Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #2 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Dominates Wichita State Shockers 86-67 in the T-Mobile Center

Episode Date: December 31, 2023

Recap of #2 Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball winning 86-67 against the Wichita State Shockers at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, MO thanks to 20-plus points from Hunter Dickinson and Kevin McCullar and possibly the best game of Elmarko Jackson's young career. More GOATs of the game in KU's most wire-to-wire win since the first two weeks of the season and what's next for Bill Self's 'Hawks headed into Big 12 play and 2024.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON 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 Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas dominates Wichita State 86-67 in the T-Mobile Center. We break down the game with our recaps, goats of the game, and what's next for KU. 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. We are free and available anywhere that you get your podcasts including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We are talking KU Wichita State on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks. KU wins by almost 20 points. Impressive outing for Kansas as they now head into Big 12 play. We'll get to our goats of the game and what's next for KU.

So 86 to 67, the final score here. And I think it's just refreshing to see how dominant KU was for really the whole game and not have to sweat it out. You know, you go back to the first two games of the season where they were kind of this, except against lesser opponents in both those circumstances with North Carolina Central and Manhattan, and KU was just able to easily run over them. But really, since then, there hasn't been another game like this. You go along the way. The Chaminade game ended up being a 27-point win,

but that one was kind of 15 the whole way, and it points in the first half as closer than you'd expect. And the Eastern Illinois game, you only win by eight. The UMKC game was like an eight-point game at the under four, something like that. Missouri game was a little uncomfortable early. You win by eight. The UMKC game was like a, what, an eight-point game at the under four or something like that. Missouri game was a little uncomfortable early. You win by nine. Indiana was obviously close. Yale was a game that you were losing until like 13 minutes to go. So they haven't had this type of performance where you just dominate kind of from wire to wire since very early in the season. And it's important to have those games, I think mentally,

just to have a refresh where you don't have to grind out each and every single one, but also to show that, yeah, when things are clicking, you can dominate other opponents. It is important for a team who is really good to be able to show their dominance and prove it on the court. You saw that in this game. KU led for 38 minutes and 25 seconds. They never trailed in the game. You know, funny enough, KU actually shot the same percentage from the field as Wichita State. It wasn't a great overall shooting game for KU. Both teams shot only 42% from the field. Neither team lit it up from three. They went a combined 11 of 47 from three-point range.

But Kansas was able to dominate this game and win by 19, a game that for a lot of it in the second half, you're winning by more than 20 points with extra possessions and playing to your strengths. So the extra possessions, KU had just eight turnovers compared to getting 10 steals and forcing 15 Wichita State turnovers. So you were plus seven in the turnover battle, basically, which allowed you to be 15 to 6 so plus 9 in points off turnovers Kansas led 48 to 38 in the rebound battle so plus 10 there you had double the offensive rebounds that they had obviously if they're missing more shots than you you might get more rebounds then again both teams shot 42 so it's not necessarily the case but it's the offensive rebound about a 14 to 7 getting those extra possessions for a team coming in Wichita 42%, so that's not necessarily the case, but it's the offensive rebounding battle, 14-7,

getting those extra possessions for a team coming in. Wichita State coming in was top 70 in offensive and defensive rebounding rate, and KU was a good defensive rebounding team coming in, but not a good offensive rebounding team. That came to fruition in this game against a team who kind of did just that, and you turned it into a strength for you, which allowed KU to lead 10-7 in the second chance points, so you're chipping away at it. You had the advantage with the turnovers. You had the advantage with the second chance points. And then playing into your strengths, being the better transition team, that was something we talked about coming in.

Well, Kansas came in averaging like 14 points over their last five transition per game, I think 12.5 for the season. Wichita State was closer to 7, 7.5. KU outscored them in transition points, fast break points, 14-7 in this game. So that kind of bore itself out. You continue to have the edge in the paint. Like Wichita State's team likes to play into the paint and get a lot of paint opportunities and shots.

But we know that's an even bigger thing for Kansas, and you led points in the paint, 44-36. Kansas, very impressively, was 17 of 21 on layups and dunks against a team who primarily plays two big men he also continued passing it super well 23 assists almost a three to one assist to turnover rate and then on top of all that it didn't hurt the KU was 17 of 19 at the free throw line compared to Wichita State going 7 of 14 in addition to emphasizing those strengths and turning a couple things that you know maybe haven't always been strengths for you this season into strengths in this game I think

you saw the effect of having the day off or the days off with Christmas break and having the time off between games because with Hunter Dickinson, Kevin McCuller, DeJuan Harris, KJ Adams those guys have played a lot of minutes for you as the main starters while you've been trying to develop the rest of the roster and the rotation. And they look like they had fresh legs. They all played very well and contributed in big ways. I thought we saw some really interesting stuff happening for the five through nine in this game, some better, some worse. From El Marco Jackson's perspective, I thought that was El Marco Jackson's best game of the season and probably the best stretch of play that we have seen from El Marco Jackson.

At one point in the first half, he had the – it was kind of one of those no, no, no, yes plays where he was going into a crowd in transition. I think it was like him and DeJuan. It was like a two-on-three or a two-on-four, and he took going into a crowd in transition. I think it was like him and DeJuan. It was like a two on three or two on four. And he took it into like two guys and hit a really impressive play in transition, which happened the game before, I think twice and led to like a missed shot and a turnover. So I think process wise, you don't necessarily want to see that, but the fact that he did take it and make it, and I guess shows you a little bit confidence there. Then he goes down, DeJuan feeds him the ball and he gets up for the two-handed dunk, which shows the athleticism of him

that you want to see him play to that athleticism more often. He hits a three in the first half. He hits a three in the second half, and then he hits that confident-looking mid-range shot in the second half. Twelve points scored. I thought it was the most comfortable that he looked and the most that he has kind of played to his athleticism. Bill Self talked earlier in the week that he thought his defense has been

picking up and been getting a lot better on that end of the floor. So if you're starting to put it together, that's one way that Kansas can start turning the corner and that he can as well. You were hoping that Nick Timberlake was turning the corner after the Yale game in which he scored 13 points, which was his most since the season opener. But this did not carry over any of the success at all. He was the first off the bench that showed that Bill Self was willing to give him that first

try. He picks up two quick fouls. Then he finishes by missing every one of his shots. He airballed like that little eight footer. So it kind of back to what it's been every game, but Yale and the season opener, which was unfortunate because you were hoping that maybe it was him turning a corner. Jamari McDowell played a little bit in the first half, a little bit in the second half. Stats actually looked up kind of okay there, but I don't know that anything occurred there that would change what's happening in the rotation.

Johnny Furphy returned to action, and I don't think he had his best game. I think above all, he was probably a net positive for you. I appreciated how aggressive he was shooting the basketball. He was going after threes. He was taking shots. And I think for his role and for what you're looking for him to add to the lineup, you want him being aggressive taking shots and shooting threes from the outside. Cause it'll help the spacing of KU's offense.

So I think in the end that was overall a positive for Johnny Furphy coming back. And I thought Parker Brown played well, filling in in his role. He had a great block, he had a dunk, overall nice minutes. But certainly the most, I don't know, interesting part of the five through nine discussion coming out of this game was Elmarco playing really well and Nick Timberlake unable to capitalize on his previous performance. But overall, it's a great game coming off the break for KU. You saw the value of the fresh legs, and now you're going to get another week off. You don't have a midweek game before your Big 12 opener, so you should have fresh legs for the

opener against TCU next week. There's still questions about, specifically like Timberlake, who's turning the corner to the second half? And for El Marco, can he continue to turn the corner off this game? And you would have liked to see some players, you know, build even more momentum in this game. But if this is the start of El Marco's ascent, it would be a huge deal. And the fact that you didn't have to stress it going down the stretch, the fact that, you know, you showed that you can blow out another at least solid opponent is a big deal.

That's the kind of bottom line here. Like, it's nice to just get an easy win and a blowout another at least solid opponent is a big deal. That's the kind of bottom line here. Like it's nice to just get an easy win and a blowout, especially headed into Big 12 play when you're not going to have a lot of opportunities to do that. It's going to be a grinder. It's going to be grueling in an always difficult Big 12 conference, but even tougher. It seems like every year it just takes another slight step forward,

and part of that this year is the additions you made where Houston looks like one of the best teams in the country. BYU has been one of the best teams in the country so far. Oklahoma is surprising people. So nice to have this before you head into where you're not going to see a lot of this. We're going to get to our GOATs of the game, good GOATs, bad GOATs, and what's next for KU basketball in this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, we are brought to you by eBay Motors. Passion, drive, and patience.

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Only available to U.S. customers. On to our GOATs of the game. Good GOATs, bad GOATs. Finish up with what's next. You can check out plenty of KU football content from this past week over on Locked on Jayhawks, anywhere you get your podcasts, and on YouTube. Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every episode.

First up for a good go, it's Hunter Dickinson. 22 points, 10 of 17 from the floor, 13 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, and a block. So he was very aware and active defensively. It's crazy. I think when you look at offensive rebounding versus defensive rebounding, defensive rebounding is more about positioning, strength, blocking out, knowing where to be. Offensive rebounding is more about athleticism, verticality,

getting up in the air, being aggressive. Hunter barely jumps, and he came into this game fourth in the entire country in defensive rebounding rate. I'd imagine that's only going to go up with this performance. Pretty incredible, but you saw the versatility of the offense. Wichita State had two big men. We've seen teams more pack the paint recently against KU. He was very willing to take jump shots, goes two for three from three, takes a couple mid-range jump shots, and I think that's going to be important moving forward as you try to figure out what the best way to play offense is with this team. And Hunter had an excellent game for KU, really doing everything.

DeJuan Harris gets a good go. He scored six points in the early going on two three-pointers, and it felt like, OK, this is going to be a game DeJuan maybe puts up 12-14. Then KU got up big, and you saw him kind of revert to, OK, I don't really need to score here, so I'm not going to. He ends up with nine assists to two turnovers. He had two steals also. He had a couple other plays where he poked the ball free,

but it went out of bounds or he didn't get the steal. But that's what I'm mostly watching for. I know I want to see aggressive Duan and him scoring double figures and everything. In this game, it didn't matter much, and that was fine, what he did where he was aggressive early when KU kind of needed it more. But for me, the biggest thing is, is what are you doing defensively? Are you looking like the big 12 defense player of the year,

or are you not being as active getting steals? He's looked like that the past couple of games, forcing those deals, creating chaos. He was plus 27 on his plus minus. So really good game for DeJuan. KJ Adams gets a good goat here. He had nine points on four of eight shooting, 11 rebounds, five assists, in all five of those in the first half. So if he would have been able to double that up, would have been close to getting a triple-double.

He had a game-high plus-minus at plus-32. I thought he played really good defense inside. Neither one of Wichita State's bigs really took over. He was kind of the focal point. When you look at Wichita State having two bigs and packing the paint against Hunter Dickinson, you knew K.J. Adams was going to have some space in that short roll spot, that kind of mid post elbow free throw line area. And he took advantage getting those assists.

He took advantage hitting a couple of push shots. So KJ gets a good goat here. Kevin McCuller gets a good goat, not his most efficient game shooting the ball. But again, he was able to get to the free throw line and hit free throws. I don't know what he is now. They showed that stat during the game. At one point, he was like 40 for his last 44 or the last like five games on free throws. I don't remember when exactly that was number free throws. I don't know what he is now. They showed that stat during the game. At one point, he was like 40 for his last 44 or the last like five games on free throws. I don't remember when exactly that was number of free throw, but he goes 10 of 10 at the free throw line in this game.

He's having an incredible season so far at the free throw line. We'll see if that can continue 20 points, seven rebounds, two assists, two steals, just continuing to put up all American level numbers. And then Elmarco Jackson. Like I said, I thought this was his best game of the season. I mentioned that, you know, I put him on bad goats for last game because I thought it was a bad game. But I did mention this and that, that I thought he was, even though it was small steps, trending in the right direction

leading up into that game, that the recent games before that, you were at least seeing like, okay, one good half, even if it wasn't the full game, maybe it was one good half or one run of play or one just, you know, it was an above average game or something like that. And it felt like that one was kind of a step back. But I said this like progress isn't always linear. You're not going to get slowly better each and every game.

Sometimes you're going to have a step back, then two steps forward, then two steps back, then three steps forward, right? Like that's how it goes. And I think we saw that in this game and a Marco was really good. 12 points, uh, looking aggressive. Uh, the dunk was really cool to see from, from one of your guards. Who's able to get up and do that hitting two threes for a player. Hasn't, you know, been able to hit a lot of consistent, uh, opportunities from the outside. That was really important to see. So a Marco gets a good goat here, bad goats. I don't have as many.

Nick Timberlake is the first one. Real big opportunity for him to capitalize on his last game when he played 29 minutes, scored 13 points. He only played seven minutes in this game, and that's because I don't think Bill Self felt like he earned more playing time necessarily. The first stretch, he comes in, plays three minutes in the first half. He has two fouls.

I think he gave up like that three-point bucket where he kind of got sucked into the middle. Then in the second half he comes in, and it was more about the offense. He finished 0 for 5 for the game, 0 for 4 from 3, and it wasn't just chucking up shots or like, oh, late in shot clock, he had to shoot the three. There were at least three of them that were wide open corner threes and just missed all of them. And then the one two point

shot was the airballed eight footer, which I think Fran Fischella said on broadcast, like it's just in his head at this point. And I wonder if that's what it was. You were hoping that the Yale game was to get it out of his head. And then you have Christmas break, spend it with family. You can really decompress. It's unfortunate we didn't see that. He was minus 11. So in a game that you won by 19 where KJ Adams was plus 32 and DeJuan Harris was plus 27 and Hunter was plus 20, and all these guys were plus 20 or plus 15 or whatever,

he was minus 11 in just seven minutes of play. It's hard for that to happen. So I don't mean to do this to pile on Nick Timberlake, because again, he had a really good game against Yale in a game that you needed him even more than this one. And I still think it is in there. Like you don't just go from being, yes, there is an adjustment from going from Towson to Kansas.

And yes, there is an adjustment in terms of the athleticism and the length that is maybe you're contesting your shots. But a lot of these shots he's getting are not contested shots. They're wide open shots. You don't just go from being a 40 percent three point shooter over two years, over 500 attempts or whatever it was to not being able to hit anything. So I think it is mental. Can you get it figured out? Will remain to be seen.

I still have hope that he can. I don't necessarily know that him figuring it out is going to be ever to a point where like he's now playing 25 minutes a game and he's scoring 12 a game, but can he figure it out enough where he is, you know, giving you on average one or two threes per game off the bench, right? He's scoring eight points for, he's scoring six points for you off the bench. He's shooting 40% for three in limited sample size, in limited volume, but at least is giving that. And again, like I said with El Marco, progress isn't always linear. So maybe this was just the step back game

and then it'll be two steps back forward in the next game against TCU. Overall, and obviously this, you know, with Timberlake, that discussion was a reason why for this. Three point shooting was a bad goat here for KU as a team. They did get a lot of open looks. It wasn't just Timberlake. Other players got open looks

and weren't always able to capitalize on them. They were just 7 of 27 from 3, 26%. I do appreciate the high volume. I do appreciate the aggressiveness that KU players showed, willing to pull the trigger because they need to do that to open up the spacing on the court for the inside for Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams. But overall, not KU's best in terms of the three-point shooting.

Let's finish up what is next for KU men's basketball with this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by PrizePix, the most fun you can have winning up to 25 times your money this football or basketball season now. You just select two or more players, pick more or less on their projected stats, and place your for instance you could have gotten hunter dickinson his more or less on points was 17 and a half kevin mccullers was 18 and a half dewan harris's was eight and a half so if you went less on dewan harris more on hunter more on

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What's next for KU men's basketball? So currently they're sitting at 12-1. This will do it for the non-con from them, and it'll do it for the non-con overall because they don't, like in previous years, have the Big 12 SEC Challenge where they'll play a random SEC game at the end of January. So it's all Big 12 games from here until obviously the NCAA tournament.

But 12-1, Kansas sitting with a good chunk of solid wins and everything here. They're going to be playing TCU on Saturday. And TCU is a team that is 10-2 right now at this point in time. They lost by 8 to Clemson, lost by 13 to a good Nevada team. They don't really have any big wins so far. I don't think they have any top 100 Ken Palm wins, so who knows really how good they are, but they play really fast. They're one of the top five fastest teams in the country

by average possession length offensively. They shoot twos really well. They crash the rebounding really well, really athletic team. They force turnovers on the defensive end, but they don't shoot it that well. So it's very similar to what they've kind of been the last two years, but no Mike Miles anymore. You know, you have Jameer Nelson Jr.

You still have like Emmanuel Miller and Jacoby Coles. Obviously, Ernest Uday adds to an interesting storyline in this, though he's been kind of struggling a little bit so far this year. So that should be an interesting game against a very athletic team who wants to get up and down and smacked you on your home court last year, so trying to get revenge there. Then you're at UCF on January 10th, Oklahoma at home on January 13th. They've been awesome, so that'll be a tough game at Oklahoma State.

But Kansas needs to rack up early wins in conference play because when you look at their conference schedule, once the calendar goes into the, I don't know, month of February, here's their schedule. Versus Houston at Kansas State versus Baylor at Texas Tech at Oklahoma versus Texas versus BYU at Baylor versus Kansas State at Houston. That's the schedule from February on. That is going to be a brutal finish to the season. You need to rack up wins now. You need to build a nice nest egg in January if you want to win a Big 12 title because you don't want to be sitting there, you know, you're in second or third place in the Big 12 with all of those to come once the calendar flips to February. All

right, we'll get on to a KUTZU preview later in the week. We'll also get onto a Kobe Bryant. It will have his announcement on January 1st. So we'll react to that and the KU football season recap and plenty more coming at you this next week. So make sure you're subscribed anywhere. You get your podcast to locked on Jayhawks and, or on our YouTube page, have a great one.

Happy new year and talk to you, I guess next year. So I, sorry, I made that dumb joke, but that's how we're finishing the podcast with locked on Jayhawks.