Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PORTAL TARGET? Jordan Ellerbee Could Provide SCORING SPARK for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball

Starting point is 00:00:00 Could Jordan L.R. B. Be the perfect Jayhawks score off the bench? 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 with another episode of Locked on J. And on today's episode of the show, we'll get to some of the latest news. What is the latest on Tyrant Stokes, Bill Self? We'll get into a little latest with KU Women's Basketball and so forth.

Starting point is 00:00:34 We'll get into the strengths and weaknesses of the game of Jordan LRB with his scouting report. And we'll start right there with a little bit of a deep dive on a potential KU Basketball Transfer Portal Target in LRB. So shout out Fogg underscore Allen on Twitter who gave a recommendation to take a deep dive into LRB. And he is a 6'2-175 pound guard from Florida Gulf Coe, who was a freshman this past season. And so he'll be a sophomore three years, I guess four if he were to redshirt, but three years left to play at the collegiate level. He was a mid-tier three-star recruit out of the Philadelphia area in high school. He was actually the Philadelphia Gatorade player of the year and mostly uses a two guard at Florida Gulf Coast. So, you know, six foot two is a two guard.

Starting point is 00:01:19 That's going to be a little more undersized when you're talking about at the power four, power five level. But let's see what we got working with here, right? because he just set the Florida Gulf Coast freshman scoring record, went on to average 13.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists per game, 0.9 steals, in around 27 minutes per game. And the shooting splits are good, 47% from the floor, 35% from 3, 73 at the foul line. He was taking about 4.5, 3 point attempts per game. And you look at some of the box score moments that he had,

Starting point is 00:01:51 the game logs that he had, some explosive game moments along the way. He had 20 points against Rice. He had 42 points against a Kennesaw State team that ended up going to the NCAA tournament and challenging Gonzaga in the first round. He had 21 points at UCF, a UCF team that we saw defeat Kansas. He had 22 against North Florida, 23 against Central Arkansas. So those are all good moments. He did also seemingly hit what we referred to as the freshman wall at the end of the season. He went just 14 of 54 over the final five games.

Starting point is 00:02:24 that is a 26% field goal percentage. So it would have fit right in with, I guess, the freshman wall that maybe Bryson Tiller was hitting at the end of the season. And as far as some of the analytic number, the metric numbers for Jordan LRB, he was in the 64th percentile, so above average solid there in RAPM. And that featured a top quartet finish for the offensive number,

Starting point is 00:02:48 but a below average number on the defensive side. He was in the 79th percentile in offensive windshares per 40 minutes. Only in the 22nd percentile for defensive wind shares per 40 minutes. So again, you're looking here, you're like, okay, offense looks good. Defense, maybe you have some questions looking at some of the all-encompassing numbers. A very efficient player, though, 81st percentile in P.E.R. And in the 74th in wins above replacement player.

Starting point is 00:03:15 So, you know, overall, I think a very interesting player here because you're talking about somebody who is clearly a good score, clearly showed they could, you know, pop, off as a freshman and it gives you hopes that, okay, if they continue to improve their game, what are you kind of looking with here? And we've seen Kansas have success with guys around 6-1, 6-2 in that range who are good scores, maybe we're a little under-recruited. And, you know, is that something that this kid could potentially kind of come in for? Now, one thing that becomes interesting, if Bill Self decides to come back and it ends up being his final year at Kansas, is he going to be all going, you know, all in on win now guys, where you don't want to take

Starting point is 00:03:53 potentially a sophomore here where you're like, well, what am I developing him for? I'm not going to be here. I want to take all seniors, you know what I mean? I want to take all players that I feel like are at their ceiling right now. And that's a very real question that who knows what would be kind of the answer to. But, you know, I think last time KU brought on some help from Florida Gulf Coast, I think they won a gold medal. I cannot remember the name of the guy, but they add Julian DeBose maybe or something like that.

Starting point is 00:04:20 They added to their gold medal team with the kid from SMU2, Nick. Nick something and they ended up winning a gold medal in the World University game. So I guess that's good vibes there, right? But I think in general, everything when you're talking about potential player additions is these two questions. What is the role and what is the cost? Because when those two things intercede, you can almost make any transfer edition make sense. if the role for a specific player is to be your 14th man and they're getting paid pennies, sure, it makes sense. If you're bringing on a player who's going to be really good and they're supposed to be your third

Starting point is 00:05:05 best player and they're getting a decent amount of money but not all American money, again, that makes sense versus the flip side is what if they're coming on to be your fifth best player but they're asking for $4 million a year? At that at that point, it doesn't make sense. So it's like, where can you find the intersection? on like a graph of what is the project what is the role and what is the cost and if those two things can intercede anything i think makes sense and so with the right cost and with the right role i'm game for this for k u like the way i look at it i think i opened this talking about like could he be the

Starting point is 00:05:39 bench score k u needs maybe he doesn't want to be a bench score you know maybe he wants to go somewhere and say hey maybe i'm not going to wind up at a blue blood but i'll wind up at a a better low major or i'll end up at a smaller high major and be, you know, potentially a starter. Or does he say, hey, and again, this is where the money stuff comes in, right? Do you have to overpay someone for them to be willing to come in and be a bench player for you, even though they'd be a rotation player and somebody who would be playing? And I look at it this way. When you look at right now, right, who knows how the roster is going to shake out? Who knows who's going to leave? Who knows going to come back?

Starting point is 00:06:16 Marco and Jackson and Jamari McDowell were pretty much for the majority of the season for KU. first players off the bench for Kansas. And El Marco, even though gave up the defensive stop at the end, for the most part of the season, he was a good defender for KU. Jemaray McDow was a good shooter at home, but neither of those players were giving you points or scoring production. And that's where I think a player like L or B could be really helpful for a team like Kansas. When I look at Kansas needing more of a scoring punch off the bench. When I look at Kansas needing more of a scoring punch

Starting point is 00:06:51 and production off the bench for years now, I look at a player like Ellerby and I go, man, could you tell this guy, hey, we're going to give you a good sum of money to come here. You know, if you work out to what we think you're going to be, you could play 15, 20 minutes per game this year as just a bench guard that's going to come in, flame thrower, the basketball,

Starting point is 00:07:12 and try to just score for us off the bench and give us another score that we can bring in off the bench at certain points in time. And I looked to like Iowa State who had the ability to kind of do that, right, with the Bateman kid who could come off the bench and just get hot in a given moment. You know, I think that's such a nice luxury to have. Kansas kind of had it the last time in the one of title. Obviously, it ended up being Remy Martin.

Starting point is 00:07:31 I don't think you can expect to get another Remi Martin level player off the bench here. But, you know, could he be a cheaper option, LRB, that is, coming off the bench than, say, adding some like established Power 5 guy, like possibly, I don't know. To me, he doesn't hurt that he has three years left to play as well, even though it might not matter for Bill Self. But like, you know, of course, if he's wanting star money or a starting role, then those things don't match up.

Starting point is 00:08:00 But if you can say you're competing for a rotation spot and then we'll see what happens and you can be the scorer off the bench, like I think that's valuable for KU. Now we can get into a real conversation of you promise that. but then what actually happens in season if you miss a couple shots or you make a couple defensive flubs we've seen that story before where players get in the bill self doghouse right and that probably makes this a little bit more challenging too and agents probably know that but just in a vacuum if you told me that kU is going to add a potential you know strong score off the bench like lrb i think i'd be in on that so let's get into his strengths and weaknesses a little bit more and we'll get to some of the latest news

Starting point is 00:08:44 This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode brought to you by Robin Hood. What if sports were traded like markets? Now you can put your sports IQ to work in real time with Robin Hood prediction markets. It's not you against the house. It's you participating in a live market. You can buy your sell your positions live all game long. Use your sports knowledge in the moments that matter.

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Starting point is 00:11:03 The scoring side of things is definitely a strength. Eighty third percentile, an effective fuel goal percentage. Really good two-point percentage and a solid three-point percentage on decent volume as well. you watch him on film, he's really able to create his own shot off the dribble, strong stepback game, strong crossover game. And those things of being able to bring somebody in like that for just a couple stints throughout a game to increase your offense is something that KU has really been missing off the bench for a little bit now. Mid-range shooting is really good. He's really excelled shooting from kind of the free throw line elbow area. He shot 59% in that area this past season.

Starting point is 00:11:40 He did struggle on one of the baseline sides, but was really efficient on the other side. good mid-range player overall. He shoots more in the area he's good at. So knows his strengths there. And overall, he was in the 96th percentile for scoring efficiency in the mid-range. And I think that makes him a good match to me for Bill Self, because Bill Self is not one of these coaches who is teaching, hey, don't shoot mid-range or something. In fact, Kansas has been shooting them more than a lot of other teams, which,

Starting point is 00:12:04 analytically speaking, probably not a great thing. But if you're going to do that, might as well get somebody who's good at it. And that is kind of the case here, right? He's also an excellent corner three point shooter, which I think becomes important because when you see a lot of, a lot of times if you're not the primary option, you will get put into corner three point shooter mode. If you're a Kansas player, if you're kind of the secondary off ball option, right? Can you knock down corner threes? And he showed that he can kind of do that stuff. He's also a pretty good rebounder from the guard spot.

Starting point is 00:12:35 Now, it's against lower level competitions. How would that scale up as a question? but 73rd percent on offensive rebound rate. It's a good number there, and he's average in defensive rebound rate. Now, again, you scale up in the size and stuff like that that probably goes down a little bit, but he's not going to be a zero for you on the boards, which is always a nice thing from your guard spots. As far as some of the weaknesses, the adjustment and competition would certainly be something,

Starting point is 00:12:59 not just from like the rebounding, but overall, Florida Gulf Coast was a below 500 team this year in what was the 24th best league on Ken Palm. So that is a big jump up in what you're playing for. And he did play a couple games against Power 5 opponents. He had the UCF game where he was really good, scored over 20 points. He was 9 to 15. Also the Illinois game, which is not very good. Five of 14 shooting, right?

Starting point is 00:13:22 And I would just say the biggest area I'm concerned about that he wasn't shooting great at the rim. When you look at the 6 foot 2 size, if you're listed at 6 2, who knows, are you 6 foot, 6 foot 1 at the collegiate level? And you're doing that against smaller competition. if you go up in size, are you going to really struggle shooting at the rim? And then our team's just going to be able to defend you in an easier way to really keep you at your jump shot. I don't know, but that would certainly be a big question there, right? Now, you would think to counter that, okay, but he's going to also get better at these things

Starting point is 00:13:53 because he's getting older and saying college longer. The defense, I think, is another weakness here. Defensive analytics did not like the season he put together there. He was below average for guards in steel rate and in block rate. I will say to his credit, it's possible some of those things are more contextual about the team's situation because specifically if you look at like his on-off ratings, the team was five points per 100 possessions defensively when he was on the floor. So they were actually better with him on the floor defensively. It's just that their defense was so bad overall that it still didn't matter. And overall, they were like 12 points better as a team overall per 100 possessions.

Starting point is 00:14:30 So he was an impactful player for Florida Gulf Coast, did it as a freshman. And typically the things you see get better. I say this all the time for players, the longer they say in college, it's like awareness on defense, shooting an overall consistency. Well, we know he's a good shooter,

Starting point is 00:14:46 but now if he becomes more consistent and now he becomes more aware on defense, what can you kind of get there, right? He also doesn't really get to the free throw line much. He has a below average assist to turnover ratio, but I would view him more again. If you're bringing him on as Kansas, it's to be a bench score.

Starting point is 00:15:00 It's not to be a bench facilitator, right? Not a great passer or pick and roll ball handler either. or drive and kick guy, more there to be a score. But again, I think if you're bringing them on, if you're Kansas, that is exactly what you're going for and trying to get. And so I don't think he fills the role of if you're trying to get somebody to be your bench guard who can play the one and the two, that you can basically just have a three guard lineup where you have your two starting

Starting point is 00:15:25 guards and then a bench guard plays both and you just kind of rotate through those positions, kind of like with, you know, Russell Robinson, Sharon Collins and Mario Chalmers, where any of them could play the one or the two basically for, you, I don't think that would be the fit you're going to be going for here. It more so be, hey, he's a bench two guard who can come in. And, you know, if he gets hot in the game, he can give us 12, 15 points. If he's not feeling it that game, maybe he's only playing eight, 10 minutes that game, right? But I think it is important for teams to have some of that ability to, I don't know, give some of your starters a break some time or kind of get you over

Starting point is 00:15:55 the edge in a couple of games when you need it. And KU hasn't really had that for a couple of seasons like they had in many other seasons, kind of in the past. So what would be the potential fit here, right? I think that kind of describes it, right? I kind of almost view this as like a, like I said, a bench score. I wonder if this would be the type of player you would bring on if you lost Colrosario, right? And I don't want to lose Colrosario for what it's worth. What am I expecting? I think he removed Kansas from his like Instagram account, which who knows what that means nowadays. Could they just be in negotiations or who knows? But like, I don't think it would shock me if Cole left, right, given how the season went, you go from starter to not even being in the rotation,

Starting point is 00:16:36 and then you make your last appearance and you play really well. And then you come out for the last play when your team loses the game. I would not be surprised if he decided that he wanted to go somewhere else. Again, like I said, I hope Col Rosario is back. But if he is gone, you know, what is the idea of Col Rosario? It's a little bit of an undersized guard who is, if he's playing the three, if he's playing the two, he has enough size. But who is somebody who can get you offensive rebounds, extra possessions, and be a good three-point shooter. And this comes in a different package in a different way, but that's kind of the idea here with LRB.

Starting point is 00:17:07 Good shooter, good score against 73rd percent offensive rebound rate. It's not as good as the Rosario, you know, athleticism package and stuff, but you could see the role for what the idea would be there, right? And like I said, like under the assumption that the right role and the cost is there for a kid like this, I'm in on this because I do want more scoring and bucket getters. And I think having some of those options off the bench does make sense for Kansas to be able to go to more than they have in some of these recent years. All right. Let's continue on some of the latest news. What's the latest than Tyrant Stokes, Bill Self, K.E. Women's Basketball. We'll get to all that next.

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Starting point is 00:18:38 five hour energy.com or on Amazon. Thanks you for joining us here on Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find the show anywhere to get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. Hit us up on Twitter at LO underscore Jayhawks. If you want to suggest somebody for us to a deep dive on, we do have a long queue, I promise that I am working on constantly of, you know, players to get to. And we're actually going to have another bonus episode. We did a Jackson Shelstad bonus episode.

Starting point is 00:19:03 yesterday. We're going to do a Paulius Moravis bonus episode for a transfer portal target there with how many players that we're seeing who are interesting players or potential good fits or just potential like good players. Do they make sense? Do they not? We're going to try to get to, I don't know, a lot of those over the next couple of weeks

Starting point is 00:19:20 just to really cover all our bases here. Some latest news though. So when we talked over the weekend, there was a report from Joe Tipton from On 3 that Tyrant Sox could be committing Tuesday at the McDonald's. it's All-American game. Well, it turns out that ain't happening. And I think now we're at a point where you know, the Joe Tipton tweet outs of who's entering the portal and stuff, that's great

Starting point is 00:19:44 information to have. I think the reporting from Joe Tipton probably not always the best information. I can't remember the name of the kid, but there was that one player who was like trying to come back from playing professional. And he said a bunch of schools had like offered or were interested. I think Kansas was one of the ones he said. And that was just like factually not true for a lot of the schools and now this happens. So I guess point being, I'm going to watch a little more closely with what Joe Tipton kind of puts out there to see. So anyway, point being, it doesn't sound like Stokes is going to be. And in fact, who knows when it's going to be. And this has been the kind of Tyrant Stokes recruitment to a T. It's like, oh, it might be coming soon. No, it's not happening. Oh,

Starting point is 00:20:23 it might be going to no, no, it's not happening. And so who knows when exactly that is going to happen. Is this good or bad news for kids? I have no idea, right? Again, I wanted to connect the dots. of, oh, could it mean Bill Self is back? And then Tyrants, well, the fact that that's moved around, the fact that we're here on Monday evening and no Bill South news, I guess no dot connecting at all, which is probably a little bit disappointing from that standpoint. So who knows what's going to happen? And yeah, like the Bill Self situation too, like kind of piggybacking off that, this is honestly taking longer than I thought it would. Now, he, you know, for his health stuff and he's the best coach in KU basketball history, he deserves to be able to have his own time. at the same point in time, because of the calendar of the college basketball world,

Starting point is 00:21:04 you're almost not afforded the full amount of time that you probably should be allowed. And I kind of figured we were going to get a decision one way or another sooner rather than later for that reason. The transfer portal open. I mean, if you're listening to this on Tuesday, transfer portal opens up next week, you know. And so I thought that we were going to hear more because it's not just the guys that you have to call him. I'm sure he's doing work behind the scenes just in case. But if you don't know for sure if you're coming back or not, are you doing that work 100%? Are you fully in on it?

Starting point is 00:21:35 You know, what's going to happen with the play? Like, eventually there's going to hit a certain point where the players who are like, do I come back or do I go are going to say, well, you still don't know. I'm just going to enter the portal and see what happens. And that can be a dangerous game. Now, for all we know, those conversations have been had with Bill Self and the players and the athletic department. And they all are on the same page and know what's going to happen. But I don't know, man, this waiting game. game is people are getting getting intense about it, so to speak. So hopefully we'll hear about it soon.

Starting point is 00:22:05 Who knows? Because the worst thing that could happen for KU is that we get to like next Wednesday and then Bill Self decides to retire. And so to that notion, it almost makes me feel like the longer he goes without, you know, making an announcement to retire, the more likely it is he's going to come back because I don't think he would want to leave Kansas in that position too. But it certainly is, is, I don't know, the timeline is shortening, not for self's fault, but because of kind of the NCAA calendar kind of around it. Final thing here, a little update on KU Women's Basketball. So they were playing in the WVIG semifinals and they lost to a conference foe in BYU 70 to

Starting point is 00:22:44 67, kind of a late comeback to even get it to a one score game. They were down like eight with like 30 something seconds to go or something like that. Three turnover, stuff like that. They get it to a three-point game and good fight by them to, to get there and stuff. A little disappointing, though, and how the final play. So Kansas forces a turnover. They get the ball with like five seconds for an under-the-basket baseline out-of-bounds play.

Starting point is 00:23:09 And they were just struggling to get the ball in. And you're down three with five seconds. Your immediate thought would be, okay, you throw it into the perimeter, shoot a three to try to tie the game, right? They ended up having to throw it into the middle where the ball just goes like out-of-bounds from there on, I don't know if it was like a shot attempt or drop or whatever. but even if they make the shot, because the shot was with like three seconds, they're shooting a two with three seconds down three.

Starting point is 00:23:31 And at that moment, you're just like, was that what was drawn up here? Because that's not great. So, yeah, kind of a disappointing, disappointing end there to, I think in general, probably a disappointing season for Gaguelman's basketball, right? Like, I think all along,

Starting point is 00:23:48 especially with the talent that you had, I know you had some injuries, kind of felt like, okay, this team should be making the NCAA tournament. I'm not saying they should be like a top four seat or anything, but they should be getting back to the NCAA tournament. That unfortunately didn't happen. So we'll see if they can, I guess, get back there next year.

Starting point is 00:24:04 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. And check out that bonus episode. We'll have a Pollyas Moravskis out later today.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PORTAL TARGET? Jordan Ellerbee Could Provide SCORING SPARK for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball

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