Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #1 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Wins by 27 in Maui Invitational Opener Against Chaminade

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Recap of #1 Kansas Jayhawks basketball's Maui Invitational opening win over Chaminade by 27 points in Honolulu, Hawaii. Bit of a slow start for Bill Self's KU team as they struggled from three but they dominated on the inside with Hunter Dickinson going for 31 points, Dajuan Harris started the ball movement and Kevin McCullar recorded back-to-back triple-doubles. What's next with Marquette or UCLA.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Listening.comWouldn’t it be amazing if you could listen to a textbook, like an audiobook? Now, you can! Listening.com is an app that turns any academic reading into audio. Go to Listening.dot/LOCKEDON and you'll be able to get your first three weeks free!LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. Terms and conditions apply.eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.PrizePicksGo to PrizePicks.com/lockedoncollege and use code lockedoncollege for a first deposit match up to $100! Daily Fantasy Sports Made Easy!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's bonus Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas beats Chaminade. Kind of a bit of an ugly blowout win if you can have one, but they won by 27. They're moving on to the, I guess, winner's bracket semifinals of Maui Invitational Tournament we discussed on this bonus episode 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.

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, free and available anywhere you get your podcasts. You can find us on our YouTube page also. On today's bonus episode, this will be a bit of a shorter one. You know, it's KU Chaminade, only so much to discuss. We are going to be talking about the KU Chaminade game, recapping it,

and we'll do a brief look ahead to KU's next game in the Maui Invitational against either Marquette or against UCLA. So Kansas wins this one 83 to 56, 27 point victory. Hard to complain about that, you know, but it definitely was, I don't know, something was up in this game that kept it close. Like it was never really like that close. KU led the entirety of the game. And for the majority of that, they were up by double digits, you know, between 10 to 15 to 18 points. So it wasn't like close, close. But a game that you were favored by 42 and a half points,

you were expecting, you know, 110 to 60. You were expecting 100 to 60. So you win by 27 in a game where you were a little bit off in a couple of ways. There's nothing wrong with that. Certainly it wasn't KU's best performance, nothing that you're going to take to market and be like, hey, look at what we did here, right? That's not going to be the case. But you win by 27, it's against a D2 school. Move on and nobody's going to remember what happened in this game, the score of this game, whatever, by the time we get to February or March, whatever.

KU shot really well from two-point shots. That continued. We've talked a lot about on the show, if you're an everydayer, you know that we've talked about KU's dominance at two-point shooting and their dominance of two-point defense just kind of inside the paint at both ends. Well, in this game, they went 32 of 41 from two-point shots. So, you know, that's above 75%. That's nearing 80% on their two-point shots in this game.

They've just been dominant inside. If they play a smaller team, it is game over on the offensive end, even when they're not shooting well from three, which they didn't really in this game. You would like to see that get going, but obviously it didn't in this one. Didn't get to the free throw line a ton in this one, but the passing, again, exquisite. This is another game where you just ended up with an insanely high number of assists. We've seen them get across 30. They almost got to it in this

game with 29, so everybody's just passing the ball. They're moving the ball so well all over the floor. A bit of a lethargic start. Kind of felt like KU was, I don't know, maybe to a point where you could tell, okay, we're playing a D2 school, maybe not a ton of energy out there early, and Bill Self probably gets on you. KJ Adams comes in after not knowing if he was going to play, and it was cool to see him out there and playing well. He brought a lot of energy that KU was kind of missing before he was out there. It was 25-20 at one point in the first half,

which is kind of the closest that it felt and got in the game. But, you know, overall, your fast break points, 27 to 6 there. The points in the paint, 58 to 22. As I mentioned, almost 80% on two-point shots. Were enough for you to still dominate this game and win going away by 27 points. Obviously, you would have liked to have seen more. I mean, they had a good advantage early in the game on offensive rebounds,

getting some hustle balls. You still didn't see a lot from the bench. I mean, you weren't able to get as deep into the bench as you probably wanted to because you weren't winning by, you were hoping to be winning by 25, 30, 35, that you could get deeper into the bench and give them a longer leash. You weren't able to do that. And then when they did go to the bench, they weren't doing a ton in this game anyway. So there's still concerns there. There's still concerns about three-point shooting. But again, there's only so many takeaways you can have from a game like this. And overall, Kansas won by 27,

even if this was kind of a C or even D effort for them. So let's get to our goats of the game. What stood out? What did not stick out for KU basketball? First, this episode of the show is brought to you by listening.com. Listening.com is an app that turns academic papers, textbooks, PDFs, websites, and emails into audio. So you can listen to them on the go instead of sitting at a desk to read. Their apps are free so you can learn from anywhere. It's the best app in the world for listening to academic material. They even read math equations, automatically skip citations and footnotes,

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KU wins by 27 over Chaminade. They move on to their winner's bracket second round game. They're going to play late game on Tuesday night, but we'll get more of that in a moment here. So good goats, bad goats for this game. Good goats for KU was the two-point shooting, as we talked about, dominant. Their tallest player was 6'9", and, you know, you were able to get Hunter Dickens in a lot of easy buckets.

But as much as it's easy to just be like, oh, well, of course they made all these easy buckets. You had a huge size advantage. You should be able to go really well from two. Okay, but I think there also deserves credit, and this would be a good go-to for entry passes, right? KU finished with 29 assists. They weren't all perfect.

There were a few that led to turnovers or were bad passes, but for the most part, KU's entry passes were on point. I thought KJ Adams did a really good job with entry passes, Kevin McCullough, DeJuan Harris, and that allowed them to use the height advantage to just be like, oh, I got the entry pass in. Now I can just outsize this guy and make the bucket. Those were set up by the entry passes, so good stuff on that regard. Obviously, the assists and the team passing gets a good go here

with 29 of them. Hunter Dickinson gets a good go, 31 points on 15 of 18 shooting. If he was like trying all out from the get-go and KU left him in for the full game and was like, hey, we're trying to put up as big of stats and win by as much as possible. He could have had 50. I mean, honestly, if he wanted, if they just kept going to him, he could have had 50 easily. 31 points, 11 rebounds. He was excellent once again, barely missed any shots. DeJuan Harris gets a good go here. Seven points, three of six. He hit another three, eight assists in the game, four rebounds, and he just continues to orchestrate and be kind of the guy that gets everything going. Kevin McCuller gets a good goat here. 22 points, eight of 14 from the field.

The three-point shot didn't fall for really, I guess, three straight games for Kevin, so maybe that's something that's a little worrisome after we saw him shoot super well in the exhibition, that it's like, okay, how real was that? And we haven't seen it fall the last three games I still think the shot's going to be there for him but 11 rebounds 10 assists he ended up with another triple double back-to-back triple doubles that is crazy because you go back in the Bill's off era I believe the only triple doubles were Cole Aldridge and Jeff Withey both of which happened with blocks um so it doesn't happen very very often in KU basketball history, right? It's a handful of times.

You can count on one hand, I guess, is what I mean to say. The times that it has happened. And it has now happened back-to-back times with the same players. Outstanding stuff from Kevin McCuller. Again, 22-11-10 on 8-14 from the floor, including 7-9 from two-point range. So he gets a good goat there. KJ Adams gets a good goat. Eight points on 4-5 from the floor. He seven of nine from two-point range. So he gets a good goat there. K.J. Adams gets a good goat, eight points on four of five from the floor. He also had four assists.

Like I said, I thought he did a good job with entry passes. He also had the lob throw to Hunter Dickinson. That was a cool play there that a lot of other four men aren't going to be able to make, especially when they're four men who are as physically imposing as K.J. Adams. He had one rebound in the game, played 26 minutes. But it's above and beyond the performance. It's the energy that he brought to the floor.

KU was a bit lethargic and lazy. You could tell, you know, first game, you're in Hawaii. Maybe you're a little tired from hanging out at the beach or the pool, and you're like, ah, let's just get this one over with. We're playing a D2 school, right? So it was a little closer than you might have expected early. He comes in and he provides energy. He makes some of those plays.

He does the fist pumps. He hits his chest. You know, he's getting the crowd into it. He's getting KU into it. It's so important to have those players, especially in moments like this. You know, that's going to be important when you're playing big 12 games against lesser opponents on the road and you have to get yourself jacked up. And he was able to do that for you in this game.

And then when you add in that he was able to do that for you in this game. And then when you add in that, he was able to do all of that, that he was able to bring this to the table after just a few days before his mother passed away. I can only imagine, you know, I don't know, maybe for some guys like opportunities like this, it's an escape. It's an ability to, you know, focus on something else for a couple hours and get away from things for a little bit and, you know, just be freeing and have some fun. And I think that's part of what it is. But I know KJ Adams' mom is looking down on him smiling and, you know, just so much – he would have got a good goat anyway for playing one minute

in this game just because of, like, he didn't have to play. And, you know, like, I don't know, there's so much strength in being able to come out there and actually just playing in this game. So really cool for him. And he did have a big impact on the game. As far as a bad goats for the game, the three point shooting K was four of 19. So now this is the back to back games where you've had struggles in three point shooting. Now the first two games are good. The exhibition games are not so good. So we're kind of on a roller coaster of trying to figure out where this team is going to land from three-point shooting. Obviously, if they pick it up in the next two games, who cares?

But tonight, that was not necessarily the case. And a big part of that, when we're talking about the fifth player on the court with Hunter Dickinson, DeJuan Harris, KJ Adams, and Kevin McCuller, a lot of times their job is going to be to hit threes, whether that's Jamari McDowell or Nick Timberlake, who was 0-3 tonight, or Elmarco Jackson a little less so because he does other stuff and that's not totally his forte. Johnny Furphy, who was 0-3 from three today. They're going to have to find that three-point shooting.

They're not finding it right now. They're not getting the bench scoring. That's another bad goat. You only had 12 bench points in a game where you played a Division II school. That can't happen. You have to get more in a game like this. Timberlake goes for two points. And of those 12 bench points, eight were KJ Adams, who is a Division II school. That can't happen. You have to get more in a game like this. Timberlake goes for two points. And of those 12 bench points, eight were KJ Adams,

who is a starter for you. So you get two from Nick Timberlake. You get zero from Parker Brown, two from Jamari McDowell. And then even if you wanted to swap, like, okay, well, if KJ, if we're counting him as a starter, even though he came off the bench, then we get to add Johnny Furphy, and he only had four points in the game. So, like, you just need more from the bench. And I thought this would be a good remedy game for the bench.

And it just kind of wasn't to that. So those are good and bad goats for the game. We're going to finish up here in just a second with what's next for KU basketball, when they're going to play all that sort of stuff. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel. Score early this NFL season with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.

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You'll probably hit more than you don't. So visit FanDuel.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season. FanDuel, official partner of the NFL. What's next for KU? Well, as of recording right now, the Marquette UCLA game is going on. It just kind of started. Marquette's the favorite in the game. I've kind of talked about in yesterday's preview show or earlier today's preview show that I think Marquette would present the hardest challenge stylistically for KU basketball with the way they play. They have the All-American point guard who can deal with the pressure of DeJuan Harris, and they have a five-man who they run some of the offense through and can make you defend

very differently with your five-man. I don't know how KU would do with it, but it's one of those things where they become an interesting matchup, but we'll see if you get the matchup, right? That's always the thing with the NCAA tournament. It's like, oh, that would be a bad matchup, but then sometimes they get upset. So we'll see what happens there. If it's UCLA, you have to deal with a rugged style of play, lots of size. A difficult defense could be more of a grinded-out game.

So it just kind of depends what you're going to happen and go with. We will get to a full preview on an episode tomorrow here with Locked on Jayhawks. But we do know that KU will be playing one of those two, and that KU will be playing the late game. So it's scheduled to tip off at 9.30 Central time, and it is the second game of the session. So hypothetically, if the first game goes 10, 15 minutes long, it might not tip until 9.45, right?

First game goes overtime, you might not tip until 10 o'clock Central time. So be in ready for a long night tomorrow. Get your extra sleep tonight if you have have to maybe take a nap tomorrow, if you get a chance to do so, I don't know. Maybe you have Wednesday off and the rest of the week for Thanksgiving or something like that. Hopefully you do.

And you can enjoy that, but we'll get to a full preview of whoever we find out. K is playing sometime tomorrow with locked on Jayhawks. You'll be able to find that anywhere. You get any of your podcasts also on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Have a great rest of the day. We'll see you next time with LJ.