Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PREVIEW: Kansas vs Notre Dame Breakdown—Can Jayhawks PREVAIL Minus Darryn Peterson This Week?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Still low, Darren Peterson, but Kansas might have a shot taken on Notre Dame, opening up the players era. These are really important games for KU without Darren Peterson to make sure the record, the resume, don't sink. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. what's going on Derek Johnson here this is Locked on Jayhawks thanks for making it your first listen every day

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Starting point is 00:00:49 Notre Dame opener of the players era for KU we're going to preview the game on today's episode of the show we'll get into no Darren Peterson

Starting point is 00:00:57 what that means for Kansas we can do our Notre Dame scouting report, players to watch, matchups of the game, and so much more. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by GameTime, and with GameTime, you can get tickets if you're out there in Vegas. Today's episode, you can get the GameTime app,

Starting point is 00:01:13 Creighting account and use code locked on college for $20 off, your first purchase with Game Time. So, KU takes on Notre Dame, and obviously no Darren Peterson. That was mentioned by Bill Self earlier this week. And I think that kind of makes sense when you look at it from a standpoint of like, you know, playing multiple games over multiple days, it just doesn't feel like the most conducive situation to his situation.

Starting point is 00:01:40 Now, maybe you could argue, okay, you know, what if theoretically could he come back for maybe just the third game where it's just one, you know, but then it's just like, well, but if you're just coming back for the one game, why not take the extra, whatever would be, I guess six days of rest, five days of rest before the Yukon game, the following Tuesday. And if you don't get them back for the Yukon game, then at the very least, could you get them back for, you know, the Missouri game at the T-Mobile Center? I think those would be kind of the target dates for KU.

Starting point is 00:02:08 It does seem like this is getting closer to a return. So that's the good news here. My worry, I've had a couple people reach out to me and be like, do you think or, you know, in person be like, do you think he's ever going to play again for Kansas? I do think we're going to see Darren Peterson in another game for KU. And I think it's going to be sooner rather. than later. It won't be in the player's era, but I think it'll be sooner rather than later. Now, that's said, is there a worry in the back of my mind that if he re-aggravates the injury,

Starting point is 00:02:37 what that would mean? And do you, if you're Darren Peterson, consider then shutting things down if you were to re-aggravate things just to be like, hey, I'm going to preserve my draft status. That is in the back of my mind. I don't know if that's true or not. Everything you hear about Darren Peterson is this ultimate competitor and stuff like that. So maybe not. But like, that's the worry in my back of my mind, which is why I do want them to, you know, take their time and make sure he's eased along and fully healthy when he comes back because you don't want that scenario that I just mentioned that he comes back, reaggravates it. And then that's when the conversation comes. but Darren Peterson will play again for Kansas. I feel good about that unless, I don't know, something would happen like in practice,

Starting point is 00:03:14 which knock on wood there. But the importance of this game now without Darren Peterson, you need to win the, I think you need to win, you need to go at least two and one here. I don't exactly know, like the format's a little like, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:03:29 cloudy to me, I guess, would be the right way of putting it in terms of what happens on the third day and who you play and how and why and all these sorts of things. So I'm not entirely sure. I totally understand who they're going to play on the third day. But let's just say that, like, go beat Notre Dame and Syracuse. Go beat those two teams.

Starting point is 00:03:45 Because when you look at both of these teams, Notre Dame and Syracuse, right now they are on, and again, this is just based on where they are right now. If you look at like a Ken Palm or Bart Torvik and those things change over the course of season, they could end up being better, they could end up being worse. But right now they are kind of in those range of like teams who would miss the NCAA tournament but be fine middle of the pack conference power for teams. And so if you want to feel best about your team, your lineup without Darren Peterson, right, we've had the conversations, what would this Kansas team be theoretically if they didn't have Darren Peterson?

Starting point is 00:04:20 Could they be better than last year's team, right? Could they just be an NCAA tournament team? Would they not be an NCAA tournament team? I think you're going to find out a lot in these games because you look at the first portion of the schedule for KU to this point. And it's basically stars and scrubs, right? You're either facing the stars, North Carolina and Duke, or you're facing the scrubs, teams that are, you know, sub 200, sub 300 teams on Kenpom. And that doesn't necessarily, like, if you were an NCAA tournament team without Darren Peterson, you would win both of these games. You would beat Notre Dame and Syracuse, right?

Starting point is 00:04:57 So, or, I don't know, I guess theoretically you could lose, but like, if you were as good as last year's team, if you were going to be a seven-seed or better without Darren Peterson, you would win both. these games. So I think it becomes a little bit of a better litmus test for where this team is should Peterson continue to miss time, but also trying to keep your record afloat, trying to keep your resume afloat without Darren Peterson. Because yes, will the NCAA tournament look at, hey, Peterson is, you know, didn't play or did play in these games and yada, yada, yada, here's the record with and without them. Yeah, I'm sure they will, but like, they're still going to look at what happened with or without him as well. And you'd rather just rack up wins.

Starting point is 00:05:40 Now, I was thinking back to this and I was like, man, what's, what still sounds like worst record through some of their early portion of the season? I don't know if people remember much for this. 2006, Kansas was sitting at three and four on the season. They lost to Arizona and Arkansas, who were two top 25 teams at the end of the year. One of them was close on neutral sites. Then they go to the Maui Invitational, or that was the Maui Invitational. They beat Shaman on the championship game.

Starting point is 00:06:07 And then they lose to Nevada at home with Nick Fizikis. They beat Western Illinois. And then they lose on a neutral site to St. Joseph's by three. And they're sitting in three and four. And it's like, oh, what's going on here? That team ended up going 25 and 8. They went 13 and 3, won the big 12. So you don't want to get to three and four.

Starting point is 00:06:27 Ideally, the record's better than that. But at least that does give you hope that if they do go one in one in these first two games, like Darren Peterson come back. there has been at least some sort of history or past Bill Self to kind of explode after a slower non-gun. Now, that Big 12, not as difficult as this big 12. But yeah, point being, I think this will be an interesting Limus test and one that you want to kind of keep afloat with your record at the very least. But I think at the end of the day, when I look at this Notre Dame game, and I think this will carry over to the second game on Tuesday as well against Syracuse, just win the game. It doesn't matter how ugly it gets.

Starting point is 00:06:59 In fact, if it's ugly, that might be good because that might be what KU's identity needs to be, a defensive team that can ugly. it up and then score in transition, right? That might be okay. So just find a way to win these games. It doesn't matter if each one's by a point. Just find a way to keep that record afloat when you don't have Darren Peterson. Let's get to our Notre Dame scouting report, our players to

Starting point is 00:07:19 watch and matchups of the game. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Wayfair. Holiday season is right around the corner. In fact, I would argue it's already here. And that means it's time to get your home ready. Whether you need more seating for guests, Cozy new linens or linens or fun serveware for holiday hosting.

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Starting point is 00:08:26 W-A-I-R.com. Sale ends December 7th with Wayfair. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Lockdown, Jayhawks. Again, thank for making it the number one sports podcast. Now, we can thank you that every day or is catching each in every episode of the show. Okay, Notre Dame comes into this one at four and one on the season. They are a top 80 team on Ken Palm. They are top 70 team on Bartorvik.

Starting point is 00:08:52 They're picked ninth of the 18 teams in the ACC by Basket Under Review before the season started. Micah Shrewsbury is the head coach, had a lot of success, kind of a limited time, Penn State was really impressive at a tough place to win, gets the Notre Dame job. And it's been a little bit more of a slow burn. His first two years, 13 and 20 in 2024. They go 15 and 18 in 2025. So a couple win improvement.

Starting point is 00:09:17 They move up from 118 and Ken Palm to 98 and looking to move up even more. And I do think they are a better team this year again. So they've been slowly improving. And they do have a lot of returnies, returners on this roster so far. So far of the four and one schedule, they have beaten four teams outside the top 200. So it'll be a bit of a limitist test for them as well.

Starting point is 00:09:40 Three of those are outside the top 300 on Ken Palm. The one loss is Ohio State, who's like a top 40 team on Ken Palm. They only lost by one. So that shows you that maybe they are a little bit better if that's the indication. They did play some exhibition games, both of them against Big East opponents. They lost to DePaul, who kind of on the lower end of your power teams right now, and they beat Butler, who's kind of on that end as well. So just certainly some things to keep in mind there.

Starting point is 00:10:08 Strengths for this Notre Dame team. I think the top strength I think of is shooting. They're off to a 40% start from three point range. Burton, who will talk about a little bit later, he's a stud, 35%. Shrewsbury's kid is at 57% on 26 tries. So Kansas has to mark him. Colserta, another guy you have to mark 42% on 24 takes. so far this year. They've also got stretch bigs. Their stretch forward rider Frost is six for 12

Starting point is 00:10:37 from three. And then their 611 forward center, Garrett Sundra, is four of eight from three. So they can stretch it from all over the floor. And they're at 45 percent on above the break three so far this season. This is just a very good three-point shooting team. I do think that as we've kind of talked about this year like Kansas in a way matches up a lot better with these teams now than they did in previous iterations of their team. So that is the good news, but it still doesn't mean that the other team can't go off from three. Now, rebounding the basketball, I would say that's another strength so far for Notre Dame. They are grabbing 39% of their offensive misses. That's 90th percentile nationally. You know, you shoot a lot of threes. You're going to get some long rebounds. They've done a good

Starting point is 00:11:24 job of collecting those. But I will say it did show up in their exhibition loss to DePaul, but it did not show up in the loss to Ohio State or the exhibition winning against Butler. So I do wonder if some of those easier games they've played are making the offense of rebound numbers look better than they actually are. Still though, overall, it's looked pretty good this year. Now, this has been the one, I mean, in rebounding, the defensive rebounding has been great no matter the game. Ninety seventh percentile defensive rebound rate so far this season. and against Ohio State, the best competition they played, they had a 99th percentile defensive rebound rate game.

Starting point is 00:11:59 So a very good defensive rebounding team. And Kansas hasn't been a great offensive rebounding team, which is weird. I think they should, given the personnel. This probably isn't the game that that changes, I guess would be point being. Notre Dame is also good at limiting teams from getting shots off at the rim. Just 24% of opponent's shots against Notre Dame have come at the rim.

Starting point is 00:12:21 The Division I average is 13. 32%. So on average, most teams see about a third of the shot attempts against their defense at the rim. Notre Dame's only given up a quarter. That's a decent size chunk difference. So they're in the 87th percentile at preventing shots at the rim. That becomes problematic for Kansas, right? And then experience is a strength for Notre Dame, too. They're top 50 in the country in Division I experience. They're top 35 in minutes continuity. Very experienced team in Kansas. not really experienced playing together has a lot of young guys that could be an edge for Notre Dame coming into this one four weaknesses for Notre Dame well last year they finished

Starting point is 00:13:01 bottom 30 nationally in opponents shooting percentage at the rim so we talked about the volume Notre Dame is really good at limiting shot attempts from even getting up at the rim they do a good job whether it's you know cutting off the drivers to the rim or doubling in the post or just having bodies around to make it difficult to make a player not even want to take the shot at the rim, but when players are able to kind of crack through, so to speak, and get that opportunity at the rim, they were bottom 30 nationally in the percentage opponent shot at the rim. And this year, it's not that different. Sixty-five percent is the shooting percentage of opponents against Notre Dame at the rim. So it's difficult to get a shot off at the rim, but when you can

Starting point is 00:13:39 do it, it usually means that you were able to break down the defense and then you're able to get an easy one. They've had moments of turning it over too much. There are 48th percentile this year. So it's about average in turnover rate. But that number jumped a couple ticks in the Ohio State game. That number jumped the tick in the Butler exhibition. So against better competition, they've turned it over a little bit more. We'll see if KU can speed them up a little too. Fast break scoring. Those three games against stronger competition, Ohio State, DePaul and Butler, if we throw out the, you know, four games against sub 200 teams. They only had three total fast break points against Ohio State, two total fast break points against DePaul, and six

Starting point is 00:14:18 total fast break points against Butler. So add it all up, that means they had 11 total fast break points in those three games against better competition. Kansas is averaging 13 fast break points per game. So this is a big kind of tempo game. Notre Dame might want to slow it down. Kansas might want to speed it up and get in transition. Who can do that better is going to have a big advantage here. And the other thing with Notre Dame, they don't really cause chaos defensively. They are just seventh percentile nationally in Hakeem rate, which is a combination. of steel and block rate. So, and again, that's, if you look at their strength of schedule rating right now

Starting point is 00:14:54 through the games they've played, they're outside of the top 300 in strength of schedule at this point in time. And they're still just in the seventh percentile in Hakeem rate. Not a team who gets blocks, not a team who gets steals. We'll see if KU can take advantage of that in the half court. Our players to watch in this one for Kansas, we're going to go with Flory Bedunga. You know, Notre Dame has a little bit of girth, I guess you would say, at the five. Carson Tout is 6 foot 8, but he's 250 pounds.

Starting point is 00:15:23 Kaba, Nijai, I'm not sure the pronunciation there. He's 6'10, 255 pounds. So they've got some good strength down low, and we know KU has good wingspan, good arm length from some of their big men, but they don't have the big bruiser down low. How does that affect them in this game? Are there certain ways they can take advantage of it with like the big running and transition. Can they take advantage of it with Florey's ability to, you know, we've seen have some

Starting point is 00:15:51 good footwork moves or use it off the dribble or twist around? He may be able to use that to his advantage in this game. But the flip side is, what if he is, you know, stuck kind of banging against a stronger guy. So I think those will be certainly interesting. And then beyond that, how does KU handle the spacing and the stretch bigs? And that's something where, you know, the big men for KU, you think of Flory. Okay, if they have big men who can shoot threes, Florey is certainly more adept at guarding a big man who can shoot threes or stretch it out than say you had with some previous iterations of your center position. But it still is kind of a test. And what if you get lost off ball? Because that's something that centers don't have to do necessarily a ton. And then beyond that,

Starting point is 00:16:32 like what can Kansas get from Flory on the glass and scoring? Kansas is really reliant right now on Florey in the half court without Darren Peterson to score some buckets. And then rebounding wise, we've talked about Notre Dame's been a good rebounding team. And then above it all is the bottom line, avoid foul trouble. if you're Floyd Bidunga. So you look at all those things. I think Florida is going to have a massive level of importance for KU in this game and really all week in the player's era. For Notre Dame, Marcus Burton is the player to watch. He is one of the best guards in the ACC. He averaged over 21 points per game last year. He shot 44 from the field,

Starting point is 00:17:06 37 and a half from three point range. So far this season, he's at 19 points per game. So slight step back in the points per game. But the reason why, he's only playing 28 minutes per game because they've blown out some of these lesser opponents. He's just a really good score. He can shoot the three. He is a killer mid-range player. He'll actually shoot more mid-range than he'll shoot from three. And he gets to the foul line a ton, too.

Starting point is 00:17:27 So just a very efficient, one of the better scores in the country. And honestly, it reminds me like he's a six-foot guard. Not light for light comparison, but I just, I don't know. I see his name is Marcus. It's spelled Marcus with a K. I believe Marcus Howard, the former Marquette guard, who put up a lot of points. I don't know, there's some parallels, I think, there for certain. And, again, it's going to have their hands full with him.

Starting point is 00:17:50 Can we'll see, is Melvin Council going to line up on him? I think that'll be kind of an interesting matchup, if so. All right, let's finish up with our keys to the game for the KU offense, KU defense. What's our player matchup of the game? Our Hawks, the Soar, and more. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the show and our episodes brought to you by

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Starting point is 00:19:14 be with you all week long for the players era recapping some stuff. Still deciding if we were going to do anything for the KU talking because that could get ugly. But anyway, thank you for joining us on the show here with Locked on Jayhawks. All right, keys to the game for KU. Let's start with the offense. Can you find a way to penetrate the Notre Dame defense that does a good job of denying shots at the rim?

Starting point is 00:19:36 Because again, when you are able to get by there, they're giving up 65% at the rim. It's just they're not giving up a lot of attempts there. And this is extra important for KU, who, you know, kind of game to game from three point range is a little bit, it's a bit of an adventure, right? And so we don't know exactly what they're going to get in this game. And so you're going to need that ability to score at the rim. And so that means, I think, Flory, right, in the half court, I would like to see Bryson Tiller have one of his better.

Starting point is 00:20:04 Tiller's had some good game shooting the ball. We've yet to see Tiller have like a, he's also had some cool moments like driving and dunking. We've yet to see Tiller have a big game where he, he's like scoring on the block or in the mid-range or in the floater area or at the rim, I think this would be a good opportunity to kind of do just that. It means drives from the guards, you know, Melvin Council and, you know, Marco Jackson give you anything. What is Jaden Dawson going to bring?

Starting point is 00:20:28 Trey White's been really good at driving and being aggressive. Can he continue that in this game and have an effect in a lot of ways? Those are, I think, going to be all keys for KU offensively. You look at the defense side of the ball. How can KU guards stretch bigs? I think while also avoiding like getting back cut or letting Notre Dame get easier runs to the rim without having someone like Flory lurking, right? It's one thing if you get back cut and you know, hey, we got Flory back there. He might cover up my mistake with a block.

Starting point is 00:20:57 It's another thing, though, when you're facing a team who's center, you know, might be pulling Flory out to the three point line. And then you don't have that kind of backline rim protection. And there was a kind of some clips going around of the Duke game. Duke was able to hit KU on a couple backdoors and North Carolina was able to do it too, although it did go down the number of them that happened in the Duke game. And part of it was found this kind of interesting. It was a clip going around on social media about KU that they're playing more just like strict man to man. They weren't switching as much, which I kind of love like I'm sure there's going to be certain

Starting point is 00:21:32 matchups where it is going to be more beneficial to switch. And who knows, maybe this is one of them. But there's kind of this fun idea of, like, taking pride on the defensive end and kind of having this idea of just like, no, we're not going to switch things. I'm taking my man and I'm going to stop him. I don't want. I'm going to battle through screen. Like, I don't know. There's just something fun and proud and the investment you put to the defensive end when that's the case.

Starting point is 00:21:55 And that's kind of how Kansas was defending Duke. I wonder if that helps in a matchup like this. I don't know. Is it better to switch because all the off ball action with the threes? I don't know if it helps or hurts. But I just find that a little, at least kind of interesting here. But yeah, how can KU guard the stretch bigs? Like I said, I think in the Louisville game, you did a pretty good job of it.

Starting point is 00:22:17 And I don't know that you've played another team necessarily as they're kind of classify in this way. So it'll just be interesting to see how they do guard that. The player matchup of the game, I think realistically it is Melvin Counsel versus Burton. Burton such a good score, counsel, good defender. and then what can counsel give KU on the offensive end? Those will be interesting. But I'm going to go with another one just for fun. Jalen Harrelson versus Trey White and Bryson Tiller.

Starting point is 00:22:43 Harrelson is a top 20 recruit. He's averaged 12.5 points, 3 and a half rebounds, 2.8 assists per game while shooting 54% as a 6 foot 7 wing. So highly recruited player, part of this great freshman recruiting class overall. Harrelson's been good. He'll play the three. He can play the four. He's doing all that in 23 minutes per game.

Starting point is 00:23:01 So he's been very efficient so far this season. well white is he going to like I think first of all the big question is how's key you going to play in this game right you played too big against duke and the game before does this matchup actually benefit you more to play small with their three-point shooting where white's more at the four or are you going to continue to play too big because you feel like that's your best avenue or best lineup moving forward I think that's going to be very interesting so is it tiller on harrelson is it white on harrelson how do they do on the other end I think those are just going to be fascinating and matchups with some good players there are hawks the sword we're going to start with Bryson Tilly or Bryson Tiller. Christoph Tilly, who is the center for Ohio State. He had 18 points against Notre Dame in 28 minutes. And I bring that up because Tilly is kind of this like, I don't know, mobile big man who can shoot it a little bit from the floater area and stuff like that. And I don't know.

Starting point is 00:23:55 I see some comparisons to Bryson Tiller. There's a lot that's different about them. But like, I wonder if there's some way that Tiller can attack. it in that way that Tilly could and had success. And I also just view it from a standpoint of like, I don't know, I've been impressed with Price and Tiller so far to this season. So KU's looking for some sort of punch. Let's go with Price and Tiller here.

Starting point is 00:24:19 And then I'll go with Melvin Council. You know, he has a few inches on Burton. He finally made a three. I think his athleticism plays in this game. I'm going to say counsel is able to back it up. I'll say counsel hits a three for the second straight game. Damn has been opened. All right, that'll do it for this episode, Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:24:37 You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page or you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time for another edition of LOJ. We'll recap whatever happens in the KU Notre Dame game.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PREVIEW: Kansas vs Notre Dame Breakdown—Can Jayhawks PREVAIL Minus Darryn Peterson This Week?

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