Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Recap: #3 Kansas Jayhawks Clinch Big 12 Title with Tight Victory Against Texas Tech

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

The Kansas Jayhawks earned at least a share of the 2022-23 Big 12 title behind a tight senior night victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders, 67-63 in Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, KS. Jalen Wilson and Kevin McCullar stepped up in their final home game, while Dajuan Harris looked more than healthy. In the end, it was another ugly win though for KU, as Bill Self now has 17 conference titles in 20 seasons with the 'Hawks. Analysis of the game and GOATs.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet to get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Free Bets – win or lose! Visit Fanduel.com/LockedOn today to get startedFANDUEL 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 is once again your Big 12 champions for the 17th time in Bill Self's 20 years as head coach. Let's recap. Okay, you're taking down Texas Tech in an ugly win, 67 to 63. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Derek Johnson, you can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 on KLWN in Lawrence.

Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of the show, we're going to be going over KU Texas Tech game. Not the best performance of the season, but nonetheless, a win is a win. And KU is Big 12 champions. But first, this episode of Locked On Jayhawk to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On Jayhawked to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On. Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.com slash Locked On today to get started at FanDuel.

Kansas wins 67-63 over Texas Tech. And I will say, like we'll start here, you take the wins, you run with them. Conference, I mean, just start here, you take the wins, you run with them, conference. I mean, just in general, you do that. But sometimes there can be a bit of a worry if you continually play close games or continually play bad games because it's going to feel like eventually you're going to get burnt with fire. And there is a little bit of worry for me there because that's now describing the last three games for KU um but I think you know maybe some of this has to do a bit with the pressure like this kind of happened last year too okay you had to limp to the finish line with close wins over TCU and Texas and it also matters that your opponents you're playing in the last two games are fighting tooth

and nail to get to the NCAA tournament. And those are still good teams. Like, you know, we were talking about on RCST yesterday, if you went back to February 10th up until yesterday on Bart Torvik, Texas Tech was the No. 16 team in the country. Like, they were playing really good basketball. So a team playing really good basketball, a team fighting tooth and nail for everything they could get, and you just couldn't make shots.

Kind of the opposite of the West Virginia game. And honestly, it's a good thing those two games turned out how they did. The West Virginia game, Kansas made shots. They had to. The defense wasn't as good. In the TCU game, you didn't really make shots, but you held them down. In this game, you didn't make shots, but you held them down. If you were to switch, not making shots for the West Virginia game, you lose that game. So it kind of worked out in the end, but ugly, ugly game. I think I said,

after the TCU game, it was beautifully ugly, you know, that it was, there was something beautiful about showing that you could win an ugly game by ugling it up for the other team. And I guess there's that same sense in this one, but it's a little different because it's one thing to do it when you're going on the road against a top 25 opponent. It's another to do it against one of the bottom two or three teams in the Big 12 where you're expected to win by 9, 10 points, 8 points I think is what the line closed at.

So, and especially when they start to string together more like i was talking about but again if you just want to boil it down you could just say well you just couldn't really shoot like that's gonna happen on occasion i guess better to get that out now than maybe in the ncaa tournament though uh up until the west virginia game as we talked about on the past show like k Kansas has been struggling shooting the three ball for basically a six-game run, and now you look at seven of the last eight games, kind of struggled shooting the three. Is that worrisome? Are they getting tired legs because the starters are playing so much?

I don't know. You hope that's not the case, but you went just 5 of 23 from three-point range, shot just 39% from the floor. And, yeah, you could, like, point out certain things that weren't great for KU in the game. Like, rebounding wasn't great. You were basically walled off completely from getting any offensive rebounds. Amak did an unbelievable job.

He had 18 rebounds. Kansas had just four offensive rebounds, which, you know, they're not an elite offensive rebounding team, but we're used to seeing them get more than that. Tech had 10, which isn't like an insane number, but, you know, again, it's not like an unbelievable number, but it certainly is more than your four. So you could say, well, they did a better job on the offensive glass, but again, that's still not a giant number. And yeah, you could say, well, only, you know, Kansas only forced 10 turnovers against Texas tech. Like that's not a huge number that Texas tech had,

but Kansas had just five. So it's not like you had a big turnover game. It's not like you allowed them to have, you know, 15, 20 offensive rebounds or something like that. Okay. You got the shots they wanted to, they got to spots. They wanted, they got open threes. They got Grady Dick open for three, a good amount of time. They had some open mid-range shots even. It was just poor

shooting. That's kind of what it just boils down to. So you kind of just take the win and run. I think, I mean, you win the Big 12. You get by a scrappy Texas Tech team who's fighting for their life right now. You, I'm sure, felt the extra pressure of having to win that game to win the big 12 you want to share the big 12 now you hope texas loses and or you beat them down in austin to secure the league outright but big picture when this team was sitting at six and four and you were what two games back back of the lead of the Big 12. If I would have told you that they would win the league at that point, you wouldn't still have been shocked because we've seen it before

where KU teams have come back from deficits and have worked their way back into play. And you're never going to count out Kansas. You're never going to count out Bill Self teams. And even at that point, they were still like a top 10 team in the country. But I don't know if you would have thought that, like, if I would have told you that they would have clinched the conference, I don't know if you would have thought it would have been with one game to go. You probably would have thought they would have had to win that game in Austin at that point, down two games to go to clinch the conference.

And if Texas does lose the game tonight against TCU, you would clinch the conference outright. You definitely would not have thought that Kansas would have a chance to win the Big 12 outright before even they get to that last game at Texas. It's been a pretty remarkable run of turning things around here for KU. They are on a bit of a roll, even though some of these past few games have been a bit uglier than normal. I'm curious to see what they look like in the game against Texas because, you know, to be clear, like, I don't think they're really going to rest anybody,

but I guess that could be a question if Texas loses tonight and the game doesn't technically matter for KU, but I know Bill Self doesn't operate that way. So I'd expect everybody to play but you go into the Texas game if Texas does lose to TCU and at that point you would have clinched the conference outright I almost am even more curious what Kansas would play like without expectations without pressure on their back because even if they do win you're sitting there going oh at least we win the still know, like, hey, we got to win this to win it outright. Like, there's still pressure there. If there's no pressure attached to them, I could see them, you know, winning the game by a really impressive feat that they put on

because you don't have to worry about that pressure that maybe has gotten to them a little bit these past few games that they've still been able to get through. but maybe that adds to it a little bit now as far as the aftermath you have the senior day speeches uh kevin mcculler uh certainly had the crowd getting emotional with his talk about his family and everything with jaylen wilson just thanking everybody that was kind of a funny uh aftermath of the post game christian brown was like you took too long jalen was like you just wish you had one of these kind of a funny uh exchange between those two ku players but in the end not a pretty game certainly you don't want those to continue with the kind of are right now a

little bit worrisome but you know your big 12 champs who cares throws that to the side and you won the game 67 to 63 we're going to get on to our goats of the game in just a second here. But first this episode of Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. The midway point of the NBA season is here. And now is the perfect time to download FanDuel, America's number one sports book because new customers get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's bonus bets back.

If your first bet doesn't win, just download the FanDuel Sportsbook app. It's safe, secure, and super easy to use. Then you can bet on anything from money line to point spreads to threes drained. Right now they have some cool boosts up there. The one I'm looking at, if you're into golf, which I know I am, you can get Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy to each finish top 20 in round one of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It's going to plus 330. That's kind of a cool little boost, but you can bet on some of the different action around

the country tonight. So, for instance, you can bet on the Texas TCU game if you're confident that TCU is going to pull the upset and that Texas is going to not have a chance to win the Big 12. I know that's been a bet that we've kind of talked about here. You take the team you think is going to win in the Big 12. You take them or that's actually or yeah, yeah. Tonight is whatever the game tonight. You take the team you think is going to win and they have these margin bets on FanDuel

that you can bet TCU to win exactly by 1 to 10 points. It's plus 184. So you can check that out or build whatever player prop that you kind of want. You can build a same-game parlay. Don't miss the chance to get your no-sweat first bet up to $1,000 in bonus bets when you go to fanduel.com slash lockedon.

That's fanduel.com slash locked on to learn more. Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. For sure, for a second there, I was like, wait, today's Tuesday. Now today is Wednesday. So yeah, it is the Texas TCU game. Okay, goats of the game between Kansas

and Texas Tech. First, we'll start with the good for KU. DeJuan Harris, 16 points. He was 7 of 12 from the floor. Five assists to one turnover. Just continues to add to this. Like every game, it's growing.

Oh, assist to turnover ratio over the last two games, three games, four games. Just continues to be outstanding for DeJuan. He is on an absolute heater right now. And just with the aggressiveness he's been. I mean, how about some of those those like euro step like kind of juke layups that he took to get wide open oh my gosh uh just unbelievable stuff from what we saw from dewan i'm sure texas tech like if you if you had these games in like the 1950s where we didn't have like public you know television of all these games on

or you didn't have as easy access to what was going on at other teams in the country maybe like you just maybe read about the occasional small little blurb in like the newspaper or something and texas tech had no idea what dewan harris did against other teams they would think he was averaging 20 points a game from just the two games that he played against him. Like, he just makes all the threes in the first game, makes a couple in this one. He was unbelievable. And maybe the most impressive part for me is that

he comes off that injury against West Virginia, where he misses the final minute, minute and a half of the game. And you're kind of questioning, well, is he going to play at 100%? Is he going to play at all? We heard from Bill Suff at Hawk Talk the night before that. Yeah, he practiced like we expect him to play. So you knew he was going to play, but was there going to be a reduction in minutes? Was he still going to be the same guy? Was he going to be bothered by it at all? And

the answer was a resounding, no, he played 38 minutes after the injury. So, uh, DeJuan Harris gets a good goat there, uh, for helping lead the charge for KU. Jalen Wilson gets a good goat here on senior day. He had a rough start. I think he started over three over four, and then he really picked it up. He scored his final 21 points on at that point. I mean, he did it on 16 shots,

which is not like, you know, bad efficiency. Um, it's, if you look at it after loop missing those first three or four, that means he scored his final 21 on like 12 shots. So he really picked it up. He had five rebounds. He had two assists, but he really just grinded through for you. Second half, I don't think he missed from the

free throw line, which was obviously very important. And at times when you're struggling to get buckets, KU's best offense was just, hey, let's just post up Jalen Wilson, and let's just have him try to bully ball his way to the rim to get an easy bucket. And when KU was kind of struggling offensively and shooting the ball from the outside, it was like, hey, we just need to attack. And Jalen Wilson, no better player than doing that for KU last night to get you through a game where nobody was really making jump shots. To have him inside was so pivotal for your performance but then how about the big block toward the end of the game

um texas tech is down what by three points i think it was uh after kevin mcculler laid in the like scramble layup whatever you want to call it and And it was, I think, 63-60. Texas Tech goes down, they're looking for a two, and there's a drive to the right and Jalen Wilson blocks it away. And for a guy that, you know, maybe his first couple years wasn't known for being a great defender and at times was being targeted a lot on the defensive end of the court. I think you really saw him step up his defense the final few weeks of last season and through the NCAA tournament. And we've seen him this year, you know, maybe be a guy who early last season was, I don't know, like a, maybe a below average defender to all of a sudden this season at different points, he's been an average

to above average defender. And for a guy who, who you know carries as big of a load as he does offensively like you're not gonna ask that guy to be your your number one defender like that that is so rare for that to happen um it just takes up so much energy and so to do what jaylen has done on the defensive end but then step up in those big moments has been really nice progression for him. In addition to some of the other things he's improved on this season and for that to come full circle and for him to have a big block toward the end of the game on a very big possession,

I thought was really cool. Like you could argue the two biggest plays of the game was the Kevin McCuller bucket. And then that Jalen Wilson block for KU down the stretch, both were made by seniors on senior night, which was really cool and for jaylen's his was on the defensive end you more know him for the offensive end for kevin's you would think of him more on the defensive end his was on the offensive end so kind of a cool little paradigm that happened between the two of them but jaylen played great last night and helped will kansas to a win kevin mcculler gets our uh other

good goat here 14 points he had nine rebounds and had the, I guess, biggest make of the game for Kansas. So Kansas was really struggling scoring. They just kept going one and done every trip and missing. And I will say, give credit to KJ Adams. I didn't have KJ Adams on either of these lists. It wasn't a really good offensive game. He had the one missed little layup alley-oop. He only had, I think, seven points for the game. It wasn't a really good offensive game. He had the one missed little layup alley-oop, and he only had, I think, seven points for the game.

It wasn't a good offensive game. KJ did have a good rebounding game, one of his better rebounding games, and he helped make the hustle play. It's funny. It was multiple guys. Him, Jalen, and Kevin all made insane hustle plays on the final play. KJ just got his nose in there just to make it a contested rebound at all then Jalen came over when O'Banner was trying to pass it out and made it a kind of deflected

contested whatever you want to call it pass that forced it into the middle and then there was the loose ball and Kevin McCuller ends up getting to it I know tech fans want to argue it's a foul I will just say that for a majority of time when there was a loose ball officials, let the two teams basically commit murder on each other. Is it right? Probably not, but they never call that in general. So that's probably why that happened. But, um, I do think when, when you look at the, the, uh, angle from the side, it looks like it's, it could be a foul when you look at it from the back, like the baseline view, it doesn't really look like one. But anyway, that's neither here nor there.

It was an unbelievable effort play by Kevin McCuller, and to do it against his former school on senior night was probably very special for him. And to come up with that layup when KU was in a rut and just could not find a way to put the ball through the hoop. But he was obviously, again, great again defensively, getting rebounds for you. He got to 12 points with, I want to say like the 10 minute mark in the second half

and that put him exactly one point away from getting a thousand in his career. And then he kind of, he missed a couple of layups. He missed like a wide open mid range shot. And then he comes up with that big one. So not only did it basically help win KU the game, beat his former team, get him a win on senior night it got him over a thousand points which was pretty cool there for uh kevin all right we're gonna finish up with our bad goats of the game with locked on jay hawks so i think just three point shooting in general needs to go up there five of 23 for the game for KU. Grady Dick certainly probably singled out here for the bad goat on the three-point shooting.

He was 0 for 5 from three. He was 0 for 7 from the floor. Offensively, Grady had a bad game. I will say, to Grady's credit, I didn't think this was like a... Because you've seen some games where Grady maybe has struggled a bit defensively. I didn't think this was a game where he struggled defensively.

Despite him going 0 for 7 and 0 for 5, typically if that were to happen and he were to be struggling defensively, because he's a freshman, there's going to be some games he struggles, some games he plays well, and there has been some games he's played well there, then you might only play high 20s minutes. But I think what showed in his other entities of the game, which he had five rebounds and four assists again he wasn't like a negative defensively is the fact that he did play like 35 minutes like that showed you

bill self viewed it as no he's still impacting the game and positives in some other ways and also like his gravity of being on the floor even if he is of seven they're still going to guard him like he is grady dick because he's grady dick, right? He'd get hot at any moment here. So, I mean, that would show up on the bad goats for his shooting performance. He did make four clutch free throws for you, though. That deserves notice. And I didn't want to put Grady on here as a whole in general because of five rebounds and four assists and being on the floor 35 minutes

and hitting those four clutch free throws. But if we just single it out to the shooting for KU and the shooting from three and grady dick shooting from three yeah that's that's bad goat stuff from what you saw last night so clearly you need to get him going again you don't expect that to happen again they were open looks sometimes shooters are just going to have a bad game you just hope that doesn't pop up in the wrong moment uh but bench guards after his first three get a bad goat here so joe made his first three of the game and i was like okay and that was the first three for ku after i think they were like oh for five to that point and then he took two others missed them both and uh for him and bobby again

like kind of empty calories are not a bunch over these last two games outside of that made three bobby and joe combined for for Owen three but even if you include the made three here's the the total for the stat line for the two of them which oh yes for Bobby Pettiford 12 minutes three points one of four from the floor zero assists two fouls and you in a game that DeJuan Harris was coming off that ankle injury didn't really provide enough trust for DeJuan to be on the bench for longer for bill self that wasn't totally ideal probably not the the most horrible game off the bench for those two but again these are stacking up like you need to get more from these bench guards and kind of say

it after every game there's that you know one every two one every three games or maybe one of the two like perform something but uh it's not been consistent enough for KU headed into the Big 12 tournament next week now he figured it out last year with Remy Martin like in the Big 12 tournament this is different because the the ceiling of what Remy Martin was last year is different than what the ceiling of Bobby and Joe is this year but you know I guess you could point to it and say well maybe they'll finally figure it out during that week of the season last bad goat here execution down the stretch versus tech you almost blew both games against texas tech you were up what eight or nine points in lubbock with two and a half to go you almost lost the game this game you uh got up what 58 51 and then it was like 61 to 55 and you just couldn't put it away because you couldn't score a bucket toward the end of the game.

And so DeJuan, he hit a layup to put KU up 58 to 51. That was a 449 to go. Here is KU's offense, their ending shot, possession, whatever you want to call it, between that made layup with 449 and until Kevin McCuller got that loose ball bucket. Missed jumper, two made free throws, missed jumper, split free throws, missed three, missed layup, missed runner, missed layup. That's not ideal. Not ideal down the stretch.

That is over a four-minute stretch to close the game, or about four minutes. I forget when Kevin laid it in. But about a four-minute stretch to close the game where you were 0-6 from the floor. And what's a little scary is this a bit of a trend. I mean, it didn't happen. You were able to make shots late against West Virginia, but it also happened against TCU lately. Not a trend you want to continue.

I don't think it's a trend, to be clear. But when it happens a couple times in about a week's span, it scares you a little bit more. So execution down the stretch, not ideal for Kansas, but they were able to come through because of, I guess, the hustle and effort of what Kevin McCuller did on that final play to just put one through the bottom of the basket. That's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

We'll be back on tomorrow's show examining KU's one seed candidacy in terms of have they locked up a one seed? Short answer. Yes. Where's their case for the number one overall seed? What do they need to do moving forward to kind of clinch that and possibly clinch playing in Kansas City? You can find us wherever you find our show.

We're available wherever your podcast. You can find us on youtube matt d johnson on twitter have a good rest today i'll see you on rock shark sports talk later today till then bye