Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #6 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Have Issues, Lose in Lubbock by 29 to Texas Tech Red Raiders

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas has a serious problem. They get spanked in Texas Tech. The road woes continue. What is wrong with this Kansas team? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. Thanks for making the Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:32 We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas loses another game on the road, but this time worse than any of the others when you look at point differential deficit and how it went down. Kansas gets spanked from the word go in Lubbock. We're going to get to the game. What went wrong for KU, which was

Starting point is 00:00:54 pretty much everything. What it means for the team. Is this just not a very good Kansas team? We'll try to come to a bit of a resolution to that. Coming up here, we'll get to our goats of the game, good and bad, and what's next for KU men's basketball. First, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by GameTime. You can download the GameTime app to your phone today or wherever

Starting point is 00:01:15 and check it out because you can get $20 off using code LOCKEDON, create an account with GameTime, get that $20 off your first purchase. So Kansas loses in Lubbock to Texas Tech 79-50, a 29-point deficit for KU. They just get absolutely spanked from the word go. Here are some stats for you. These first two from Jeff Borzello. That was the fewest points scored by Bill Self and a Kansas team in a road game. So fewest points by Bill Self and a Kansas team in a road game. So fewest points by Bill Self, Kansas team in a road game.

Starting point is 00:01:47 The 29-point loss matches the program's largest loss to an unranked opponent with a 1950 game against Kentucky. Now this one, according to Rob Anderson, that is the fewest points in a conference game by Kansas since you have to go back to 1999 in February when they lost 52 to 50 to Iowa State so making history here but very much not in a good way for Kansas and I've throughout the different points of the year you know these two things are a little bit in conflict with each other. I've thought that this team is better set up to win in the NCAA tournament

Starting point is 00:02:31 than the regular season because of the lack of depth. And I think you see that without Kevin McCuller in a game like this. Flip side, though, is I've seen some comparisons, made some comparisons to that 2018 to 2019 season for Kansas, where you had an all American big man in Jitra Glosson, who was maybe a little bit slower on the defensive end, but you know, a really skilled talented player on the offensive end. And things just didn't really totally click around them,

Starting point is 00:02:59 whether it was the bench, not clicking, whether it was having an inefficient player off the bench that you thought would be good, like Charlie Moore with, you Moore with Nick Timberlake or Mark Jackson. There are a lot of things that are similar there. That team ended up losing in the second round of the NCAA tournament. That team was also number one in the AP pole in preseason. That team was also the last Kansas team to go undefeated at home for a year. So, you know, there are a lot of, I guess, comparisons for what you would say with that team.

Starting point is 00:03:23 They go kind of counter to each other. But one of the other things that that team did that this one did is go in Lubbock and just get boat raced. That Texas Tech team beat Kansas 91 to 62, 29 point deficit. This was a 29 point deficit for KU. I don't know that you can really have a positive coming away from this game. They shot 49%. You shot 33%. They were 10 of 26 from three. And yes, maybe again, this goes back to the three-point defense conversation versus luck.

Starting point is 00:03:53 You did give up a lot of open ones, maybe more so in this one than some other ones. So I would tend to lean to that. But still, you're going to play teams that this happens to. You go three of 16 from three. So you see the discrepancy in three-point shooting comes to it a little bit more in each and every game. You go three of 16 from three. So you see the discrepancy in three-point shooting, you know, comes to it a little bit more in each and every game.

Starting point is 00:04:07 You had one more turnover than them with eight less points off turnovers. You had 16 less rebounds against what coming in was a Texas Tech team that has been a bad rebounding team. Texas Tech came into this game 14th in Big 12 only games in defensive rebounding rate and 11th or 10th in offensive rebounding rate in Big 12 only games. So they were a bottom five rebounding team in the Big 12. No matter which metric you look at, you get out rebounded pretty hard. Now, some of the total rebounds, you know, different because you missed more shots than them.

Starting point is 00:04:43 Still, the rebounding rate was still not good for you. And I think part of this was effort. I don't know. I think a big part of it was effort, honestly. And I think you didn't just see that in the rebounds. There were a couple 50-50 balls, loose balls that KU just didn't really get to. There was the one that really comes to mind for me. It was toward the end of the first half, and Tech either missed a shot or kind of threw it away and the ball was like available under the

Starting point is 00:05:08 hoop okay you had two players who were around it one of them even being kj adams who typically is like the hustle guy neither one like dove on the floor neither one really sprinted to get it tech ended up getting the ball made a great play where they did show the hustle to get to the ball saved it from going out of bounds and it led to like a wide open layup or dunk. You didn't get effort or, and I get it with the shorter bench, maybe that can hurt a little bit of how much energy you can exhaust into a game. But that's something that like, I don't know, that's kind of a non-negotiable, right? Like if they're just beating you because they're hitting a billion threes,

Starting point is 00:05:42 you know, that's one thing, right? Like, sure, that might not be great defense and you might need need to draw some stuff up but can't really deal with the lack of effort stuff uh you're outscored 28 to 20 points in the paint i can't remember a game this season where ku was outscored points in the paint they were averaging 40 points per game in the paint in conference only games you only had 20 of them in this game they had more steals than you they had 10 more bench points it was seven seven, nothing and second chance points. They even had eight more assists than you. You have been a good passing team. You have been an assist basketball team. Yes. No Kevin Kohler who gets assists and make some of the shots, but still you should be able to do this a little bit better than you have

Starting point is 00:06:17 last two games for KU. Are there two worst assist total games of the season. So everything just not good. I mean, I guess you could say, well, shot pretty well at the free throw line, shot a little bit better than them on free throws, even though they took more. You won fast break points 11 to five. There were a few nice moments from Elmarco Jackson and Nick Timberlake. I mean, hell, if you would have said coming into this game that Elmarco Jackson and Nick Timberlake. I mean, hell, if you would have said coming into this game that Marco Jackson and Nick Timberlake would combine for 20 points on eight of 12 shooting, you might have felt like Kansas was going to find a way to win this one. But that obviously didn't happen because you only got 30 points from the rest of everyone else. So I guess outside of that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

Starting point is 00:07:00 But if you want to look at it with rose-colored glasses and say, well, considering the way the Texas Tech shot the basketball and got up on you early, considering Kevin McCuller, who is one of the front runners for Big 12 Player of the Year, was out again, which, I don't know, are we starting to get concerned at all with the long term of Kevin McCuller is going to be? And if you continue to struggle, does Kevin just say, I'm going to pack it in and go to the NBA draft? I don't think that would happen. Kevin is an unbelievable competitor. I'm, I probably shouldn't have even brought that up because I don't even want to insinuate that would type thing would happen, but like, I don't know, you start worrying

Starting point is 00:07:35 about just weird things when you start losing this bad, right. But anyway, considering the way tech shot it, considering no Kevin McCuller, considering no Jamari McDowell, which, you know, that's less about what Jamari McDowell could have impacted because you don't know how much he would have played. But certainly in a game like this where you did get like Wilder Evers into the game in the first half, you know, maybe he would have played a little bit more. The lack of depth for KU playing with an injured DeJuan Harris,

Starting point is 00:07:58 which I thought all things considered DeJuan was fine. He didn't have a good shooting game, had more turnovers than you would have liked. But considering he was playing on the ankle with nobody really helping him around him, you know, whatever. It's a little more understandable. And, you know, yeah, to a point, like you did make your bed by not adding more depth in the offseason. I talked about this on a recent episode.

Starting point is 00:08:21 You could have done that and said, hey, you know what? Instead of using up all the scholarships that we needed to use up for the NCAA sanctions in one year, why don't we just use up two of the three or something like that or one of them and just do one every year, right? So you made your bet a little bit that way. But doing all that stuff, that didn't lead to lack of effort on hustle balls. That didn't lead to lack of boxing out on rebounds.

Starting point is 00:08:47 That didn't lead to Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams missing every layup or KU playing with, you know, a low effort of intensity, right? Like some of those things that you can't excuse away to be like, okay, you know, if they were lost in Lubbock without Kevin McCuller and the other team hit 10 threes, okay it happens Texas pretty good team but for it to happen the way it was the score the way it was and with all the things that are kind of inexcusable even with the excuses you had that's what makes this a little bit frustrating and again I've stayed adamant that I think this team is better set up

Starting point is 00:09:25 for the NCAA tournament than the regular season because of that lack of depth. And that's obviously dependent on getting guys healthy. But shoot, man, go back to those 2018 to 2019 comps. They're right there. And for whatever reason, Kansas has just struggled. Every year they've been preseason number one under Bill Self. So going back to 2004, which was the year that Kansas was preseason number one, this is the fourth year that Kansas has been a preseason number one in the AP poll.

Starting point is 00:09:51 The previous three, they've failed to make it out of the first weekend. 13 of the other 15 preseason AP number one teams, the reason it's not 16 is because the one year we didn't have the tournament, 13 of the 15 made the second weekend. And North Carolina last year was one of the exceptions because they just didn't make the tournament. So basically like 90% of the time, AP preseason number one is making the second weekend. Kansas, if this continues this year, might be 0 for 4.

Starting point is 00:10:18 So I don't know what that is. I don't know what's going on there. And we haven't even touched on the road issues really this episode. That continues on for KU. I don't know what's up with that. I don't know why you going on there. And we haven't even touched on the road issues really this episode. That continues on for KU. I don't know what's up with that. I don't know why you can't figure that out. Yes, it's tough to win on the road for everyone in college basketball. But to this level, we're seeing KU.

Starting point is 00:10:33 It's pretty tough. So I think we just saw the Chiefs win a Super Bowl in which the regular season was very subpar. And two weeks before the regular season ended, they lost a really bad game to the Raiders. And we saw what happened when it hit the postseason. March Madness, a little bit different. You don't really have a Patrick Mahomes on this KU team, but you do have some good players. But I guess the point I would take away from that is sometimes weird things happen in the

Starting point is 00:11:00 regular season and you can flip the switch. It's not good to count on that. And I think it would probably be more surprising than not surprising if they did go on a run in March and I wouldn't be picking it, but I'm still not precluding it from my mind because I do think the roster is better built for that and because of what we just saw with the Kansas City Chiefs, I guess. All right, we're going to get on to our goats of the game. This is Locked on Jayhawks. First,

Starting point is 00:11:30 this episode of the show is brought to you by game time, buying tickets, your favorite sporting event should not be stressful. Game time is the fast and easy way to buy tickets for all your sports, music, comedy, and theater near you. You might need to go to a comedy or theater event to, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:11:41 rinse the taste out of your mouth on this one with killer deals on last minute tickets and their best price guarantee. You can stop stressing over the tickets and start getting hyped for the fun that you're going to be having. They have flash deals and last minute tickets, easy to find and buy tickets for every kind of event in your arena. The images of the sea views allow you to know what you're getting into when you buy them. And they have the game time guarantee, which means you'll always get the best price. If you find tickets in the same section and row for less, game time will credit you 110% of the difference. Snag the tickets without the stress with GameTime.

Starting point is 00:12:09 Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code LOCKEDON for $20 off. Download GameTime today. Last-minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. Moving on with LockedOn Jayhawks to our goats of the game, good and bad, who stood out for KU?

Starting point is 00:12:32 Let's start with the good. This one will be a little bit shorter, as you would imagine. Bill Self for getting tossed and making a statement. I do think for Hunter Dickinson to have as low of a free throw rate and amount of free throws that he gets to take every game for the amount of time he is down low and you have players hanging on his back and, you know, banging with him on the inside. It is lower than you would expect. And we actually had a who stat line is anyway, a few weeks ago with Nick Schwert that, you know, he was like KU's lowest free throw rate per two-point attempt, which is very weird considering. Now, I do think obviously with Hunter, he is someone who is more of a finesse big man. So you're not going to be the most hacked big man in the league,

Starting point is 00:13:16 but certainly he's getting fouled more than would indicate with the free throw numbers. I think that's part of it, what happened there with Bill Self and trying to make sure Hunter knows that I have your back even in a game where you're not playing well. I think that's part of it, what happened there with Bill Self, and trying to make sure Hunter knows that, you know, I have your back even in a game where you're not playing well. I think that's an important thing for a coach. You see that in baseball all the time. So, yeah, I think that was a good thing for Bill Self to try to make a statement there. Johnny Furphy gets a good go. 13 points on four of eight shooting, seven rebounds, two assists, one block.

Starting point is 00:13:40 I thought Furphy played a good enough game. He hit a three to maybe end a bit of that cold spell that he's had there. Okay, you really struggled from the outside in this game for really a couple straight games here. And it wasn't the best game in the world for Furphy, but he was okay enough. He was good enough in this one. I do think that with Furphy, you know, he's not somebody who is creating his own shot off the dribble he's not going to get his own shot he's not agile enough to get by guys quick enough he is more of a grady dick i don't know secondary type player where it's like if you have him as a secondary as one of your good players you love it but if he has to be the go-to guy which he's kind of had to be a

Starting point is 00:14:22 little bit more without kevin kohler here lately it's a little bit tougher because he's not really a shot creator right at least yet like that might grow into his game if he comes back next year you know down the road or something like that um but overall i did think he played a pretty good game if we're judging on the low bar of like grading against the curve for what has been recently for ku and for how poorly they played in this game. You can make the argument for, I guess, the Timberlake-Omarco minutes. Like I said, 20 points, 8 of 12 shooting. You would have taken that coming into the game.

Starting point is 00:14:52 So if you're grading on the curve of what you expected and what you got, that's a plus. I do think Nick Timberlake struggled still defensively, but do several open threes on that end, still a work in progress. I don't know, maybe work in progress is not the right term there because I don't think it's really something you're expecting to get better. But the bar for Nick Timberlake playing or getting a role, getting 10, 15 minutes for KU night in, night out, making an impact,

Starting point is 00:15:15 it's never going to be about the defense because that's just never going to be the calling card. It's going to be about can you make the shots because you can't compound the defense with only shooting 28% from three, which is basically what he's been doing. He went 5-7 today, 2-4 from three. Makes the defense more playable, especially for a team that can use the three-point shooting.

Starting point is 00:15:34 So I guess Nick Timberlake offense. And then I thought Omarco had some solid moments. He had the one drive and transition. He had a couple jump shots. Didn't look too comfortable taking those corner threes. Looked like he was kind of hesitating there, but I appreciated the overall game that he played. I thought he was actually okay defensively.

Starting point is 00:15:51 The plus minus was minus 17, which I know sounds horrible, but you look at what some of the KU starters did, where they were like minus 29 or minus. Hunter Dickinson, who we're about to get to here, was minus 36. I guess that's a little bit better there. Let's get to our bad goats, though. Hunter Dickinson, that was the worst game he played in KU uniform. I don't know. That might have been the worst game he's played in his college basketball career. I don't know enough about each and every game at Michigan, but he's been an unbelievable

Starting point is 00:16:17 player in college basketball. Five points, two of 12 shooting. He is now three for his last 20, because if you remember, as part of our Baylor recap, we had Hunter Dickinson first half in the good goats. We had Hunter Dickinson second half in the bad goats. He was one of eight in the second half against Baylor. So he is three for 20, his last three halves of basketball. And you saw the frustration. That one drive where he missed like three straight layups,

Starting point is 00:16:42 where he missed one, misses two like putback tries, one on like a tip, you could see the frustration. And I think that started to mount for him. I think the frustrating part for KU fans is that you have this guy who was billed as being this like villain coming into KU and that he was somebody who loved being the villain and loved the moment.

Starting point is 00:17:00 And you would think that would lead to being someone who, when the going is tough on the road, you thrive in that environment. And it felt like it's been kind of the opposite of that, honestly, which is a little bit weird. So I don't know. But anyway, I expect him to get back to being good Hunter Dickinson. Like, I don't know. He's just missing shots than he normally makes.

Starting point is 00:17:21 He just needs kind of a slump buster. But seven rebounds, three assists, two turn two turnovers he was minus 36 three fouls maybe the built self thing will kind of fire him up because especially without Kevin right now like you're reliant on Hunter Dickinson to give you 20 points a night right KJ Adams by the way five points he gets a bad go here one of 10 from the floor three rebounds three assists so I mean you total it up in a game without Kevin McCuller, where you said, and where DeJuan Harris was playing hurt, you basically were going to say, hey, hopefully we get something from Timberlake and El Marco,

Starting point is 00:17:54 which you actually did. You're going to need the big guns to carry you. KJ and Hunter, you need 30 combined points, 35, 40 combined points from the two of you guys. Well, you got 10 on three of 22 shooting. And it's not just three of 22 shooting where it's like, okay, like what if it was a weird game where like, you know, you go back to the 2018 team. What if like Devante Graham and Malik Newman went three of 22 from three? Cause they just could not buy a three, right? Like that would be one thing. So it wouldn't be enjoyable, but that'd be one thing where it'd be

Starting point is 00:18:23 a little bit more understandable when you go three of 22 from the floor where they're two big guys where primarily most of those shots are coming from four feet from bunnies from layup opportunities that is infuriating that just can't happen for KU and the the level that they're shooting layups and at the rim over these last three games with this one in the last two is pretty astounding in a bad way. I don't know if that's just something that a reversion to the mean is coming because they've been excellent at it all year long. Or if there's just something that, you know, I don't know, the lack of depth being more tired,

Starting point is 00:18:55 maybe loss of explosiveness in the legs is leading to you not being able to finish as well. I don't know what it is, but it's pretty incredible. And you needed those guys to step. Neither one kind of did everything else. And in between also, I guess gets a what it is, but it's pretty incredible. And you needed those guys to step up, and neither one kind of did. Everything else and in between also, I guess, gets a bad goat here for KU, too. Like I said, I didn't want to put DeJuan Harris on here. Not a great statistical game or performance by him, but he was playing injured. Just for him to be out there so you didn't have to have six scholarship guys

Starting point is 00:19:20 was a plus on its own. But, yeah, everything else and kind of in between gets the bad goat here. All right, let's finish up here with what's next for taking men's basketball because I think we need to turn the page. First, this episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Get buckets with your first bet on FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook, because right now new customers get 150 in bonus bets with any winning five dollar bet that's 150 bucks if your bet wins you can bet on all your favorite

Starting point is 00:19:51 nba players and teams with quick bets live sammy and parlay's exclusive props i'm waiting for the updated title odds those will come out tomorrow morning because i'm recording this on monday night um but texas tech is low-key a good Big 12 dark horse selection to possibly win the Big 12 because their schedule a little bit easier. So they're sitting at 7-4, game back at Houston. They don't have to play Houston a second time. They also don't have to play Kansas a second time. They don't go to Allen Fieldhouse.

Starting point is 00:20:21 And they are on Ken Palm favored in all but one of their remaining games, the only one at Iowa state. I think you can probably get good odds on tech and Iowa state to win the league. And if they just get a share of it with Houston, even though I think Houston's a better team, maybe schedule sets up a little bit better than you win that bet. Just visit fan dual.com slash locked on. Shoot your shot fan dual official sports book partner of the NBA. What's next for KU men's basketball?

Starting point is 00:20:48 Well, the good news is they do have some time off. More time off for DeJuan to get healthy, for Kevin to get healthy, to practice, for Bill Self to rip into him, for film study, to reset. More time for it to linger with KU players of what just happened to maybe be more hungry coming out of this. And then you're at Oklahoma on Saturday. Doesn't get much easier playing on the road. Oklahoma's got a good team.

Starting point is 00:21:10 In fact, Oklahoma's ranked higher than Texas Tech on Ken Palm, although after this game, who knows if that'll switch up. I said coming into the week, I would almost take one-on-one coming up this week with how much KU has struggled on the road. If you told me one and one this week, I'd probably take it. But now that we're here after the Texas tech blowout loss, like it makes you feel worse about one,

Starting point is 00:21:38 the chances to do that because now you're one in five on the road and big 12 play. Now you're coming off a blowout loss guys are you know hurt and not playing well and all this stuff and even then there still is that worry of like is it even going to be enough to make you feel good because I think coming in I was saying okay maybe if you go one in one this week like that would be okay and that would probably feel good in a lot of ways where you figure the one loss was probably a close loss would it even make you feel that much better now? I don't know. It'd make you feel a little bit better.

Starting point is 00:22:07 And maybe the time off time heals all wounds. Right. And then you have a one game week, the following week where it's at home. So an opportunity to, to really start to work things out. But this to me becomes must win. If Kansas wants to win the big 12,

Starting point is 00:22:21 you got to win this game at Oklahoma. If you lose the game at Oklahoma, I'm wrapping it up for the big 12 title talk. And we're going to just start talking about long-term stuff with like the NCAA tournament and seating and stuff like that. Maybe we're already there. But if you want any chance kind of writing that chip, starting to feel like you can play better and perform better in these situations, it's this Saturday in Norman at Oklahoma.

Starting point is 00:22:43 All right. We're going to be joined by Nick short later this week. We'll also get to a KU Oklahoma preview as well. This has been locked on Jay Hawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts. Give me a follow at D Johnson radio on Twitter. See you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #6 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Have Issues, Lose in Lubbock by 29 to Texas Tech Red Raiders

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.