Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #5 Kansas Jayhawks Escape Eastern Illinois 71-63 as Shooting Comes Into Question

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas escapes Eastern Illinois. Not their best performance. I guess they came out with a win. Let's talk takeaways from the game on this episode of LOJ. You are Locked on Jayhawks. Your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network. Your team every day.

Starting point is 00:00:30 I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well. Monday through 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 you get your podcasts. You can find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of the show, we're recapping KU's 71-63 win against Eastern Illinois.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Before we get into that, we are brought to you by PrizePix. PrizePix.com slash LockedOnCollege, where you can go to use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for a first deposit match up to $100. Daily fantasy sports made easy with prize picks. So not the prettiest game, to say the least, for Kansas. 71-63 the final score. And fortunately, you won the Tennessee game kind of in between this and the Marquette game. We'll see how the UConn game goes Friday after this.

Starting point is 00:01:20 Obviously, if you play like this against UConn, things are not going to go well. But could this have been just the classic kind of looking ahead to another game type of situation? You were up 13. They hit that weird three at the end of the half, and you lose kind of momentum, and they're just hitting a bunch of shots, and things don't go well for you in a lot of areas. But you escaped this game.

Starting point is 00:01:38 So on one hand, this could be the Southern Utah game from last year and some of the other games we've seen in the past. Usually there's like one game a year in the non-con that KU is playing a lesser opponent and they, they win a lot closer than you would expect. Now, albeit a lot of those times it's like, okay,

Starting point is 00:01:54 they're, you know, like they're a decent, you know, mid-major team or whatever, like Southern Utah finished last year, 111th on Ken Palm. Some of the other teams,

Starting point is 00:02:02 maybe they're like 180th or 200th, where they have a bit of a pulse. Eastern Illinois came into this game 344th on Ken Palm, so that is very worrisome that this happens to that team that is one of the 20 worst teams in college basketball coming in, and it doesn't have you feeling confident or going into Friday against Connecticut in that game. Now, I saw some people during the game on social media kind of worrying about the defensive side of the ball for KU in this game

Starting point is 00:02:27 because there was that stretch in the second half that Eastern Illinois was just hitting shot after shot after shot, I think at 1.15 to 2 run. And yes, certainly there are certain things about the defense that I wonder how KU is going to work with over the course of the season and have questions about. You still held them to 39% from the floor with 16 turnovers. Yes, they shot well from three. And I do have concerns about KU's ball screen defense. I do have concerns about if you play a team who can space you out, right? We saw the one play where their guard drove right by Hunter

Starting point is 00:03:01 Dickinson. I have concerns about your three-point defense. Those are all things I do have valid concerns about, but over the course of the season, you still should have one of the 10 best defenses in college basketball. You came into this top five in the country on Ken Palm. The issue coming into this one, you were ranking in the mid-20s offensively on Ken Palm. So realistically, even though there are certain questions about certain matchups or styles, it's the offensive side of the ball that scares me a bit. And I don't know that you saw a lot in this game to make you feel so much better. Like, I just don't know where the shooting is coming from. They shot, you know, 29% or whatever it was in the five exhibition games. And then that felt like

Starting point is 00:03:40 it was just, ah, who cares? Because the first two games of the season, they lit it up from three point range. But every game since, they have done the complete opposite. And I think what we're learning now is those first two games were kind of the albatross. Those were the games, the outlier games. And I think they'll have more of those outlier games this season, games where they do get uncharacteristically hot from three. That kind of just happens over basketball season. But now we're talking about, because what's the record now for KU? Like six and one at this point? So if you're talking five games plus five exhibitions,

Starting point is 00:04:10 you're talking of 12 games you've played, including exhibition play. Ten of the 12 you have not shot well from three, and then two of them you've shot extremely well from three. So I just don't know consistently where the shooting is coming from. And when you're losing the offensive rebound battles, which they've been doing a lot lately, including this game, you're missing too many free throws. There's a little better today, but you still miss too many.

Starting point is 00:04:32 You're turning it over too much. That wasn't really a problem tonight. You still had a few careless ones. But overall, 10, not going to be a number that you're stressed with, I guess, most nights. You're just not going to be a successful offense. And you saw how Eastern Illinois played. They packed the paint and tried to make it a little tougher on Kansas inside,

Starting point is 00:04:47 which K you're still shot really well on the inside and had a big advantage there, but maybe it wasn't as big of an advantage as they normally would have had. And you see some of the threes they were getting to in the first half, like it's Hunter Dickinson kicking it out to a wide open guy in the corner. It's DeJuan Harris flinging it out to a wide open guy on the wing. And they're just missing wide open shots. It's not like they're just missing tough shots or having bad shot selection. They're just missing open shots. So the shooting by far is my biggest

Starting point is 00:05:13 worry right now. 67% on free throws, and that was a good game for KU lately. They've had bad games with that lately. Three of 14 from three, that's 21%. In the first half, like I said, I think it was a run of their three straight threes, not three straight possessions, lately three of 14 from three that's 21 in the first half like i said they had their i think it was a run of like their their three straight threes not three straight possessions but three straight threes they took were like wide open ones that were gifted to the shooters and they just missed and you're not going to make every wide open three but the ones that are wide open served you on a platter you gotta make a high percentage of those you can't go over three i think this is just a bad shooting team and i don't know how they fix it. And unless they do like that severely puts a cap on what your ceiling is as a team.

Starting point is 00:05:49 It is so hard to win slog after slog after slog in the NCAA tournament. You're going to have to have a couple of like, yes, you are going to have to win a game or two. If you want to win a national title, if you want to go to final four, you're going to have to win a game or two where it is ugly. So that's, that's fine, but you're going to have to win some other games. You can't win every game like that. Sometimes you play too many close games and then weird things are going to happen. Now, all that said, it was still nice to see KU force some turnovers. That had been something they hadn't been doing a lot in the previous game. So you did that in this one. It was nice to see them continue to dominate inside. They had a 44 to 14 edge in points in the paint. It was nice to see them continue to move the ball and share it really well. 24 assists. They continue to be such an

Starting point is 00:06:30 elite passing team. It wasn't a ton of off the bench moments, or I guess the five through nine, we've talked about, you know, developing the five through nine. That's what this team needs to do. Wasn't a ton of moments from those guys, but he at least got a few here or there, some buckets from Timberlake and Furphy and Marco Jackson. Still not quite what you need overall from all guys, but he at least got a few here or there, some buckets from Timberlake and Furphy and Marco Jackson. Still not quite what you need overall from all that, but it was above a zero game, which we've seen some zero games in the past. If you beat UConn now on Friday, your next game, there's a top five opponent.

Starting point is 00:06:57 Nobody's going to care about this one, right? If you beat UConn, this will quickly be a game where it's like, okay, we're looking ahead and whatever. They move past it, the more important game. They found a way to win, right? You lose to UConn on Friday. It's going to feel like now you're having a bad string of play and feel like, you know, okay, maybe there are some concerns here.

Starting point is 00:07:16 Because if you do lose to UConn, then you're probably looking at three of the last four games. When you look at Marquette, the Tennessee being the exception, and then Eastern Illinois and UConn would be bad games. But that'll all be dependent on kind of how you play and how you do against Connecticut. So certainly questions on the shooting, questions on who can get you a bucket in those key moments when you need them. But I guess I'm just mostly going to operate from the thought that I still do think Kansas is a top 10 team in the country. I think they just had a

Starting point is 00:07:43 classic kind of letdown look ahead performance. Letdown off of Maui. You're coming back home. You're playing a team where everybody thinks you're going to cream the spreads 40 points. And you're also looking ahead to Friday's matchup with Connecticut. It's easy to have an emotional letdown in this type of game, similar to last year against Southern Utah, which was right before I want to say you went to the battle for Atlantis. You had a letdown in the game. It was like a one-possession game with like a minute to go in that Southern Utah game. You ended up winning by six.

Starting point is 00:08:10 It happened in 2022 against Stephen F. Austin. That was one where I think Remy Martin had to hit like a deep three for you to seal the game with like a minute to go, and I think you ended up winning by single digits in that one. 2021, it happened against North Dakota State. Remember, you needed like Tyone Grant Foster to have like a big – I forget if it was a block or a bucket or something for you to win that game. 2019, it happened against North Dakota State. Remember you needed like Tyon Grant Foster to have like a big, I forget if it was a block or a bucket or something for you to win that game. 2019, it happened against like New Mexico State.

Starting point is 00:08:29 I think that was maybe at the Sprint Center. You won by like three points and on and on and on. Like every year there is one of these that usually happens. The one thing that will make this one matter either more or less is kind of what you do from here. I think it's an everybody gets one situation. Like every team is allowed to have a bad game against a lesser opponent and it be closer than you would expect, right? The test is if it happens multiple times, then it starts to become a trend.

Starting point is 00:08:58 Then it starts to become a streak where it's like, okay, clearly if you continually to play bad against lesser opponents, maybe that means you're not very good. But if you only do it one time and you pick it up in the other ones, if you only do it one time and you pick it up on Friday against Connecticut, this becomes not really a big deal. So this is one of those things where it's kind of evidence with if things go bad, we're going to point back to this game and we're going to point back to some things that happened in this game and be like, see, that was another example of why. But if things go good from here, it'll just be a quick blip on the radar. So I guess it's a choose your own adventure from here, KU basketball. All right, we're going to continue on with our goats of the game

Starting point is 00:09:34 and what's next for KU on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, we are brought to you by PrizePix. PrizePix is the most fun you can have winning up to 25 times your money this football season or basketball season. You just select two or more players, pick more or less on their projected stats, and place your entry. For instance, I was in on Kevin McCullers. He is more or less on the points for PrizePix.

Starting point is 00:09:59 It was 14.5. Hunter Dickinson's was 17.5. So those were two good ones right there. And you can combine those with they had all sorts of great deals that they were giving out on Tuesdays, which they normally do. They're taco Tuesdays. They have discounted stat numbers that you can easily get a hold of. And you can go through those.

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Starting point is 00:10:41 Our goats of the game, good and bad. Let's start with the good goats here. Let's go with Hunter Dickinson, 25 points, 13 rebounds, two assists on 11 of 15 from the floor. He continues to put up monster numbers for you. And again, if we, if we compare this game to the Southern Utah game, that was a game that Jalen Wilson had like over 30 points. So it was just very similar that you needed your all American to kind of carry you to the finish line in a game. You didn't really expect to need that to happen. And he did the one thing that really sticks out to me with Hunter Dickinson.

Starting point is 00:11:12 I have not seen another big man since I've been watching like KU or college basketball, do this as well as he does the plays where he catches the ball. And he is like basically in line or kind of under the hoop. And a lot of times you see big men maybe try to go up with it and then air balls or they miss it. Or, you know, you're just in a bad angle. You can't get it up. You get blocked or you're not able to go up at all. And you have to kick it out because you're too deep.

Starting point is 00:11:35 He is so good at even if he is too deep, catching it and just kind of like fading back or flicking it behind his head or putting some English on it or whatever it is to still get it in with him like under the hoop. It is unbelievable his ability to do that to where even if a team is fronting him and has him pushed down, it still can be an easy bucket for KU. Really impressive stuff from Hunter Dickinson in this game. Kevin McCuller, the jump shot wasn't really falling for him. He grinded his way to 18 points, 18 shots, but 8 of 18 from the floor. That's around 50%. He had five

Starting point is 00:12:05 assists in the game. He had three rebounds. He was battling out there. Obviously that steal toward the end of the game was pretty huge and being able to, you know, get the stop, get the easy bucket at the other end. So Kevin McCuller grinded his way through and missed a couple of layups, a couple of shots that he normally makes. Otherwise he would have had 22, 24 points. The game would have been a little further out, i i thought overall uh kevin mcculler was was good in this game kj adams gets a good goat here i thought it was really cool what they did pre-game honoring his mom throwing uh that up on the big board and the newspapers from the the daily cans and what they did there really cool stuff um he had 10 points he was 4-4 from the floor had a couple big dunks big lob plays that

Starting point is 00:12:44 he threw down he ended up with three rebounds which I thought he had like four I okay and then he also was listed for three assists by the way we're going assist gate is happening I'm telling you he's listed for three rebounds three assists I could have sworn I could be wrong in this I could have sworn he had four or five assists now this one doesn't matter as much but like there was a game a couple weeks ago where it was the Manhattan game where DeJuan Harris was listed at five or six assists or something and the over under was above that and he actually by like one game long had eight or nine assists or something so I don't know what's going on assist skates going on I'm telling you KJ had like at least

Starting point is 00:13:17 four or five assists he was doing a really good job passing in this game and I thought he had a good game overall and made some key plays for it kind of at both ends of the floor turnover battle gets a good goat here KU in on the season coming in had not been a very good turnover team they weren't really forcing turnovers and they were having too many of them well in this game you had just 10 turnovers yeah you'd like to see I get even lower against an opponent like this get to seven or eight right play an even more perfect game but 10 overall if you have 10 a game the rest of the season you're you're going to feel fine with that. You forced 16. That's a high number for what you've been kind of forcing this year. And it wasn't all just unforced stuff. Like there's, over the course of a game, there's going to be unforced turnovers. It just happens, right?

Starting point is 00:13:58 But you had 11 steals. So you made a lot of your own will on that end. Something that when you have Kevin McCuller and DeJuan Harris, you should be good at getting steals, forcing steals. Well, you were a lot better at it in this game. And overall, you were plus six in turnovers. You were plus six in points off turnovers in the game that you won by eight. Interior play gets a good go here. This has been inconsistent all year long. KU's been dominant on offense and on defense, kind of the interior play. Nearly 60% on two-point shots, 25 of 42 for KU inside the three-point arc. They also held Eastern Illinois to 38% on two-point shots in this game. So you had a 22% difference on two-point shots, and you had 11 blocked shots. Think about that. You blocked 11 shots for the game. You were dominant on the interior. I mentioned that you had basically blocked shots. Think about that. You blocked 11 shots for the game. You were dominant on the interior.

Starting point is 00:14:46 I mentioned that you had basically a 30-point difference in points in the paint, which is even crazier that it was an eight-point game considering that happened when you're playing a lesser opponent. But it just speaks to how well KU has played so far this year on the interior, and obviously Hunter Dickinson is a big reason why. As far as the bad goats in this one, KU's three-point defense, they shot over 40% on three-point shots. They shot better from three than they did on two.

Starting point is 00:15:10 Now, there were a couple of them. They hit tough shots. You tip your cap. Have a good night, all that sort of stuff. You gave up a couple of easy ones, though. Like the one off the inbound pass where the guy was just wide open in the corner who was one of their better players, like that's inexcusable. That can't happen.

Starting point is 00:15:23 I thought DeJuan Harris struggled a bit defensively in this game, which you don't normally see from the big 12 defensive player of the year. I think their opposing point guard had like 20 points and there was obviously the play at the end. He goes for the steal. He blows right by him, gets an easy layup. There were two plays over the course of the game where DeJuan Harris was kind of in the middle of the defense and the ball was on one side and the guy for Eastern Illinois, whoever it was in the two scenarios,

Starting point is 00:15:44 threw a skip pass across the court the other way, basically from one wing to the opposite corner, to the opposite wing or whatever. And DeJuan was basically playing the ball and jumped up for it, trying to get the steal. He missed it, and it led to a wide-open three. So not the best work there overall, and it does feel a little bit weird that DeJuan was dominant.

Starting point is 00:16:03 He won you that Kentucky game. But I think outside of that game, he's averaging less than five points per game for the rest of the season. a little bit weird that DeJuan was dominant. He won you that Kentucky game. But I think outside of that game, he's averaging less than five points per game for the rest of the season. And it's great getting everybody involved, but I wonder if it would benefit Kansas for him to be a bit more aggressive. I still have trust in DeJuan

Starting point is 00:16:16 and him being a great player moving forward. But yeah, I thought there were a few holes to point into the game on at least this Tuesday night. Three-point shooting on the offensive side of the ball, too. Gets a bad go for KU. So Kansas went 3-14 from 3 in this game. That obviously not great, right? And that continues on some of the struggles they've been having. Over the last five games, so the Kentucky game, the three games in the MAU Invitational, the malumitational and then the uh this game to give you five ku is 23 of 80 on three-point shots that is 28.9 percent from three-point range and like i said there's a lot that you've missed that

Starting point is 00:16:53 have been wide open shots that it's like man if this team had a i don't know a sfi or an isaiah moss or a brandon greener you know name your name your knockdown three-pointer, Grady Dick, right? They would be dominant with this offense because Hunter Dickinson is getting them so many open threes. DeJuan Harris is getting them so many open threes. Kevin McCuller and KJ Adams, good passers. They're going to lead to, when they're on the ball, even getting you open threes. And they just, they can't bottle them down. And for Kevin, that was one of the bright lights in the exhibition play and in the first game of the season that it was like, oh, has Kevin McCuller fixed his three-point shot? Is he going to be a really good three-point shooter now?

Starting point is 00:17:30 Well, unfortunately, since the season opener, so the last six games now, Kevin is now four of 20 from three-point range. So it's just like, I don't know where to turn. I don't know where to go as far as KU shooting from three-point range. The rebounding gets a bad go here. Kansas got out-rebounded by three. They were out-rebounded by four on the offensive glass. Eastern Illinois, their biggest strength coming in was kind of rebounding,

Starting point is 00:17:52 but they were just basically nationally average, nationally slightly above average. And that's something that I feel like there's something left to be desired there for KU. I mean, Hunter Dickinson's grabbing so many rebounds, but it feels like overall KU could be doing more on the offensive glass. It feels like KU needs to be a dominant rebounding team with some of the shooting deficiencies, and that just hasn't been the case so far. And the last one here is gaining traction on your fifth guy. This wasn't going

Starting point is 00:18:18 to be settled by the end of this game, regardless of what happened, even if one guy went off and had a big game, but it would have been nice to have, you know, some more there. And like I said earlier, I didn't think the bench or the five through nine was like bad. You at least had a nice couple flashes. Like Marco passed 100 Dickinson. He hit a three. Timberlake hit a three and then hit that other jump shot, which was nice. Him looking for a shot and being confident.

Starting point is 00:18:39 Furphy was able to hit a three off the bench. Like McDowell came into some key moments. But there wasn't a lot of traction. One guy didn't play like way three off the bench. Like McDowell came into some key moments, but there wasn't a lot of traction. One guy didn't play like way better than the other. And there wasn't a lot of, I guess this guy played here. So that clearly shows that he's here there. Like El Marco started the game and finished the game. So you would think that, okay, maybe that means it's him.

Starting point is 00:18:58 But in the earlier moments of the game, I think once in the first half, once in the second half, when KU was kind of, I don't know, the boat was sinking a little bit and things were getting close, they threw Jamari McDowell as the fifth guy. So he was coming in in the key moments, but he only played like seven minutes. Nick Timberlake had probably his best game in a handful of games, but he also played really low minutes. Johnny Furphy played the most bench minutes. He went just one of four from three. So it's like, we still have not really gained much traction on that fifth guy. You still have time to do it.

Starting point is 00:19:28 But we had a lot of these conversations last year through the course season, and I remember being in late November, early December, being like you still have plenty of time to do it. Then we got to January and February, and there still was time to do it, but it never kind of came together. So we'll see what this bench can kind of put together. All right, we're going to finish up. What's next for KU basketball?

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Starting point is 00:20:59 Well, it's UConn on Friday night. It'll be at 8 o'clock for the game. And UConn is a top five team team, top-five in the rankings. They're third in Ken Palm. They are top-ten in both offense and defense. And what will be really interesting about this matchup is they have a really good center, Donovan Klingin, who might be a top-five, top-ten pick in the NBA draft. And they have been dominant at two-point shooting.

Starting point is 00:21:22 They have been dominant at two-point shooting defense. They've not been a great three-point shooting team either, so there are a lot of similarities here, but they've taken a lot of them. It shows you they have confidence in the three-point shooting. Maybe they just haven't been falling so far. Maybe that's a bad sign for you in this game. What's crazy, though, Connecticut has won 24 consecutive non-conference games by double digits.

Starting point is 00:21:43 So not only have they won 24 straight non-con games, they've won all of them by 10 or more points, including by 10 earlier this year against Texas. And I think that was at Texas or maybe it was a neutral site. So this is a really good team and they do a lot of things you do well and they defend some of the things you do well very well as well, which makes this a very interesting matchup. And certainly Dan Hurley will probably get the Allen field house crowd going

Starting point is 00:22:07 because he is very animated on the sideline should be a really fun one on Friday night and should be a tough one, but an opportunity to wash this one out of your mouth. If you're KU and you can come home with the dub. All right. That'll do it for this episode of locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back later this week to preview that Kansas Connecticut game. We're going to be back to rank the remaining non-conference games

Starting point is 00:22:27 for KU on tomorrow's episode. You can find our show anywhere you get podcasts. Like and subscribe to us on our YouTube page. Have a good one. See you next time with LOJ.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #5 Kansas Jayhawks Escape Eastern Illinois 71-63 as Shooting Comes Into Question

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