some success, but he'll have to do it again as he's a free agent. So we'll see what happens with some of those guys, and it'll be interesting to track on new teams and where some of these guys potentially go who are free agents as well. All right. That'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:23:59 You can find our show anywhere podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. See you next time on LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PLAYER SCOUT: Kohl Rosario Ready to Breakout in Year Two for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball?

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