Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Recap: #3 Kansas Jayhawks Trounced by #9 Texas Longhorns in Austin

Episode Date: March 5, 2023

Recapping #3 Kansas Jayhawks losing in Austin, TX to the #9 Texas Longhorns, 75-59. Reasons why Kansas is more than fine even after the loss, but also there is a bit to be worried and cautious about. What went wrong for KU in the loss, and why it was reminiscent of some earlier season struggles. GOATs of the game like Jalen Wilson to the bad for Bill Self's team.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. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.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 with a bad outing, to say the least, against Texas. A lot of people say it doesn't matter. It didn't to Big 12 standings for KU, but we'll discuss maybe a few worries out of the game, even though at the end of the day, it's really not that worrisome. This is Locked on Jayhawks. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Falls 75-59 in Austin against the Texas Longhorns,

a game that didn't matter for KU. They'd won the Big 12 outright. They'd clinched it coming in. It mattered a lot for Texas. They were trying to get out of a rut. They were trying to get some momentum back at the end of the season. It was senior day for them. They're playing the Jayhawks, which is always a kind of circle event

for different teams, and they're playing them at home. So for all those reasons, just motivation aside, the game doesn't really end up mattering. It doesn't change the fact that this Kansas team still won the most incredibly hard version of the Big 12 that we've ever seen and that they're still in the race for the number one overall seed, that they're going to get a one seed in general, and that they're still the one seed for the Big 12 tournament.

None of that changed. Now, there are a few things that we can point to, and I know some people will say yeah but the game didn't matter at all you know didn't matter at all here's here's where that argument kind of dies for me it would have been one thing if kansas went into the game saying you know because of this game not meaning anything to the standings like we might play him a few a few less minutes or we're gonna give this guy a break you know the kevin mccullough or duane harris like they just had rolled ankles recently like we're

gonna let them uh play 10 less minutes or they're just not gonna play today or jaylen wilson's been carrying a big load for this team all season long like we're gonna give him a day off you know it would have been one thing if if that was the result last night and that is what happened it would have been another thing too if you went in there last night or on saturday and you know you lost by six or seven points it's like okay well you know you played a good game but sometimes the other team is just better and you played them on the road against a good very talented texas team like okay shrug your shoulder sometimes that happens where you lose me with it is Kansas went into this full-fledged saying you know we're taking this seriously you know you heard DeJuan Harris say I've never won in Austin before and I want

to get that out of the way and you know you heard from DeJuan talking about how much how important this game still was and how they still wanted to win the game you heard from Bill Self talking about that no they're not going to rest anyone and that they're still taking it seriously and it's competitive and there's nothing wrong with all those things that were said I'm not trying to say that's the case those you know you want your team to be competitive and all those things those are not bad my point there is this though that means they took this game seriously so if you lose by 16 and you look bad in a lot of ways i don't know that you can just chalk it up to say oh well it didn't matter they didn't care there was no motivation when literally every message that we heard from players and coaching staff coming into the game was that they are going to take it serious now maybe that's just putting on a bit of a front because you're not going to come

out to the press conference and go oh yeah we don't care if we lose whatever right that's not what's going to happen at the press conference so maybe there is a little bit of that but when that was the message all week long if you lose by 16 and look as poor as Kansas did in that game you know all of a sudden it doesn't just become ah well who cares you know throw it away again I'm not saying panic mode or that this is like the end of the world but I do think there's some things you can take away from the game and it's not as simple to just say ah well the game didn't matter you know remove everything from your equation so Kansas just kind of stunk in the game. They shot, let's see, 14 of 36 on two-point shots, which is 39%. That's one of their lower marks of the season.

After they shot 55%, I think, in the first game with Texas, they were really able to drive them, get open lanes to the rim, and take advantage of Texas' kind of lack of size. Not a great three-point shooting game. They shot 31% from three in February shooting game they shot 31 from three in february they shot 32 from three in this game so you were hoping that maybe dug out of the rut but still did not there you shot poorly at the free throw line you didn't have a ton of turnovers but you didn't turn them over they had 15 in the first game you only got them to seven turnovers in this

game you did a good job on the defensive glass um but you didn't get a ton on the offensive glass either which has kind of been the case a majority of the season for KU here, but against Texas in the first meeting, you had like 14 offensive rebounds and they have not been a good defensive rebounding team. You weren't able to take advantage of that. And it just, it felt super sluggish all the way through. Overall, Kansas shoots 36% from the game. It was similar to the Iowa State game in Ames, which, again, going back to the idea that you shouldn't overworry, like Kansas shook off that Iowa State loss earlier this season.

And after looking horrible in Ames, losing by 15, looking so lethargic, they beat Texas by eight they beat Oklahoma by 23 that was the start of seven straight wins for them so again if they go out in the big 12 tournament now and they went out again nobody is going to be pointing back to this but you can look at it the other way too because now I think there's just more pressure with the big 12 tournament but it was similar to that game in Ames because not just because you lost by you know 15 in this case 16 and doing it on the road but it was back to the uh what we were used to with like jaylen wilson having that stretch where he was just going off like you know 23 points for jaylen

uh 10 rebounds and then nobody else gets in double figures for KU. Like DeJuan Harris had his worst shooting game of the season. He still had seven assists to zero turnovers, and I thought did a pretty good job on Marcus Carr. I mean, Carr had six points. But offensively, it was a struggle for him. Kevin had kind of a, you know, not a good game, not a bad game. KJ had some positives, negatives. Grady Dick dick i don't know what's going on there that's probably the biggest negative

to come out of the game there's no back-to-back games where he's been kind of um invisible from the offense and he is such a integral part of the offense you need to get him going again maybe those hitting those last two threes will be enough to kind of get him going in the big 12 tournament but that is pivotal for Kansas moving forward and then nothing again from the bench but again overall I think you're fine you lost on the road against a really good team in a game that did not affect your big 12 standings but basically my biggest worry would be your bit of recent play here so you look back to the West Virginia and Texas Tech game, both games that you were supposed to win, if you just look at like spread, for instance,

or what Ken Palm's projecting, somewhere between like eight, nine, 10 points in each game. You barely won both and very easily could have lost both. Then you lose by 16 at Texas. That does not necessarily give confidence that you're ending the season here on a high note, right? It does not feel like you're peaking at this very moment based on those last three games. And so this was a continuation of that. And so I think what it just does is it does put more pressure on the Big 12 tournament. Like I said, if you go out and win the Big 12 tournament like i said if you go out and win the big 12 tournament this loss is washed

away but if you lose let's say in the big 12 quarterfinals right if you would have won that game and then lost the big 12 quarterfinals we would have just easily moved past the big 12 quarterfinal loss and said ah the big 12 is hard sometimes you lose weird games if you lose in the big 12 semifinals but you you know you eke by the big 12 quarterfinals then you lose in the big 12 semifinals we're gonna be like by the Big 12 quarterfinals, then you lose in the Big 12 semifinals. We're going to be like, okay, this doesn't feel like you're peaking at the right time headed into the NCAA tournament. So I think what it just did by you losing, because again, if you would have lost by five, six, seven points at Texas,

and then you lost in the Big 12 semis or maybe the Big 12 finals, I don't know that we would be having this conversation, but because how much you got blown out by, I just think that's what it is. There's just more pressure on the big 12 tournament, maybe even less about winning it and just looking good again, right? Like having a game or two in the big 12 tournament where you just look really good.

You look like that one seed. You look like a team who should be maybe the number one overall seed. Do that. But at the end of the day, everything's still in front of you. You can win the big 12 tournament. You can still get the number one overall seed. You're at the end of the day everything's still in front of you you can win the big 12 tournament you can still get the number one overall seed you're going to be a one seed nonetheless you won the big 12 outright so everything is just fine for this team and they still have opportunities to prove that everything's just fine but there is

that little bit of a worry because now there is more pressure on the big 12 tournament and because those last three games you know they haven't really looked fully loaded to what we're expecting this team should be for the games that were previous to the last three. We're going to get on to our goats of the game here in just a second. But first, this episode of the Hawks is brought to you by Built Bar. Looking for a delicious treat, but don't want all the fat and calories, then you got to try a Built Bar. If you're like me where you want to eat healthier, but don't want all of the fat and calories, then you got to try a built bar. If you're like me where you want to eat healthier, but don't want to compromise taste, then built bars. Perfect. Because healthy is actually tasty.

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You can thank me later with Bilt Bar. On to the goats of the game. We'll start with the good goats. Number one would be Jalen Wilson. 23 points, 10 rebounds. Did take him a good amount of shots to get there. He was just 4 of 11 from 2. Everybody for Kansas struggled from 2.

But he did shoot well from 3 three of seven from three the rest of kansas was four of 15 from three point range but uh overall you know not bad efficiency 23 points when nobody else was scoring uh double figures for kansas and he also had 10 rebounds unfortunately like I said earlier it was shades of when you had that bad stretch when Jalen was getting 20 25 30 40 points in the game and nobody else was stepping up that's what happened in that game against Texas and I will say Texas defended their ass off man um tip of the cap to them like Texas played really really good defense there were not many open shots that Kansas had. Like the Texas Tech game, Kansas missed a lot of open shots. Texas game, there weren't a lot of open shots to be had.

And Texas is a very physical, athletic team that when they're defending at that level, they're very, very difficult to beat. But it is interesting. Now, Texas is actually ahead of Kansas in Ken Palm. And there have been a lot of years that because of Bill Self and his magic and because of the scheduling that you've done, Kansas has been overseeded to maybe what they are in like a metric site like Ken Palm. And it's hurt them in the NCAA tournament where, you know, maybe a team that plays more like a three seed is a two seed or plays like a two seed is one seed.

And they get upended early in the tournament. And I just hope that's not the case for this year's team but they have plenty of time in the big 12 tournament to kind of make up ground in that regard um but yeah jaylen was jaylen was good for you uh really bounced back too because he missed his first couple shots i think he started like oh for three oh for 4 after having the two-point game against Texas in Lawrence. And yeah, he certainly showed that he figured it out. I don't think, I don't know, it's impossible to predict what's going to happen in the Big 12 tournament because it's so loaded. But I almost get the sense Kansas wants to play Texas in a Big 12 championship. Well, they want to get revenge a little bit there.

And I think you would expect a much better performance if that were to be the case. But Kansas has a tough road to get there first. And so does Texas to try to get to that point to good goats. Grady Dix last two shots. He was pretty non-existent for a majority of the game. He finished two of five from the floor. All of those were from three point range. He had six points for the game.

Just two rebounds no assists he uh struggled on defense they were targeting him a good amount but you know it's and it wasn't i think the disappointing part wasn't just the fact that you know he wasn't scoring a lot it was that he wasn't taking shots he wasn't being aggressive he wasn't moving a ton off the ball k Kansas wasn't able to find him a ton. Like, I don't know how much of it is, was him not moving enough or just the team not doing a good enough job getting him open.

But either way, that's becoming a problem here. You have 10 points from Grady Dick the last two games. And you need him to be more aggressive. You need him to be taken because he's your best option from the outside kids shooting 32 from three since february there's your issue right there like you got to get that up to 34 35 over the course of the ncaa tournament if not better and so your best three-point option needs to be that guy um you need him not trigger shy and so you got him those last two

threes that could be the one little positive message out of that game that even though the second half didn't go well like maybe maybe you found a way to get grady dick going he hit back to back threes to kind of close out the game so uh that could be a positive out of the game that's a goat uh not a lot of good goats to choose from. So we're kind of choosing from small things here. The other one is rebounding. KU actually did a pretty good job on the glass. Now, Texas hasn't been a great rebounding team this year, so you would expect it, but you did a good job.

You only had seven offensive rebounds, which is not like a great number, but you held them to just four. This is really about defensive rebounding for KU, just holding them to just four this is really about defensive rebounding for KU just holding them to those four rebounds and that was actually by defensive rebounding rate KU's best game of the season Texas only collected about 13 percent of their own misses the only games that they've done better or I'm sorry it was the best game of the season the only games that they've done better, or I'm sorry, it was the best game of the season. The only games that are close to that, I should say, which are like second and third, are the Kentucky and Wisconsin games, which the Kentucky one is still wild with Oscar Shibuye.

So good rebounding game for KU. Obviously, if you look up at the total at the end of the day and you're like, oh, well, Texas had two more rebounds total than Kansas. What do you mean? Okay, but Kansas missed a lot more shots than Texas did. If you go by percentage, it was a very good rebounding game for KU. We're going to get on to our bad goats of the game here in just a second with Locked on Jayhawks.

So our bad goats, we had Jalen Wilson and the good goats. We had the two last shots from Grady from three and then the rebounding. Bad goats is everyone else. Everyone else gets on bad goats here not a great game for everyone else for KU now there were certain things you can take away that other people did where it's like okay well that was good right Kevin McCuller had I think eight rebounds that was good or maybe six um DeJuan Harris seven assists zero turnovers he also had five rebounds that was good but he had

just five points on two of 12 from the floor just felt like he was almost forcing it inside and that's the thing it's it's that fine balancing act with you want dewan harris a lot more aggressive you want him scoring the basketball so i don't think you tell him to i don't know like like you don't want to tell him to dial it down too much to where it's back to a point where he's just not trying to score but also like you don't want him overly aggressive crossing over that line where he's just taking kind of wild shots now to be fair again texas was defending very well and a lot of times it ended up in the hand of duan and it was like hey we got to take a shot just drive and do something right um so du struggles. Grady Dick struggles. He had just the six points, didn't fill up the stat sheet in other ways. Kevin McCuller had eight points on eight shots with four turnovers.

I thought about putting Kevin in limbo, to be honest, but with the four turnovers, it's a little bit tougher, which was over a third of the team's output there. KJ had nine points, which is your closest to double figures besides Jalen, but he just had two rebounds. That was after kind of back-to-back games where he had some of his better total rebounding games where he was getting seven or eight in a game. So he was just down to two rebounds. He didn't really have a big impact on the game. And there were a lot of plays, typically like KJ Adams is the guy that wins all the hustle balls. There were several hustle balls that Texas just won over him.

I don't expect that to continue or anything, but if that's one of your skills and one of the things that you're relied on to do and it doesn't happen that game, that's unfortunate for your side of the bench. So, yeah, that wasn't great. And then the bench, man. I don't know if this was maybe the biggest negative from the game, like in terms of a group or anything, but the bench has fallen off. So we had basically in December, there were a couple of nice flashes from the bench.

You had the game against Indiana where Zuby and Bobby were really good. You had a couple of flashes over the course of that month. Then you get to January and the the bench was nonexistent. And then we get to, I guess, the end of January with the Kentucky game to the beginning of February through middle February where the bench wasn't going off every game. Like, there would be a game. It would be like maybe a game or two where you would get

one or two good bench performances, right? Like the Texas game. Joey Esafu was really good. Ernest Uday was really good. And you go down the line, like like whether it would be the entire bench playing well or just one or two guys playing well off the bench you know felt like two out of every three games the bench was giving you something but then there'd be one game in there where it wasn't but it did feel like it was turning a corner and that you were getting more from the bench than you were in previous weeks.

But then, all of a sudden, a couple weeks ago, so the West Virginia game happened, nothing from the bench. And it's like, okay, well, you know, maybe they'll just get it next game. Texas Tech game, nothing from the bench. And then this game against Texas, nothing from the bench. Which is now a trend. It is now a streak, three straight games, to where you feel like all that progress that you made in February, it feels like it hasn't gotten you anywhere in better footing at this point in time because it just feels like you've kind of reverted to the norm here. Over the last three games, the bench has been pretty nonexistent.

And in this game specifically, if you want to total it up, 33 minutes total from the bench from Bobby Pettiford, Joey Asafu, MJ Rice, Michael Jankovic, Zach Clements, Ernest Uday, Zuby Ejifer, which I didn't think it was interesting. I do think Bill Self was saying, I did think you saw a little bit of that. The fact that, hey, we're down by so much. We already won the Big 12 outright. Let's give a shot to Zach Clements and Zuby Adjafar to see if they can earn more playing time

or at least get a little bit of playing time in a high-pressure environment that could help them later down the road. I did think that was a benefit of this game, but overall, 33 minutes from the bench from those guys, eight points on three of eight from the floor, two rebounds, zero assists, three turnovers. And you go back, like I said, over the last three games, it's like 71 minutes from the floor two rebounds zero assists three turnovers and you go back like i said over the

last three games it's like 71 minutes from the bench they've scored i think 16 points of that span one assist to six turnovers it has not been good from the bench and you know i i think this is probably the worst bench that bill self has ever had at kansas right which is crazy when you think about it because every big man coming off the bench for Kansas right now, because Kim Martin's injured. So you have Zach Clements, Ernest Duda, Zubi Adifor off the bench. All three of those guys are either McDonald's All-Americans or darn near it to where they were like four-star recruits that were not far off from being in that designation. And then you look at Bobby Pettiford, top 100 recruit, who's in year two. Joe Yesifu, who two years ago went off in March

and has been trying to figure that out. MJ Rice, who's a five-star recruit, McDonald's All-American. You look at everybody coming off the bench, you would think at least one of these guys on the bench would be pretty good for KU, or that at least it would be back to what it was at the beginning of February, where it was inconsistent, but you would have some good games here or there. And you could say, well, what about those 2016 2017 2018 teams for

Kansas that had such a thin bench where they were you know playing six seven man rotations and they only had maybe 11 or 12 scholarship guys okay that's that's a fair argument those teams weren't as deep but you know what those teams had they had at least one guy who would come off the bench. Like, think about it. In the 2017 season, as thin as that team was, Sviatoslav Mikhailuk was coming off the bench, right? I'm trying to think if, you know, if it wasn't, it was like LeGerald Vick coming off the bench. You still at least had something to bring off the bench there and this team you're just getting nothing from the bench it's a real problem and at this point we're in

march i don't know how much that's going to change for the ncaa tournament but again once you do get to the tournament shorter rotations are more than fine you just still need at least a sixth and seventh guy to give you something and right now that's not really the case uh last one for the bad goats here is people saying to chill after the loss i like i said this isn't the end of the world kansas is gonna be just fine there's two lines here i'm kind of playing in between if you think that was doomsday for kansas after the game or you think they're screwed or you think that shows that they can't win the tournament i would just say say this, like, let's not forget last year. Last year, in the final week of the regular season,

you lost to TCU in Fort Worth by double-digit points. And that was a game after you lost in Waco to Baylor by double-digit points. Now, sure, it wasn't the regular season finale, but it was the last week of the season. You ended up just fine, right? This team can be just fine. Like I said, puts more pressure on the Big 12 tournament, but you're going to be just fine and you've put yourself in great shape and other teams around

the country would kill to be in the position you're in if you asked like every other team in the country pretty much except for like alabama and houston hey would you take a 16 point loss in the finale to texas but you win the big 12 outright you're going to be a one seed they'd be like yes of course of course i would take that. Now I get it. Kansas sets the buy higher and the expectations are higher, but also at the same point in time, the people who are, who yesterday were just like all over social media being like,

everybody needs to chill out. This game doesn't matter at all. Like, dude, you can still take away some stuff from it. Because like I said, you approach this game with all the competitive natures that you were trying to win it and so you were trying and you lost by 16 that doesn't bode well and just to act like there's nothing to take away from the game just to act like you know it

doesn't matter at all that there's nothing to worry about when the last three games have been a little concerning you lose me there and and also the fact that like why are you the police on how you know if certain fans want to want to be in their emotions after the game like let people react like who are you to just tell everybody i don't know whatever it doesn't matter i'm playing the middle i think they're probably going to be fine but i also understand why there would be some worry out of the game and i think it's okay to kind of be in the middle there all right that's gonna do it for this edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Probably not as fun of a one because, you know, you lose by 16.

We're going to be joined by Nick Schwert on Tuesday's episode to kind of discuss if there is a concern level over these last three games. What's this team's identity? Another edition of whose stat line is it anyway? Then we'll get into some Big 12 tournament talk, maybe some Big 12 award talk later in the week, and get into our preview of the KU game in their quarterfinal when we get to it. This has been Locked on Jayhawks.

We'll be back on Tuesday. Like I said, you can hit me up at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. Subscribe to us wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can find us on YouTube or wherever, iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud. Give us a good review if you could. See you next time.