Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #1 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Opens Season by Eviscerating North Carolina Central 99-56

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas wins 99-56 in their season opener against North Carolina Central. Dominant first outing by the Jayhawks. We're breaking it down on today's edition of the show. You are Locked on Jayhawks. Your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network. Your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson.

Starting point is 00:00:35 You can hear me as well Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can subscribe to the show. And thank you to every dayers

Starting point is 00:00:52 out there tuning in to each and every one of our episodes. On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we're talking KU over North Carolina Central. Just a dominant outing in the season opener for KU basketball. breaking down the game what happened who started who looked good best players of the game goats of the game what's next

Starting point is 00:01:12 for ku and plenty more first this episode of the show is brought to you by game time download the game time app create an account and use code locked on college for 20 dollars off your first purchase with game time. So overview KU again, wins this one running away 99 to 56 over North Carolina central moves to one at all on the season. It was just dominant from the word go. I think at halftime, Hunter Dickinson had one less point than North Carolina central hadn't had

Starting point is 00:01:39 one less rebound than they had as a team. You held them to 18 at halftime. You did not let your foot off the gas pedal a little bit. Even some of the walk-ons came in at the end and kept it going. You shot nearly 70% from the floor. They shot 35%. You scorched the Nets with a really good three-point offense in the game. Your rebounding won the rebound battle, which you would expect

Starting point is 00:02:03 because you had so many more mid shots. The passing was outstanding, over 30 assists for KU. You only had 10 turnovers compared to those 34 assists. Not a ton of fouls or anything where it was just a sloppy early game. It was just a really impressive all-around effort from KU. Just pure domination from the word go. North Carolina Central, you made them look like a team with 11 new players. And, you know, that was a team that ranks in the 300s of Ken Palm.

Starting point is 00:02:29 I think I said in the game preview, I kind of think that Forte State might be better than North Carolina Central. Like some of the better D2 schools and some of the good D2 schools can beat and compete with some of the teams like this. So I thought that was kind of – And so you had a team that was overmatched, undersized, coming in downfield outs with a bunch of new players,

Starting point is 00:02:51 lost their entire starting five from a year before, and KU dominated them and on top of that had an A shooting game, hitting 13 threes, right? Like that's going to be as good as it gets from a shooting perspective. Like I don't mean that as that you won't do it again. Like you'll probably have other good games where you shoot well, but it's not going to be much better than what you showed because this was a really good shooting game by KU. And that was, I think the most encouraging thing to see overall was coming

Starting point is 00:03:17 into this game. You did expect to win big. The spread on this game was 30 points. You easily covered that. Obviously I ended up with the over in the game for, for those of those wondering about that too. But you wanted to walk away from this game, feeling like the shooting was there, that the potential was there. And while if you, if you went and had a good game shooting the three ball, which you did, you go 13 of 23 in the game. You know, if you would have, I don't know, it's,'s it's not that like that is the giant takeaway to be like okay see all the three-point shooting is solved see they are a great three-point shooting team now because they had one game against North Carolina Central where they went 13 of 23. The true test of being a good shooting team will be do they do it over and over again do they do

Starting point is 00:04:00 it consistently do you do it in your next game on Friday and then follow it up against Kentucky in some of your bad three-point shooting games are, are they five of 20 or are they two of 20, right? Are you going to have more games like this? How often are they going to happen? The consistency thing is the biggest thing with shooting. And so I think it's still a fair question to be like, okay, how good is the shooting? Because tonight we saw it was Villanova good, right? But the first five exhibition games, which is a bigger sample, it was 29%. So this was important to see because A, it would raise those numbers. B, it's the first game that

Starting point is 00:04:35 actually counts and means something. So this is the one that means the most among all of those. And C, just to show that you kind of had it in you. We hadn't seen that effort yet. We hadn't seen Kansas show the ability to say, hey, we have that game in us that we can hit a bunch of threes if that is something that we have to do. And now you know the potential's there. How often they reach the potential is going to determine how good of a three-point shooting team they are. But this was a good first step. And this was a good opportunity to at least show when you can tap into that potential, you have the ability to do it.

Starting point is 00:05:07 So again, it just comes down to how often you're going to do it consistently. But you did it really well in this first game. And that was great to see. And that will, I guess, calm a little bit of the storm, so to speak, in terms of some of the three-point shooting questions. I'll say this. The three-point shooting certainly was notable and probably the most notable of the game coming off a couple of games where he did struggle shooting the three ball, not just in two exhibitions, but the three-point shooting certainly was notable and probably the most notable of the game coming off a couple games

Starting point is 00:05:25 where he did struggle shooting the three ball, not just in the two exhibitions but the three games in Puerto Rico. The two-point shooting, outstanding for KU. KU shot like almost 80% on two-point shots. I think it was 27 of 33. It was like 79% on two-point shots. North Carolina Central, not a huge team, 6'9", 6'8". They're two biggest players.

Starting point is 00:05:43 You took advantage of that, but you should, and you did. And this is now a trend, though, over all of KU's games. You want to add the big sample size with the three games in Puerto Rico. You want to add the two exhibitions in there. You want to add this game that gives you now six games, a little more data to work off of. Kansas is shooting almost 63% between those six games on two-point shots. So that is an excellent number. Like, out of comparison, like the team with Yudoka Azubuke that would have been the number one overall seed a couple years ago, they were in the 50s.

Starting point is 00:06:14 And one of those games was against Illinois, who had the number one two-point defense in the Big Ten last year. Two of those games were against pro players with the Bahamian national team. This is an elite two-point offense that's what we're learning and that probably will get you more open threes which will be a good thing to go back to that conversation and if you're hitting more open threes because you are such a dominant two-point offense that's why this team is predicted to be the preseason number one team it's because of the ability they have to get those easy baskets and have Hunter Dickinson with a Bill Stealth offense. And you've seen that over the course of this, again, shooting over 60%

Starting point is 00:06:49 on two-point shots. The defense was very good, too. You hold a team to 18 points in the first half in the 50s for the game, 35% from the floor. I will take this with a little bit of a grain of salt just because I don't know how great the opponent is there in North Carolina Central, but you're playing a lesser team. Make it look like you are the much better team, because I don't know how great the opponent is there in North Carolina Central, but you're playing a lesser team. Make it look like you are the much better team, and Kansas did just that, and certainly not a lot to take away, I think, negatively anywhere or on the defensive side. I thought it was pretty good.

Starting point is 00:07:17 Elmarco Jackson started the game at the two-guard spot, so that was kind of interesting. We'll see if Timberlake or Furphy are in the start on Friday against Manhattan, and I don't just mean that because, you know, maybe those guys played well, which I did think they did. I just mean because we've seen that be a rotational spot so far. We've seen none of them, if you include the exhibition games, none of the two guards have gotten back-to-back starts.

Starting point is 00:07:39 So we'll see who the guy is on Friday. El Marco started a little, I don't know, aggressive, a little rough around the edges, so to speak. He had the three fouls in the first half. I actually kind of liked the foul stuff in the first half, though, because one of the things Bill Self talked about is that he said he's just kind of frozen out there. He's just thinking too much.

Starting point is 00:07:59 He's not playing. The fouls to me indicated that he was playing aggressively, and I think that's what you want to see from a dude who is arguably KU's not playing. The fouls to me indicated that he was playing aggressively. And I think that's what you want to see from a dude who is arguably KU's best athlete. I don't know. KJ Adams maybe goes out there. But El Marco, just from like a speed perspective, it's El Marco Jackson. You want to see him play fast on the court.

Starting point is 00:08:20 And so I was actually kind of okay with it, especially since one of them I didn't think was a foul. And he ended up with eight points and five assists, which I looked up at the box show and I was like, Oh, I didn't remember like all that happening. I remember, you know, flash play here or there, but Timberlake looked good. 13 points, three or four from three, four or five from the floor. He's in there to make shots and he made shots tonight. So it makes it a good game. Johnny Furphy continues to impress me. Honestly, among that group of three,

Starting point is 00:08:40 I might be most impressed with Furphy right now. I think El Marco has the highest ceiling of those three players, Timberlake, El Marco, and Furphy. And El Marco probably is the highest ceiling to eventually be, I don't know, maybe like an All-American player at Kansas. But I think Furphy has the highest chance this year to be a really impactful role-playing starter. And whoever that fifth starter is, you know, you have DeJuan Harris, Hunter Dickinson, Kevin McCullough, like all KG Adams, who you kind of have to be a role-playing starter. And I can't but wonder if Johnny Furphy is going to fit that stuff to a tee.

Starting point is 00:09:17 Now, the team is thin enough and they're still good enough players that even if Furphy's the starter or Timberlake's the starter or Marco's the starter, the other two are still going to play. And they're still going to play a good amount of minutes per game. And you kind of have to, and you need that from everybody. But Furphy does a lot of the little things well. In the right position defensively, he hits some threes for you. He had a really great entry pass to KJ Adam. It's just some of the little things that I think Furphy could really excel in this role. And I think I've been really impressed with everything we've seen from him overall on the court.

Starting point is 00:09:48 But overall, I think you saw good enough flashes from all of your three options for that fifth starter in this game. But just overall clean game, dominant first outing for KU. No notes to be completely honest. I'd like to get to our goats of the game. Good goats,

Starting point is 00:10:03 bad goats. What's next after that? First, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Score early this NFL season with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 Moneyline bet. That's $150 if your team wins. If you've been thinking about joining FanDuel, there's no better time to get in on the action.

Starting point is 00:10:31 The app is so easy to use. There's a wide range of betting spreads, including player props, over-unders, and more. You could have got Kansas at minus 30.5 for the game against NC Central, and you would have walked home feeling great about that. It was the over that hit as well for the KU game. They'll have lines out on Friday, maybe even by Thursday night for the Manhattan games. You can get in on that and get in on some of this great action. I'll just say this. They were really low on Kevin

Starting point is 00:11:00 McCuller. I think some of the stuff you're trying to catch up on, maybe get his over on the player props. Anyway, visit FanDuel.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season. FanDuel, an official partner of the NFL. Goats of the game. Good goats, bad goats. Every level of shooting for KU. Not a ton of free throws, but they were eight of 10. It's 80%. 13 of 23 from 3. That'll do you. And I already talked about earlier, two-point shooting,

Starting point is 00:11:28 that they were shooting almost 80% on two-point shots. So every level of shooting, KU was excellent in tonight's game. And a big reason why was the passing. The passing was outstanding, getting KU open looks from all levels of the court. 34 assists for Kansas. That was led by DeJuan Harris. The most amazing line I can't help but wonder if DeJuan Harris went into this game and said watch this I'm gonna have zero shots and still have an unbelievable game because he took zero shots and he had 10 assists uh just to

Starting point is 00:11:58 two turnovers also gets you you know some of the rebounds and some of the other stuff but again zero shots I had a friend text me, and he's like, how is he able to do this without even the threat of shooting the basketball? And I don't know the answer. Maybe, I mean, there's times where he has a threat to shoot the basketball, but he just doesn't. Maybe he's driving, and they're worried about this, or he has an open three, and he makes the extra pass.

Starting point is 00:12:19 It's unbelievable, man. His basketball IQ, his passing, his vision, outstanding. He had 10 assists, and that led the way. Kansas overall as a team shared the Rocks so well. This is what we've heard a lot in the offseason, and a big reason why K.J. Adams and Hunter Dickinson can work is that K.J. is a good passer. Hunter's a good passer. Even you have Parker Brown in there playing next to Hunter Dickinson

Starting point is 00:12:36 at one point. But DeJuan, great passer. El Marco had five assists tonight, right? He's kind of a point guard in trade, so he's a good passer. Furphy is a connective piece who can move the ball around. We some of that tonight kevin mcculler is a good pat like you just have good passers all over the court no matter what they were really good at assist numbers last season they might be even better this season 34 assists in the opener again 10 from dewan harris kevin or uh hunter dickinson and kevin mcculler both get get good goats here. Kevin had 22 points, six rebounds, five assists.

Starting point is 00:13:07 He was eight of 12 from the four, four of seven from three. Every game he continues to stack up where he's shooting well from three, which is now both those last two exhibition games and this one, you continue to be like, okay, this three-point shooting thing, it's starting to look more and more real. And that is such an important thing for both KU as a team and him individually if he shoots this well all season long I legitimately think Kevin could be a late first round draft pick now maybe some of the age stuff works against him and the age is

Starting point is 00:13:36 such a big thing in the NBA with potential and whatnot but if you have this great all-around defensive uh player in Kevin McCuller and now he's scoring and shooting at a high level. NBA teams are always looking for three-and-a-wings. End of the first round, those teams are more competing, looking for role players anyway. And we're not that far removed from, like, Thomas Duarte, who was, like, 24 years old, going, like, right around the lottery. Or I think Derek White, the now Celtics' former, like, Spurs guard.

Starting point is 00:14:02 He was, like, 22, 23 years old. Like, if you can play in a weaker draft weaker draft, I legitimately think that's true. If Kevin puts up 15, 16 a game this year, shoots 35, 36% for three, I legitimately would not be shocked if he ended up being a late first-round pick. I don't know if that'll happen, but it wouldn't shock me at all. So we'll see if that continues on. But Hunter Dickinson, 21 points, eight rebounds, five assists. There was that passing, two blocks, one steal. He was

Starting point is 00:14:25 eight of nine from the floor. How about him getting the three point shooting going three of three from downtown to really show you that, yeah, he can do it. And he was excellent all game long. And certainly he was getting fired up out there for KU. I think just in general, the center position for KU, because Parker Brown had 10 points, five rebounds, three assists in one block on five of six shooting, which means that if you combine Parker Brown with Hunter Dickinson, I know that's all the center minutes because you have like Dylan Wilhite playing some center minutes there. And I know Parker Brown played next to Hunter Dickinson for a few minutes for a short period of time with the lineup, which I actually found to be kind of intriguing. It does provide you

Starting point is 00:15:04 more depth and gives you an opportunity to get Parker on the court a little bit more and earn some more minutes, which I think he has earned his right into doing that. And because of the fact that Parker Brown and Hunter Dickinson both have shown the ability to shoot a couple threes every game, I think you can actually make it work. I mean, we've heard Bill Self say, and even Christian and Parker Brown's mom say that Parker Brown's the best athlete in the family,

Starting point is 00:15:24 so you should be able to play him at the four and get away with it at certain times but anyway um if you combine the stats of Parker Brown and Hunter Dickinson 31 points 13 rebounds eight assists and three blocks on 13 of 15 that's a pretty efficient night from the center position in terms of what you got from both those guys. I already talked about DeJuan Harris. Honestly, I could just do good goats for everyone who's part of the scholarship player rotation because KJ had 12-5. I didn't think it was one of KJ's best games ever in terms of the stat production,

Starting point is 00:15:58 but he was still really good in what he was being asked to do. He'll have better games than that in terms of what the stats show, but he was good, and there was nothing wrong with anything anything he did Nick Timberlake has 13 off the bench again you're just asking him to shoot the ball he shot the ball tonight Johnny Furphy I thought was a really good connective piece like I said even though Marco Jackson had a couple flashes driving through him and had eight and five even though it wasn't a game that the super sticks out for him so uh basically everything is a good go here even the ability to get your walk-ons a lot of run and a lot of experience in this game.

Starting point is 00:16:26 I don't know that I've ever seen a game where the KU walk-ons come in pretty much in full force with five to seven minutes to go. Usually maybe one sprinkled in at the four or five minute mark. I don't know that I've ever seen it this early and that much, but that was nice to see and obviously allow players to kind of stay rested with the next game coming up on Friday. The only bad goat I have here, I was struggling to think of anything. I didn't have to put anything.

Starting point is 00:16:50 I mean, there's no rules against me. Not as just a injury to Jamari McDowell. It's, you know, kept him out of the game and he was in street clothes. I feel bad for Jamari McDowell because this would have been an opportunity for him to come in and score his first collegiate points and maybe hit a couple of – and get some of his collegiate firsts and play a good amount of minutes and run. So it stunk for him that he was unable to play. Now the good news is it sounds like Jamari McDowell's injury isn't like long-term

Starting point is 00:17:18 or isn't something that's going to keep him out for a super long period of time. But obviously KU is a very thin team, so any injury to any player becomes magnified and more important. So you want to get him back as soon as possible and want to get him those reps, especially in these games where he has a better opportunity to get the live game reps that can help him in terms of his development over the long haul. So that was unfortunate. Obviously nothing that he can control or anything that really worries you long term. But had to pick something, I guess.

Starting point is 00:17:46 We're going to continue on with what's next for Kansas. First, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by GameTime. Buying tickets to your favorite sporting event should not be stressful. GameTime is the fast and easy way to buy tickets for your favorite events, whether it's sports, music, anything near you they have killer deals on last minute tickets and their best price guarantee means you can stop stressing over tickets and start getting hyped for the fun you're going to be having i was looking earlier today just out of curiosity what they were for this game you could have gotten tickets you know last minute on game time for a handful of dollars

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Starting point is 00:19:14 and that'll be a night game for KU. That one's going to be at 7 o'clock for the Jayhawks against, I think, the Jaspers. And then they have the Champions Classic on Tuesday against Kentucky. They're the late game, unfortunately. That one's at 8.30. And then they're into Maui a few days later and have that on Monday, November 20th with Chaminade and then a loaded Maui field.

Starting point is 00:19:38 Purdue looked good earlier tonight. And if you end up getting a clash with Purdue, that would be a lot of fun. But there's a lot of other good teams along the way, too, like UCLA, Gonzaga, and plenty others that you could be playing at different points, Marquette. So that's what's upcoming. But as far as Manhattan coming up on Friday, also not a great team. You look at Ken Palm.

Starting point is 00:19:56 They're ranked in the 300s. In fact, Manhattan came into the season opener today, ranked about 20, 30 spots lower than North Carolina Central. Now, I think with NC Central, a lot of their, how good they were going to be was a guess on some of the metric sites. They had 11 new players. They could have been worse than that. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:20:15 Last year, they were in the top 200, so who knows? Manhattan might end up being better. I don't totally know. But either way, it's on the same kind of level. But it's going to be your last tune-up before the Champions Classic. And so from that standpoint, you look to take it seriously again. You look to back up what you did. You look to maybe you don't expect to shoot 70% from the floor

Starting point is 00:20:33 and over 50% from three, but have another solid three-point shooting game. Have a seven of 20 game. Have a eight of 22 game or something where you back up another three-point shooting game. You should be able to get open looks. You should be able to dominate once again against Manhattan on Friday. And that one coming up again at seven in Allen Fieldhouse. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:20:54 We'll get back into the football action on our next episode. We get to our quarter report for the last three games and where things are at. Stocks up, stocks down for KU football. Also get to a KU Manhattan preview later in the week and a KU football Texas Tech preview later in the week also. This has been Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us anywhere you get your podcasts. Find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show.

Starting point is 00:21:16 And have a great rest of your day. We'll see you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #1 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Opens Season by Eviscerating North Carolina Central 99-56

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