Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Recap: #1 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Wins Sluggish Exhibition Game 73-55 Over Fort Hays State

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, a recap of KU's 73-55 victory over Fort Hayes State in their second and final... You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. We'll be right back. to get your podcasts. You can also find us for free on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And thank you to all the everydayers out there tuning in to each and every episode. We'll get back to KU football preview for that tomorrow. But KU takes down Fort Hays State 73-55 in their second and final exhibition game.

Starting point is 00:00:57 Before we get into what went down in the game, our GOATs of the game who played well, who maybe struggled a little bit, what's next for KU? This episode of the show is brought to you. Prize picks, go to prize picks.com slash locked on college and use code locked on college for a first deposit match up to $100 daily fantasy sports made easy with

Starting point is 00:01:17 prize picks. KU wins 73 to 55 over Fort Hayes state, their second final exhibition game. And next up is the real thing. And, you know, when you think about it overall for KU, this was kind of a – so I don't know how you properly evaluate this because this game, you know, doesn't matter nearly as much as the regular season games, right?

Starting point is 00:01:39 And it's easy to when you get up 20 to 30 points. They mentioned this in the broadcast. I think it was Nick Baughy who was saying you got to play to the points. They mentioned this in the broadcast. I think it was Nick Bahi who was saying, you got to play to the standard. And ideally that is what you would do, but it's hard. You start subbing some walk-ons in late and you have different rotations and you're doing all these different things.

Starting point is 00:01:55 And it's hard not to see her up big and things kind of get away from you a little bit. Again, I think the measure of the best teams is even in those moments you play to your standard, but it's so early in the season and you're still trying to establish that so it's kind of hard to take much from this but certainly I don't remember a game and an exhibition against you know a d2 school where Kansas only put up 73 which I think that goes into the lack of three point shooting that they're continuing to show each and every one of these games and it is still

Starting point is 00:02:22 early it is still small sample size so you know some of this stuff not a big reason to be concerned Fort Hayes State is a good D2 school you were you know you went about 18 but you were in much more control for that for the whole way now one of the big takeaways coming into the thing Nick Timberlake started at the two so you had a Marco Jackson started the two in the Illinois game you have Nick Timberlake started the two here in exhibition number two. And that's exactly what they did in the Puerto Rico games. They rotated through both those guys and then Artario Morris when he was on the roster and had all three of them playing minutes at the two, and each one got a start in different games.

Starting point is 00:02:59 So I think this was just to get kind of a different look from Bill Self's perspective and then evaluate and see who played best and see who I guess practices best over the next couple days before you get into your first game of the season against North Carolina Central and I think the resounding answer that Bill Self was left with after today is there is not a clear answer still so Johnny Furphy, Elmarco Jackson, and Nick Timberlake they all played within two minutes and nine seconds of each other. They were all condensed in and stacked together. And neither one of them had great games. If you're asking me who played the best among those three, Johnny Furphy is the one who stood out the most.

Starting point is 00:03:34 I thought he had the most pop plays. I thought he had the most noticeable plays. It's still kind of feeling like with El Marco, he's just kind of out there floating at different times. With Timberlake, he's trying to get up shots, but they're just not falling right now. And whether that's him forcing it or feeling it a little bit, whatever reason, you know, he was one of six in this game. So Bill Self does not have an easy answer who's going to start at the two.

Starting point is 00:03:55 And so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if, like, what if it's Johnny Furphy against NC Central? And then he, you know, goes back to Marco Jackson or Nick Timberlake for the Manhattan game the following Friday and it's a different guy for the Kentucky game the Champions Classic uh this two-guard spot is something that is going to bleed over into the start of the season to figure out who's going to be that starter and who knows maybe they don't settle on it fully until we get into January into conference play or something like that maybe it takes a month maybe a light

Starting point is 00:04:21 switches for for one of these players in the next week or two. We don't totally know, but as of right now, the fact that you have Furphy playing over 13 minutes, El Marco and Timberlake playing between 15 and 16 minutes, like it is all condensed together and stacked together that nobody has really emerged. There is no, nobody that has risen to the cream of the crop to this point. So it's going to continue to be all three of those guys are going to be part of the rotation, I think. And all three of them, even when one guy does settle on the starter are going to be part of the crop to this point. So it's going to continue to be all three of those guys are going to be part of the rotation, I think. And all three of them, even when one guy does settle on

Starting point is 00:04:47 the starter, are going to be part of the rotation. But there's not the one guy who has kind of to this point been like, okay, we got to get him 28, 30 minutes per game. And he's got to be the starter each and every game. Now, the first half did look, I think, a lot better for KU in this one. 43 to 23, they outscore Fort Hayes State in the first half. They actually got outscored in the second half 32-30, which is pretty crazy, all things. But I mean, if you extrapolate out how they played in the first half, and I know you can't do this because that's why we play two halves, they would have won 86-46, which would have seemed like a much,

Starting point is 00:05:20 much better result, obviously, than what ended up happening there. It was mostly the offense in the second half that felt lethargic. Like, the fact that you gave up 32 in the second half versus 23 in the first half, that was less of the thing that made it feel like a bit of a slog and a bit sloppy to me. It was more the offense. You only put up 30 points in the second half. So I don't know if you just chalk up the bad second half to bad shooting.

Starting point is 00:05:41 They only went 2 of 10 from 3 in the first half, though, too, and they ended up with 43 points. getting complacent maybe playing the bench a little bit deeper maybe going to your key options and not showing too much on tape early in the game um getting complacent with the score is you had you know just 30 in that second half so uh the first half if that's Kansas yes still not great shooting the ball, but they did enough other stuff well to overcome it. In the second half, yeah, not great, not great. Okay, KU won the rebounding battle overall. As I'm looking through some of the stats here, that was good,

Starting point is 00:06:16 but I was a little surprised it wasn't more dominant. Like you have one more offensive rebound, you have a slight advantage in the defensive rebounding battle. That was definitely something that you walked away from this game being like yeah you kind of need this team to be a dominant rebounding team again they continue to struggle shooting the basketball if that's going to be a thing all year long which we'll see if it is you have to be an elite rebounding team you have to be really good defensively you have to be good taking care of the ball you have to be good forcing turnovers and you have to be good rebounding those are all the margins that if

Starting point is 00:06:43 you don't shoot the ball well you have to make up for in other areas you weren't dominant in this game rebounding against a d2 school so that's not great uh they did win though so it's not like they got you know beat up on the board so that's a positive they did have a ton of assists in the game continue to be a good passing team uh continue to be really stellar on the interior offensively 18 of 25 on two-point shots for ku so they've been great there and defensively they held Fort Hayes State to 12 of 37 on two point shots obviously you had a big size mismatch which we knew coming into the game Fort Hayes State went 6-8, 6-9, 6-10 for their three tallest players coming in so you knew you were going to be able to take advantage for that

Starting point is 00:07:20 and you made it look like an advantage and that's what I'll always say like is this the biggest takeaway because you dominated inside against Fort Hayes State when you should have no but it's a big takeaway or at least it's it's not a big takeaway that you weren't that that you had a bad two-point shooting game and they had a good two-point shooting game because then there would have been problems now we don't have to talk about it but you left a lot to be desired some sloppy turnovers especially for the through the first 30 minutes of game time. I think you had 12 or 13 turnovers through the first 30 minutes. You kind of withered off from there, though.

Starting point is 00:07:51 So you did a good job, I guess, finishing there with the turnovers. The big one, though, lack of three-point shooting. Kansas was just 6 of 28 on three-point shots against Fort Hayes State. And again, in a vacuum, it's like, okay, anybody can go cold any specific game. But you go back to the Illinois game, they go three of 12 from three. So they are now nine of 40 in their two exhibition games from three point range. That is below 25%. And Kevin McCuller is carrying the load. Kevin McCuller so far, if you take him out, the rest of KU is three of 29 from three-point range.

Starting point is 00:08:26 That is almost 10%. And maybe there's optimism in that because it's like, okay, Michael Jankovic and Nick Timberlake, we know they're better three-point shooters than what they showed today. Maybe Timberlake's going to be a 35% three-point shooter as opposed to 40 this year, but it's still going to be better than what it is now. We know Hunter Dickinson's going to hit some open threes. We know DeJuan Harris is going to hit some open threes, and they haven't even hit those. So maybe there is optimism to say that and to be like, okay, well, once those come

Starting point is 00:08:52 around, we know Kevin now is a better three-point shooter. Then again, you could easily be saying that's really bad for the rest of the team. And if you want more sample size to be like, okay, it's just two games still, you know, nine of 40. I know 40 isn't a ton of threes. What if we add the three Puerto Rico games? That gives you five games of sample size for KU shooting the three ball. We have now seen KU in those five exhibitions, three in Puerto Rico, two in the States here against Illinois and now Fort Hay State. Go 33 of 114. That is only 29% from three with a bigger sample size. This is becoming a real worry. Self seemed confident it could get fixed,

Starting point is 00:09:30 and he wasn't worried about it earlier this week. So we will see four of those games without Timberlake, or not without Timberlake, or without Johnny Furphy. Timberlake and Jankovic, two good shooters, have missed a lot of open shots. But it's starting to get to a point where you're like, okay, we kind of wondered if there wasn't going to be enough shooting on this team, and now it's not really showing up to be that way.

Starting point is 00:09:51 So a little bit problematic there. But plenty of time to figure stuff out. This game is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Like, can you name who KU beat in their exhibition game nine years ago, ten years ago? If you knew the answer, you're either a sicko, and you should join Rock Chalk Sports Talk Trivia next spring.

Starting point is 00:10:06 Or if you didn't know, then you proved my point. But certainly some things the nitpick headed into the real thing here. We're going to get on to our goats of the game, good and bad, and what's next for KU basketball on Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by PrizePix. PrizePix is really simple to play. You can make your picks and submit your entry in less than six minutes. They have quick withdrawals, so you can easily get your money in and out.

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Starting point is 00:11:12 On to our goats of the game. We'll start with our good goats, then get to our bad goats. Kevin McCuller gets a good goat here. He had 21 points, which gives him now, he's basically averaging in the mid-20s through the two exhibition games.

Starting point is 00:11:27 I mean, is there a chance he could average 17, 18 points per game? And if so, being All-American, I mean, the way he's playing, he looks really good. It's just an advanced offensive game. Part of it's the shooting. He was 4-8 from 3 in this game. He's now 6-11 from 3 in the two exhibition games. So the jump shot's going in at a higher rate.

Starting point is 00:11:44 But it's also the advantage. He's just more confident out there. You're seeing some of the turnarounds in the mid exhibition games. So the jump shot's going in at a higher rate. But it's also the advantage. He's just more confident out there. You're seeing some of the turnarounds in the mid-range. You're seeing some of the floating game. Like, he's doing a little bit of everything. 21 points, six rebounds as well. He continues to rebound the ball well. Three steals, six of 10 from the floor.

Starting point is 00:11:58 Two of two from two-point range, the four of eight from three. Kevin McCullough continues to be really impressive coming back for this season. And it is very similar to J you know, Jalen Wilson coming back or Ochaag Baji coming back or some of these guys we've seen come back for their final season and really break out that last year. Devontae Graham, right? K.J. Adams gets a good go here.

Starting point is 00:12:15 14 points, four rebounds, two assists, one steal, five of six shooting from the floor. He's just so strong. And when you get him matched up on guys who are going to be a little bit smaller now than some of the centers, and this will be, you know, there'll be some teams you can go against. You do have a bigger wing, which is going to be able to match up. But some of the teams are going to be playing more of a like six, six skinny wing or six, seven skinny wing. And he's going to be able to really outpower them for some easy baskets down low.

Starting point is 00:12:41 He's so smart. He plays so hard. He knows when to cut him and Hunter Dickinson have really established a nice little rapport with each other. And he's such a good passer that you can do so many things with him. So yes, it's not ideal that KU doesn't have more floor spacing. But KJ is as best as you can do in kind of this too big type of lineup, doing a really good job there. Now you do want to see the rebounds go up. I guess, honestly, if you view this like Hunter Dickinson is your five rebounding-wise, if you view Kevin McCuller more as your four rebounding and KJ Moore as your three, you might just be content with everything. Like, okay, Kevin's getting you six or seven rebounds per game.

Starting point is 00:13:16 That sounds like a four. Hunter's going to get you eight, nine, ten rebounds per game. That sounds like a five. KJ's going to get you four or five rebounds per game. That sounds like a three. So I guess if you just look at it that way, a little inverted, it's fine. You would like to see, though, with his physicality, maybe get five, six rebounds per game. But you're not that far off.

Starting point is 00:13:30 And overall, really good game for KJ Adams. And I've been really impressed with him. DeJuan Harris, he had a plus 24 on the plus minus, which, you know, grain of salt for a one game plus minus. But nonetheless, I just thought that number was really impressive. He had seven points, eight assists two steals one block he had uh some scoring in the second half where you saw classic to one was like hey we're in a bit of a rut i'm gonna go score i'm gonna take it to the rim i'm gonna hit a floater i'm gonna hit a layup i'm gonna hit this scoop

Starting point is 00:13:56 shot whatever it is and the eight assists uh continuing to to do that stuff um i think center position in general gets a good goat here for KU. Hunter Dickinson, and to be clear, center position should have happened on this good goat list against Fort Hayes State, but I didn't grade it on a curve to be like, well, you should do well in this game against a team who's much smaller because they did, you know, give them their flowers. Hunter Dickinson had 17 points, 11 rebounds. He had three assists, and you saw the passing that I mentioned with him and KJ Adams that they're really being able to sling the ball out and stuff he also had two blocks and he drew seven fouls so just eating up the foul limits of Fort Hayes State but Parker Brown was really good too

Starting point is 00:14:35 off the bench he played about nine and a half minutes in the game he had five points three rebounds three blocks now you're not going to expect three blocks from him every night he is a good athlete and will block some shots, but obviously that's partially playing against, you know, Fort Hayes state. But overall, if you're getting that type of production, five points, three rebounds, even if you're getting four points, three rebounds in a block in nine and a half minutes, like that is very good production off the bench. And if you total it up between Dickinson and Parker Brown, you get in the high thirties minutes for the combo of them playing together with 22 points, 14 rebounds, five blocks, three assists. So really good stuff from what you got from the center position.

Starting point is 00:15:13 What about the bad goats here for KU against Fort Hay State? I thought the defense of, I don't know, a couple guys. Keeping the ball in front of you, I guess, would be the way that I would want to put this. Deserves a bad go. There were some times Hunter Dickinson got switched on on a ball screen, couldn't stay in front of guys, and that'll continue to be a worry, Hunter Dickinson and KU guarding ball screens. But Bill Self said earlier this week they still haven't really figured out

Starting point is 00:15:42 how they want to defend. So I guess that's not overly much of a worry. But there were some plays where, like, there was a guard just going, like, right at Nick Timberlake, and he was able to beat him to the rim, whether he finished or not. And that was with Fort Hayes State. Makes you wondering – or makes you wonder, I guess, what happens against more athletic and even better guards

Starting point is 00:16:03 that you're going to be playing later in the season. Another bad, speaking of the shooting guard stuff, the shooting guard battle. I thought everyone had a few flashes where they at least, okay, you know, you did that well, or you did that way or whatever. Honestly, I thought the most positives came from Johnny Furphy. To me, he had the most impressive game of the guys competing for the two. And I don't even know if Furphy is a two. He's probably more of like a three or four. But theoretically, he's competing for this fifth starting spot, which is viewed as the two. But I guess if Furphy was a starter, maybe it would mean Kevin is technically the two

Starting point is 00:16:32 and Furphy's technically the three, whatever it is. But Furphy, Timberlake, El Marco for that fifth starting spot. I thought Furphy was most impressive today. That was also today in a short flash. Maybe that was just me. You have all the excitement about this guy making his first appearance, which we've seen the other guys. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:16:48 But here's the total stat line for all three of those because it wasn't good enough regardless. Johnny Furphy plus El Marco Jackson plus Nick Timberlake. In fact, you know what? I'm going to add Michael Jankovich into this because we did see Michael Jankovich get a part in the game with like the 10- minute mark with other starters in there. I don't know how much they'll use that, but I think Bill Self was tinkering and experimenting

Starting point is 00:17:09 and be like, Hey, we need three point shooting. Can this guy come in for five to eight minutes a night? And we'll try to pick up what we can defensively. And he'll just hit a couple of threes for us and space the floor and at least give us something here. They brought him in. And so if you view those guys all for the shooting guard spot, the four of them combined to play 53 minutes, they scored five points in 53 minutes. The four of them combined to go two of 14 from the field and one of 12 from three. This is the position you're counting on guys to make shots and you were not

Starting point is 00:17:41 making shots. And that goes into the idea that KU has really struggled from three. Our other bad goat here is the bench minus Parker Brown. I already talked about Parker Brown played very well. Take out Parker Brown, the rest of the bench. Here's who played off the bench for KU besides Parker Brown, Marco Jackson, Johnny Furphy, Jamari McDowell, Zach Clements, Michael Jankovic, Wilder Evers, and Dylan Wilhite.

Starting point is 00:18:04 The combination of those players off the bench. KU had six points off the bench on two of 15 shooting. Need more bench. Because you go back to last year, they didn't get much from the bench. The idea was this year, maybe it's a thinner team, maybe it's a smaller bench, but you should be able to get more production from your bench. You should be able to get more from your bench guards this year than what you got from Bobby Pettiford, Joe Yesfer.

Starting point is 00:18:23 You should be able to get more from a bench wing this year than what you got from Bobby Pettiford, Joe Yesfu. You should be able to get more from a bench wing and Furphy than you got from MJ Rice. You should be able to do this or that, even though, I don't know, like Ernest Uday is more talented than Parker Brown. Parker Brown's more experienced. So this version of Parker Brown should be able to be equal to or better than the freshman version of Ernest or Zuby or whoever. So the bench, not giving you much, two of 15, six points, and they only had four points off the bench against Illinois. That's not great, especially in exhibition play, when you theoretically are more comfortable playing the bench.

Starting point is 00:18:54 Three-point shooting overall, we talked about this earlier, two of 10 in the first half, four of 18 in the second half. I brought up some of the numbers earlier. I'll reiterate again. If you go back into the Puerto Rico games, five exhibition games with those games and the two you played stateside, they're now 29% from three over the five games, bigger sample size. This could be a problem all year long for you shooting the ball from three,

Starting point is 00:19:15 or maybe it's just one bad spell. We'll have to wait to find out. All right, let's get to our early look of what's next with Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel. 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.

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Starting point is 00:20:05 and give you ways to win extra moolah. So visit fanduel.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season. FanDuel, an official partner of the NFL. Early look at what's next for KU. Hopefully a lot more made three-pointers. They're going to be playing NC Central North Carolina Central on Monday uh this is not like a a very difficult schedule for KU to open up their first two games obviously Kentucky and the Champions Classic will change that a little bit after that but uh North Carolina Central is ranked 306th on Ken Palm so that'll be Monday

Starting point is 00:20:41 night for KU then Friday uh not this Friday but the following Friday that'll be Monday night for KU. Then Friday, not this Friday, but the following Friday, they'll be taking on Manhattan. And Manhattan is ranked 343rd in the country on Ken Palm. So you should be able to shoot the ball well in these games and have some big wins. I mean, you could argue these teams are worse than Fort Hay State, who is a good D2 school. So you should be able to win big.

Starting point is 00:21:04 But then after that, it's the big one. Tuesday, November 14th, you have the game against Kentucky in the Champions Classic. And then you'll have a few days off before you head to Maui in the Maui Invitational. But that is a tough stretch early in the season because after those first two games, if you lose to Kentucky, with the way the Maui Invitational is loaded,

Starting point is 00:21:22 you can easily go one and two and be sitting at three and three through the first six games if you're shooting like this continually not that I'm expecting that to happen it's Bill Self and KU basketball right but could you be four and two yeah you could and would it feel like the sky's falling well maybe for KU basketball fans because expectations are so high but uh realistically I think this team will be fine but yeah certainly some questions after this game about the three-point shooting all right that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us anywhere you get any of your podcasts. Also on our YouTube page. Have a great rest of your day.

Starting point is 00:21:51 We'll have a KU football preview against Iowa State on tomorrow's episode of the show.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Recap: #1 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Wins Sluggish Exhibition Game 73-55 Over Fort Hays State

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