Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #3 Kansas Jayhawks Blow Out Oklahoma State Cowboys Behind Johnny Furphy's Breakout Game

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we recap Kansas taking down Oklahoma State in a blowout win in Stillwater. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we're breaking down KU Oklahoma State. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Nick Springer holding down the fort right there, right now.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the action. So KU wins 90-66 in Stillwater. No problems for KU, just a dominant wire-to-wire performance. They led for over 39 minutes of action. We're breaking that down. Go to the game. What's next for KU men's basketball on this episode of the show?

Starting point is 00:01:01 First, we were brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager for your small business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for free. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Terms and conditions apply. 90-66, the final score is KU improves to 15-2 on the season, and they stay with just one loss so far in Big 12 play at 3-1. It was an elite overall game for the offensive side of the basketball for KU,

Starting point is 00:01:32 specifically in that first half. I mean, they were really good in the second half, too. They put up 48 in the first half, 42 in the second half, so it's not like the second half was bad or anything like that, but the first half was just taking it to a whole nother level. Kansas wound up with 90 points on a 62% shooting from the floor. That will win you a lot of games. They were almost 70% shooting in the first half of basketball. And it was a low volume, but solid efficiency game from three, which we've seen a lot of so far this season from KU. It's kind of funny, you know, the way that they were shooting threes in the first half, specifically Johnny Furphy, you would have thought that they ended up making more than five threes for the game.

Starting point is 00:02:10 They finished five of 13. I could have sworn they took more than that, but I went afterwards and I was like, oh, okay. Once the game gets out of hand a bit in the second half, maybe you're not focused as much on that, and things started opening up on the inside because of what you did, three-point shooting in the first half too, I think as well. But you were solid at the line, solid efficiency on three-point, even though it was

Starting point is 00:02:27 low volume. Kansas mashed Oklahoma State on the inside. Kansas was 31 of 45 on two-point shots. I know those aren't all inside or at the rim, but 68.8% is what that equates out to on two-point shots, including 20 of 28 on dunks plus layups. And overall, you put it together, here is the shots inside in the paint. Kansas beat Oklahoma State 46-24 in points in the paint. So in a game you win 90-66, that's a 24-point margin. You outscored them by 22 in the paint. Okay, there's a majority of why you dominated them inside.

Starting point is 00:03:03 And they didn't come in as a great inside scoring team. You came in as a great inside scoring team, but you took advantage of that and really just mushed them around on the inside. It was another strong lower turnover game, not a super low one necessarily. 11 is still a number that is maybe a few more than you would expect because coming into this one, Oklahoma State had not been playing well in terms of forcing turnovers. So, you know, maybe if you want a nitpick, you can be like,

Starting point is 00:03:29 ah, I wish it would have been eight or nine or something like that. But overall, if they have 11 turnovers in the game, I think you're going to feel happy with where they'll be in a majority of their games. That's about middle of the pack in terms of their turnover rate in a game on the season. And they had a couple of them late too, like a Marco Jackson has one go off his leg toward

Starting point is 00:03:45 the end of the game. So realistically, that's a good number. I think if Kansas can be at, you know, I don't know, around 11, 12 turnovers or less per game, you're going to feel good about where they're at, especially compared to where they were their first two games with the TCU and UCF games. So not the Oklahoma game, but it was good enough there. And, you know, in addition to that, you also forced 14 of them from Oklahoma State, capitalized much better on those takes.

Starting point is 00:04:08 Jayhawks were superior in transition. They went 22-7 in points off turnovers and 20-3 in fast break points. So Kansas was the much better team when they were able to get out and run. But I think outside of the team performance, this game kind of boils down to one thing, and it's one guy, Johnny Furphy. Obviously, a lot of players played really well for Kansas. I don't mean it like that, but the storyline of this game is what that one guy did, and that was Johnny Furphy, who scored 15 points for the game out of reach and it was just a excellent performance all around in that you know he moves the starting lineup last game score seven points aggressive going for the shot he comes up with a couple nice offensive rebounds made some nice plays for you and this game he took it to another level it seems like this move to the starting lineup has given him a confidence boost

Starting point is 00:05:02 to where he is feeling like okay okay, I'm doing stuff right. I am confident. I know what I can do, and I'm going after it. I said on an earlier show this week, I thought maybe that El Marco Jackson has the higher potential a year or two down the road, when some of these players graduate and if you're sticking around college, to be a future All-American player at Kansas, to be that next All-American guard at Kansas.

Starting point is 00:05:24 And I still believe that that could be in the future for a Marco Jackson down the road. But I said also in conjunction with that, I said, even though that's true, I think Johnny Furphy is the better fit for this team right now. You know, honestly, after watching that game, maybe it's just one game, small sample size. I'm kind of like, well, you know, Johnny Furphy is the better fit for this team right now in the starting lineup right now. But he also might have the better chance of being, you know, an NBA draft pick because he's a lengthy win wing. And he also might have a better chance of, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:48 being an all American candidate with what we've seen KU wings produce over the last three years with Ocha Agbaje and Jalen Wilson, now Kevin McCuller, even to a lesser extent like Christian Brown, you know, so maybe it is Johnny Furphy in that answer, but either way, he just feels so confident in how he's playing out there.

Starting point is 00:06:09 Things just flow so much better on the offensive end of the court. And obviously the big part of it, El Marco, I think a lot of it had been a better defender than Johnny Furphy had been. And I still think El Marco probably better on ball defender though with Furphy, I think you're really seeing the defense improve game in and game out. And it's improved enough that if he can just be an average below average defender, you know, whereas if El Marco is an average to above average defender, it more than makes up for it in the other areas. He shoots the basketball well, he spaces the floor well because of the shooting teams have to respect him. It's the length, you know, just having another tall guy out there, having somebody who can score in transition, throw down dunks for you in transition. You have enough passers out there with DeJuan and Kevin,

Starting point is 00:06:48 and obviously even KJ and Hunter can pass the ball. Have somebody else who can go throw down the dunk on the other end of the pass. And having somebody who can open things up for other players just by being on the floor in his gravity. Getting the hustle balls that he gets to. Part of it's because of his length, but his his hustle he's getting you an offensive rebound or two pretty much every game where he's getting you that extra possession kind of looks like Grady Dick when you had this bigger guard who was really good at knowing when to crash the glass on the offensive

Starting point is 00:07:16 end that's what Furphy's doing he did it again in this game against Oklahoma State and it just it makes things flow so much better because you can put him on the same side as Hunter Dickinson and it's harder to help off of him as opposed to if he's on the same side of El Marco Jackson and the other team is just like, oh, just help off El Marco if we give up an open three to him, whatever. You can't really do that to Johnny Furphy. And the more he hits these shots and has games like this, the more that is going to become pretty apparent for opposing defenses. It just feels like things run so much smoother,

Starting point is 00:07:45 whether it's for Hunter Dickinson, whether it's – I feel like DeJuan Harris plays better when Johnny Furphy's out there. Just having another shooter to space the floor, I don't know what it is. I just feel like everything offensively runs so much smoother when you have that extra shooter out there. And I think you saw Bill Self's trust from last game to this game kind of go beyond just, okay, we're going to start this guy. We're going to have a Marco come off the bench, but the narrowness of minutes between

Starting point is 00:08:11 the two is still going to be close because, you know, last game, even though Furphy starts and Marco's coming off the bench, they're playing within a few minutes of each other. But this game, Johnny Furphy got 33 minutes and Marco Jackson got just 12. Now, if Furphy starts one for three from three, or maybe he only has six points at halftime or something, does Furphy end up with, I don't know, 25 minutes and Elmarco ends up with 20 or something like that? Yeah, that's entirely possible in terms of when you're predicting the future games. Don't necessarily view it as, okay, now moving forward, every game Furphy is going to play 30 plus minutes and every game El Marco is going to play under 15. I still think they will be closer together than what we saw tonight,

Starting point is 00:08:49 the 33 to 12, unless Furphy is having a game like this. But I think this does show there is more distancing happening. So maybe Furphy moving forward becomes a 22, 25 to 30 minute per game guy, whereas El Marco is closer to that 14, 15, 16 minute per game mark. But it feels like the gap is widening even further between those two players in what we saw. And Johnny Furphy just, you know, I think this defense has enough to be a good enough defense to make a final four run, to win a national title. The offense is where you have to make those strides, and Johnny Furphy has helped you do that on the offensive side of the ball. So just a dominant

Starting point is 00:09:24 performance all around. You led for 39-12, winning basically every category, getting plenty of contributions all around the starting five. It wasn't a special KU defensive game, and it didn't need to be, but this is the value of having a good offense. KU scored 1.32 points per possession. That's an excellent number. When you look at Ken Palm's adjusted offensive efficiency for the game, it registered as a 1.259 or 125.9 points per 100 possessions.

Starting point is 00:09:50 That's third best on the year against Oklahoma. The previous game that Furphy started, it was about 115.9. That was seventh best of season. So two of your better offensive performances of the year. And when you look at the flip side of this, both of KU's two losses were their two worst point per possession games of the season. So if Furphy and the offense is turning the corner, that's how this team can win a title. And you look at national title teams, I think outside of like one, I was actually looking at this today.

Starting point is 00:10:16 I posted this on my Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it, that you look back to entering the tournament since like 2000, something like that. Ken Palm ratings for adjusted offensive efficiency. And it's like there's like a UConn team in there in 2014 or whatever. That's the outlier. For the most part, you pretty much have to have like a top 21, top 25 adjusted offensive efficiency headed into the tournament. Kansas came into this game like 40th. This game alone leapt them into 32nd. You keep playing like this, you might end up in that range.

Starting point is 00:10:47 And so you look at this, yes, I don't think Oklahoma State's a great team, but any win in the Big 12 is good. Any road win in the Big 12 is great. And, yeah, Oklahoma State's not a very good team, but guess what? Their only other home game in the Big 12, they took Baylor to overtime. So winning on the road is tough. Winning on the road in this league is tough. And to win like that going away in a place that you have struggled Baylor to overtime. So winning on the road is tough. Winning on the road in this league is tough.

Starting point is 00:11:08 And to win like that going away in a place that you have struggled as a program under Bill Self in the past, that was about impressive as we've seen KU look so far this season, especially in the offensive end of the court. Now you got to repeat that in kind of a similar situation on Saturday in Morgantown. We'll get to what's next and our goats of the game on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

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Starting point is 00:12:03 post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. That is linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Under goats of the game, good goats, bad goats, then what is next for KU men's basketball in this episode of Locked on Jayhawks? We'll have a KU preview coming out later this week for that KU West Virginia game next up for them.

Starting point is 00:12:31 So our good goats here, let's start with Johnny Furphy. We just talked about his impact into the starting lineup, finished with 15 points. He was five for six shooting. All of those came in the first half, but it just didn't really matter by the time the second half came. And it's about the respect, right? If you have somebody out there who the defense respects, it's opening up the spacing for Hunter Dickinson on the block.

Starting point is 00:12:51 It's opening up the spacing for KJ Adams to drive to the rim. It's opening up the spacing for DeJuan Harris to weave into the lane and drive and score or drive and kick. It's opening up the spacing on the opposite side for Kevin McCullough, right? There's so many things that just being that threat out there matters, but he went beyond that 15 points. He also had seven rebounds, which is nice to see. That's another added plus you get with Furphy over El Marcos.

Starting point is 00:13:15 You get the better rebounder there, which helps on both ends of the floor. He had two assists, and he also had two blocks, so showing up a little bit there. And I thought this was one of his better defensive games. There's still going to be moments like I saw there was one moment where he got put on like a smaller guard and the guard kind of blew past him that's going to happen because he's a bigger guy who maybe is going to benefit more from playing like wings although you're still looking to add weight to him so maybe if it's a powerful wing that could be a tough

Starting point is 00:13:38 matchup for him so from that standpoint but you're getting so much more on the offensive end of the court that it's it's worth it. KJ Adams gets a good goat here. 16 points on 8 of 10 shooting, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 block. You just continue to be all over the floor for KU, throwing down dunks, getting assists, leading breaks, bringing it up, dribbling, doing a little bit of everything. This is actually one of his lower rebounding games of late. But when you view it as like, okay, now that, you know, El Marco Jackson, you're only getting one, two,

Starting point is 00:14:09 three rebounds in a specific game. And with KJ, that definitely meant that, yeah, you need the guy who we saw the four previous games before this, who's getting seven to 10 rebounds. Well, now Furphy is going to be in the starting lineup, getting you a handful of rebounds per game. You basically view it as, okay, seven from Furphy, four from KJ, seven from Hunter Dickinson, and Kevin McCuller gives you six more. 24 rebounds from those four guys.

Starting point is 00:14:32 That'll play between the four of them. Hunter Dickinson, though, also gets a good go here. 21 points, 9 of 14 shooting. He's just a cheat code on the block, man. Some of the shots that he throws up with his, as Nick Schwert talks about, who comes on the show, his orangutan arms that they're just flopping around. He gets these ones where, you know, even if it feels like the defender is defending him well in the post, but because he has such long arms, he just kind of throws them up at these awkward angles, but he has such good

Starting point is 00:14:56 touch. And with the long arms, it just flicks it in. It's, it's, it's unbelievable. Some of the tough shots he can make, whether it's the easy ones on the hook shots or picking pops. I mean, it's a beautiful jump shot. Just such a skilled, advanced offensive player. He also added seven rebounds, two assists, and he had two blocks in the game. Kevin McCuller gets a good go. 18 points on seven of 14 shooting, eight assists, six rebounds, and one steal. So he filled up the statue. He was actually KU's leader in assists for the game, really, I guess, orchestrating a lot of different things, but also hitting some shots when he needed him to. It's funny because Kevin has a game like this, like 18 points, eight assists, six rebounds. That is a phenomenal line, especially in college basketball. And yet he is, you know, it's not the

Starting point is 00:15:40 talk of him. It's the talk of Johnny Furphy after this game. It's the talk of Hunter Dickinson scoring 20 plusplus points. But Kevin continues to be excellent each and every night. DeJuan Harris gets a good go at it as well. So the entire starting five I put on here, DeJuan had 11 points on four of six shooting. I see the, I guess, aggressiveness. He had three assists, a bit of a lower number for him. It was such a – I mentioned KU led 23 in fast break points and 22-7 in points off turnovers.

Starting point is 00:16:05 You know, that just pretty much becomes, okay, whoever the ball is driving and getting the assists. You end up with five for KJ Adams. You end up with a couple for Johnny Furphy, a couple for Dickinson, eight for Kevin McCuller. There's only so many assists that are going to go around. So he's still contributing there. Maybe he gets some hockey assists, but he doesn't end up with them.

Starting point is 00:16:21 But it was just one turnover for DeJuan Harris. That's what you really want to see. He also had three steals. You like to see him getting going on the defensive end. He only played 31 minutes, too, so this wasn't a game where he had to play 38, 39 minutes, which is going to be nice for, I guess, getting him a little bit of rest, but also shows that, yeah, another game he probably puts up even bigger stats than he did because the minutes would be a little bit higher.

Starting point is 00:16:40 And I feel like DeJuan is, like I said, played a lot better with Furphy out there. I don't know if it's just there's more space to operate in the middle of the lane weaving through uh things or if it has something to do with okay it helps the offense with Furphy's out there so DeJuan has to do a little bit less in terms of ball handling and that allows him to do more on defense I don't know what it is maybe he's just turning a corner whatever but I think he's played really well over the past couple games after you know having a bit of a hit or miss in in non-conference play shot blocking gets a good goat here. This one real quick.

Starting point is 00:17:06 KU led 7-0 in blocked shots, and you heard a couple from a lot of those guys along the way. As far as the bad goats for KU, this is not going to be a long list. I don't know. I feel bad again, like singling out players, and I'm not trying to. I still think this player is a high future. I don't know if it'll be realized this year, but I do think down the road eventually, but that's how Marco Jackson, ideally it would be realized this year

Starting point is 00:17:28 because then you would have that go-to bench guard that can come off and play 15, 20 minutes off the bench and relieve DeJuan Harris. And, you know, you saw a little bit of that. You saw the flash on that great pass that he had where it's like, okay, if he can give you, you know, like I said, 15 minutes a game, but six to eight of those are allowing DeJuan Harris

Starting point is 00:17:43 to go on the bench and get a real rest to where DeJuan can play, you know, a hundred percent when he's out there, that would be so vital for this team. So that was a nice positive moment. We did see some other solid moments throughout the bench. Like Nick Timberlake had that one, one-handed thunder dunk. That was awesome. Parker Brown continues to just, you know, do a serviceable job as the backup big Michael Jankovic hit that really deep three McDowell didn't really play. So, you know, do a serviceable job as the backup big. Michael Jankovic hit that really deep three. McDowell didn't really play. So, I mean, overall for the Bents, there's a few moments here or there. But outside of that, it's just, you know, tough sledding for El Marco.

Starting point is 00:18:12 12 minutes played, two points on one of three shooting, one rebound, one assist to two turnovers. He did have one steal. And in a game where all five of KU's starters were plus 21 or better on plus minus, El Marco was a zero on the plus minus scale, which, you know, again, it's smaller sample size and whatever. But still, you're out there 12 minutes. You were out there with a lot of the other starters over the course of much of the game. The O rating was only a 44.5.

Starting point is 00:18:38 That's measured on a scale of like points per 100 possessions. And like most of KU starters were over a hundred, only 44, five. So not great. Hope El Marco can turn a corner. Like I said, I still think that's in there and very benefit KU. If it certainly would.

Starting point is 00:18:52 And I don't think it's for a lack of trying. I was hoping that the move to the bench would maybe free his mind a little bit more, but sometimes it's just hard. Sometimes guys just take longer and that's okay. Right. El Marco hasn't been playing basketball like that long. The ceiling is still very high on what he can become question is will he get close to that at

Starting point is 00:19:08 all at some point this season so far we haven't really seen it at least consistently the last one here for bad goats is having to play against Bryce Thompson he scored 40 points against KU in the two games last year puts up 20 more tonight now it didn't really matter because KU's offense KU was always in control of the game but yeah playing against Bryce Thompson has not been fruitful for KU, and he continues to play well in those games. All right, that'll do it for that GOATS of the game. Let's get to what's next for KU's men's basketball on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, we're brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. The NFL regular season is wrapping up,

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Starting point is 00:21:00 at a fraction of the regular cost. It's never been more important to be prepared than today. Go to jacemedical.com and use offer code LOCKEDON to get $20 off your order. What's next for KU men's basketball? So kind of similar to this one. Oklahoma State had been one of the two or three worst teams coming into this in the Big 12 when you look at the non-con combined with the start to conference play. West Virginia, that's also been the case. Though they do have a Big 12 when you look at the non-con combined with the start to conference play. West Virginia, that's also been the case, though.

Starting point is 00:21:25 They do have a Big 12 win coming at home. And West Virginia has been a better team a little bit since Raekwon Battle has come in. Not enough to be like, oh, this is an NCAA tournament team or anything like that. But I don't know, maybe a little bit more dangerous. And playing them on the road, I think Bill Self is only 5-6 in Morgantown all time. So that's been a tough place to play. It makes it very similar to this. One of the bottom teams in the Big 12, tough place to play on the road against a team that typically you have had struggles with in their home environment. And how those two things are going to go together. You hope you

Starting point is 00:21:57 get something similar to what you saw in this one, to where Kansas is able to just kind of control and take the crowd out of the game, though it wasn't a very full Oklahoma State crowd. I would imagine the West Virginia crowd is going to be a little bit tougher. But overall, West Virginia is 6-10 on the season, and they have struggled on the offensive end of the court. They have not really shot it well from any level of the floor. But again, they did beat Texas by three

Starting point is 00:22:20 in their most recent game, so certainly one to watch there. Then after that, you're versus Cincinnati, who picked up a big win against TCU. That one becomes interesting at Allen Fieldhouse next Monday. And I guess it's just constant grind is on in the Big 12 with trying to figure out who those teams are. Like Baylor loses tonight. Houston's already lost a couple times.

Starting point is 00:22:37 Kansas lost to UCF. It's going to be a grind all the way through. You can't take anything for granted. And that was the importance of KU winning big time by 24 points tonight. We'll see if they can carry that over into a road tilt at West Virginia in Morgantown on Saturday. We will preview that game on Friday's episode of the show. I'm going to be off tomorrow and then, yeah, back at it on Friday. So savor this or any of our past football episodes while you can with Locked on Jayhawks. We'll see you next time with LOJ. Have a great rest of your day and see you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #3 Kansas Jayhawks Blow Out Oklahoma State Cowboys Behind Johnny Furphy's Breakout Game

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