Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #7 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Loses at Home to BYU Cougars as Big 12 Hopes Come Crashing Down

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

Recap of #7 Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball losing at home in Allen Fieldhouse for the first time in Lawrence, KS this season, as the BYU Cougars won 76-68 on Tuesday night in the Big 12 conference. KU's Big 12 title hopes came all the way down with the loss as Kevin McCullar remains injured and the 'Hawks offense has some problems along with the continued 3-point defense. GOATs of the Game from Hunter Dickinson to Dajuan Harris, Johnny Furphy and more. Plus, what's next for Bill Self and his team with Saturday's trip to Waco to face the Baylor Bears.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedIn These days every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business. That’s why LinkedIn Jobs helps find the right people for your team, faster and for free. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/lockedoncollege. Terms and conditions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelNew customers, join today and you’ll getONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first bet of FIVE DOLLARS or more wins. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started. eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.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)

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas is dead for winning the Big 12 title. 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. Give me a follow on social media at DJohnsonRadio. Kansas loses to BYU on their home floor 76-68. Not even Allen Fieldhouse could save them. They are no longer perfect at home. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day.

We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts. And on today's show, we're going to recap the events that happened inside of Allen Fieldhouse and big takeaways from the game because I think there's a lot to come out of this one for KU. Go to the game, good and bad, and what is next for KU and men's basketball? First, this episode is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Kansas loses 76-68 at home to BYU. And, you know, honestly, you could kind of point to this and be like,

okay, KU just didn't have the goods over the last, I mean, really the whole second half, it was not pretty for KU because you look at the second half and KU was 8-29 from the floor, only 28%. They shot 62% at the free throw line, 2 of 10 from 3. You can easily point to both of those and point to Kansas leading 35 minutes and 30 seconds of this game and say, you know what? Actually played, like, okay enough to win.

They just didn't make shots down the stretch. The problem is they've lost so many other games. You've lost your right to have, you know, that one kind of gimme, that one, okay, just weird things happen sometimes. Because you continue to lose, you know, in a lot of other ways, more than we're used to with Kansas basketball. You lose some of that, right? And there are some things that, you know, you take away from this game that are certainly a negative. And obviously, you look at it and say, okay, well, you held BYU to 39% from the floor. Like, that's good against a good offense and what you did there.

11 turnovers, like that's fine. You won the rebounding battle. You ended up with a 36 to 16 advantage with points in paint, 9 to 6 in fast break points, 14 to 11 in assists. But just not good enough from the offense. And Kansas only shoots 39% from the floor in this game, only 20% from three. They were three of 15 from three. They were 20 of 44 from two-point range, so below 50%. And overall, this was KU's fifth least efficient game,

according to Ken Palm, by their offense efficiency. Here's the other four. Texas Tech was the least efficient, blowout loss. Marquette was the second least efficient, 14-point loss. Kansas State was the third least efficient, UCF the fourth least efficient, and BYU the fifth least efficient. All of those are losses. And I think it speaks to something. I guess there's a split way that I want to go with this, talking about the offense. One, why is this happening? And two, why does the offense have such big control on the games, right? Because, you know, if I sort things by KU's five worst defensive efficiency games

so far this season, yeah, of course, when you're really bad at offense or defense, it's going to make it hard to win. But they're two and three in those games on defense, so they still have one, some of those games, they actually beat UConn and they beat TCU with two of their five worst defense efficiency games. The other ones are Iowa state,

Texas tech and West Virginia. Whereas the offense, their own five. So why is there a bigger correlation there? Well, let's start with this. Why is this happening for the KU offense? I think over and over,

we've just kind of seen the lack of guy who can get a bucket for you in a key moment of the game and a key moment off the dribble in a key moment when the shot clock's winding down in a key moment as the game's going on you know it's there's a couple minutes to go and KU doesn't score in the final whatever couple minutes of the game they finish oh for their last five because they don't really have the go-to option who can get a bucket for them and I think part of this too goes into the Kevin McCuller injury right right? Because ideally Kevin McCuller would be that guy. And I think there's two ways of looking at that. One, even when Kevin was playing, like I think the Kansas state game, you know, even with having him to try to be that guy, he struggled in that game. Now I do think back to like the beginning

of the year, the first half of the year, and Kevin was that guy. And he was able to do that for you consistently. And I think to some of the games where I've thought of where, you know, you wanted him to be that guy, but the efficiency wasn't there, the Iowa State game, the Kansas State game, and he was playing through the injury at that point, so I think it is very easy to point back to the injury to Kevin McCuller as being the difference here. Kevin would be that guy if he were healthy, because A, you just don't have him right now, and, B, even if you did, if he was just playing through the injury, he wouldn't be 100%.

So either way, you still wouldn't have him. I think that's a big knock for this team because this isn't a team filled with – we've seen some other great years with Bill Self where they've had two or three bucket getters on the court at all times. I mean, heck, even four at a certain time. You think back to the national title year a couple years ago, Christian Brown could get a bucket.

Ocha could get a bucket. Remy Martin could get a bucket. Dave could get a bucket in a post-up setting. Mitch could get a bucket in a post-up setting, right? You think back to Frank Mason, Devontae Graham, Josh Jackson, you know, those guys could get a bucket, right? You don't really have that as much on this team. Hunter Dickinson is going to get a bucket in a post-up try.

Furphy is not going to get a bucket. He's a great great transition and if you set one up for him shooting the ball DeJuan can do it here and there but not really consistently you're the same with kind of KJ Adams you have more limited players here obviously the same goes for like Nick Timberlake and Marco Jackson so you just don't really have that and that would be part of the reason why and now Kansas is 49th on offense on Ken Palm and adjusted offensive efficiency and so I think this goes back to okay there's the why it's happening why is it leading them to you know I guess have so many more struggles well here's the thing you look at Ken Palm's adjusted defensive efficiency Kansas is 10th and I think it's easy for me to point to, you know,

this type of matchup continues to and will continue to be a matchup problem for KU, a team who has the ability to space the court. Like even some games KU won, they got really challenged against teams who could space the – like who are some of the teams that can space the court basically? And when I say by that, I mean teams that either have a five-man who can space the court or teams who run a lot of ball screens or have a lot of shooters on the floor that's going to stretch out your defense and if you have more of a lumbering big man and

are playing two big men like KU is that can hurt you a little bit okay certainly that would be kind of how I would describe Yale and that was a much closer game than you expect that's how I would describe Kentucky and if not for DeJuan Harris going bonkers from three at the end of that game you probably would have lost that game. I think that way about West Virginia and they beat you on the road. You know, the way Iowa State shot it, that specific game, that's kind of how they were. And you lost the game. Texas Tech is certainly that way. And you lost by 29. And BYU is that way. And you lost by eight. This is a matchup problem for KU. So that's certainly something to look out for in the bracket. But still, at the end of the day, they do have a top 10 defense by one metric.

And where I think it's interesting is that this is where I'm at. The defense is actually good enough for KU, but the problem is because of that lack of bucket getter and key moments because the offense is ranked 49th the path to success for this team is hey we don't really have that guy and that's not going to change it's us we have to be an elite defense right now Kansas is a good defense but they have that fatal flaw and I don't know maybe that's just a roster construction thing that's not going to change because you you are playing you know even with David McCormick he wasn't a mobile big man but he was still able to come out and hedge ball screens with Hunter Dickinson it's like all drop coverage because you're going to get beat off the bounce and everything like that uh is this the

flaw of playing two bigs all that sort of stuff I don't know maybe this is just all a roster problem for KU and there's nothing that they can do in season as much of a wizard as Bill Suff is with the X's and O's maybe that's you know what this kind of all comes down to, but that's kind of the point for me. It's like you either need somebody to get buckets for you, need to figure out the offense, or the defense is going to have to be elite. And it's hard to see, given the characteristics of this defense, that kind of being the case. So it's funny because in this game, the defense is not the issue. You held them 39%. That said, they shot 38% from three, and that was enough because your offense didn't get it going.

So it's just, I don't know. I guess it is what it is. But KU is dead now for the Big 12. Maybe not mathematically. I think technically if they won out and like Houston lost out, okay, sure. That's not happening. They're not winning the Big 12. Time to focus on the postseason.

Problem is you could very easily lose two of the next three with the road games at Baylor and at Houston. And if that happens, that would make it three of four, including this game. And then if you lose in the Big 12 tournament, let's say you win your first game and then lose in the second round of the Big 12 tournament at that point. I don't know.

It could be the quarterfinals. It could be the semifinals. Because right now, you're not guaranteed to have a double bye. At that point, you would be sitting on going into the NCAA tournament, possibly losing like four of six, something like that, maybe four of seven. And if Kevin McCuller doesn't come back for those games, and you lose four of six games going into the NCAA tournament, and the NCAA tournament committee is like, hey, they've lost four of six and Kevin McCuller hasn't been playing in those games. And we don't know for sure if Kevin's going to play in the NCAA tournament or not.

They're going to ding you on the seed. Remember, they dinged Kansas for not having Bill Self in the Big 12 tournament, right? They do this with some injuries. So as much as I've thought Kansas kind of the floor at this point would still be like a three seed. If that happens and you don't have Kevin, maybe it is a four seed. Maybe it is a five seed. And that can be a little bit scary there. So honestly, this is kind of just the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of the big 12 ideas and the big 12 title thoughts and all that stuff. And I continue to say that, yeah, you can wash away some of these sins in the NCAA tournament and that there

are certain things that you're better set up for in March because you have a shorter bench. Then again, if you play a matchup like this, you're not set up for in March, but I will say this for a team that had as much high expectations as they did coming into the season, this was a much more flawed roster than maybe nationally it was made out to be. And barring that strong run in March, which, again, objectively can still happen, this season is going to kind of be a failure for KU. Let's continue on with our GOATs of the game.

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Again, create an account and redeem code LOCKEDON for $20 off. Download GameTime today. Last-minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. On to our GOATs of the game, and then we will finish up with what's next for KU men's basketball as KU falls 76-68 here. Let's start with our good goats. A little positive here.

DeJuan Harris, I thought, played a good game. 12 points, 4 of 9 from the floor. He had six assists, did have four turnovers, which was obviously more than you like. Had one steal. And I did think he was kind of doing everything in his power to keep – down the stretch, KU didn't have any success over the last two minutes, but outside the fray of two minutes, he was the one kind of hitting some shots or making some plays

for KU. I thought he was good in this game, good enough for you to win the game for Kansas. I thought it was a nice game for DeJuan Harris. Honestly, this guy only played 13 minutes and he only had two points, one rebound, one assist. So I feel silly putting him on here, but I actually kind of liked Elmarco Jackson's minutes. that was backed up box score plus minus plus two. Again, take that huge grain of salt in such a small sample size in one game and everything, but that was actually the team best for plus minus on the team at plus two. You had Parker Brown at plus one, Patrick Cassidy was a zero, which I mean, that was, you know, playing seconds of the game. And then the third best was DeJuan Harris at minus four.

But, yeah, I thought El Marco, I liked his minutes out there. That was a tough kind of mid-range jump shot that he hit, and he looked aggressive out there. I liked what I saw. If I can get rid of the three-point shooting, Johnny Furphy, I know that's a big part of it because he did go 0 for 5 from three, and that's a big chunk and kind of a big black hole to kind of have in this situation where he takes a third of your three-point shots and he

misses every single one. And that's part of the problem too for KU. You don't have a litany of three-point shooters. So like basically you're counting on Furphy at this point, Furphy and Timberlake. I mean, they combined for 11 of the three-point shots for KU. Everybody else had four and they went one of 11. When Kevin McCullers back, it's basically just Kevin and Furphy with one or two threes from Timberlake off the bench. And then one or two scattered from, you know, Dickinson and Dwan and all those guys, which basically means you're so reliant on basically two guys each and every

night going off from three, where some of these other teams, like, you know, you look at Baylor or BYU or Houston or whatever. It's like, okay, if Houston, if Jamal sheds off from three, well, they have LJ Cryer and Emmanuel sharp, you know what I mean? Or one of these guys coming off the bench. That's not the case for KU, so you're so reliant on that. But I thought outside of the three-point shooting, which was rough, I mean, he was four of seven on twos.

Furphy was excellent in transition. He had that one awesome one-handed dunk. He had nine rebounds, two assists. He was great on the glass, one steal. I thought outside of the shooting, he played a good game. Unfortunately, the shooting is kind of part of it. Honestly, rebounding I thought was pretty good for Kansas in this game. You know, BYU, that's one thing that they came in as kind of an underrated skill set, that they were

a good rebounding team. You know, offensive rebound rate, it was kind of more of a middle of the pack game for what Kansas has done this year. But, you know, the defensive rebounding rate, this was KU's second best defensive rebounding rate game of the season. And Kansas ended up winning the rebounding battle despite all the missed shots they had at 10 offensive rebounds. It was a good rebounding game for KU, good enough to win this one. The bad, though, well, I don't know. I struggled with this one because he still put up 17 points and 11 rebounds.

I actually put Hunter Dickinson on here, and here's why. Six of 15 at the free throw line. I mean, that in itself is very, very costly in a game that, yes, you lose by eight. Closer than that, you led for 35 minutes and 30 seconds. If you hit a couple of those along the way, it's just a different situation down the stretch, obviously. But he was a minus eight in the game for his box score plus minus. And I think you saw going back to the idea of what it does defensively, you know, for KU,

there are just certain limitations they're going to have against matchups like this that not every college basketball team can take advantage of, but BYU and some of these other teams can. And I think that combined with the missed free throws, he had the technical foul. I don't know. There were just a couple things there that I guess I'll say this. Hunter Dickinson is a very good college basketball player. I don't know that you can be an elite college basketball team if Hunter Dickinson is your best player. And maybe that's not fair to him because again, Kevin McCuller, if he weren't injured, you could argue he would be the best player and then Hunter Dickinson would be the number two and maybe that would be fine, right? I mean, Kansas beat UConn with him and all that

sort of stuff, right? But there were still problems when both were, when Kevin was healthy and playing and stuff. So I don't know. I don't know. Just food for thought there. But I did think that was kind of a stats look good. 17, 11, missed some easy ones at the rim, six of 15, three through line.

Some of the defensive struggles that you give from, when I say defense struggles, again, BYU did not have like an elite offensive game, but they did have a good three-point shooting game, hit a bunch of threes, 38%. A lot of that's because of kind of the style you play with having Hunter Dickinson. Shooting in general for KU, they were 3 of 15 from 3.

That's 10 less made threes than the other team. They were 19 of 31 at the foul line, 61%. A lot of that, again, was from kind of Hunter there. And this kind of points to several guys. So for what it's worth, I didn't know what to do with KJ Adams. I thought he was okay, but just missed some of those shots there that maybe you normally see him make. So I didn't want to put him on good or bad.

Nick Timberlake, you know, I certainly didn't want to put him on good. He was one of nine. He was one of six and three. But, you know, I don't know, nine points, five rebounds. Like, I appreciate the aggressiveness of him to keep shooting after he suffered that injury, too, trying to play through that. So, again, I didn't want to put him good or bad, but if I just view it as this shooting in general from really everyone,

that does include Nick Timberlake. That does include KJ Adams. That does include Furphy from three. Oddly enough, Hunter Dickinson, this was a game where he actually hit a three again, but it didn't work out for Kansas overall, and the math problem kind of went against you. And I kind of thought all the way along that BYU would be one of the more dangerous games for Kansas at home because that's the problem with playing BYU.

They can just get hot from three wherever it is, and certainly it stinks that they went six of 31 from three against Kansas State, and then they hit 13 in this game. That's just kind of the bad three-point luck that's been plaguing Kansas this season. But again, part of that is on them too because of the roster construction and give up more open threes. They're going to tend to make more of them as well. Let's finish up here with what's next for KU men's basketball.

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Just visit fanduel.com slash locked on and shoot your shot. FanDuel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA and the LockedOn and shoot your shot. FanDuel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA and the LockedOn Podcast Network. What's next for KU men's basketball? Well, they're going to go on the road this Saturday at Baylor, where they obviously won that game close against Baylor at home, 64-61, and that was a game that they had to kind of survive late. They did it without Kevin McCullers.

So, you know, maybe that gives you hope for this one. But obviously playing on the road is going to be a little bit more treacherous. And then after this, it's the final week of the season. You know, at this point at Baylor, at Houston, among two of the last three you're at home against Kansas State, if you go 2-1 in those last three games, I would take that right now. If you offer that 2-1, pounding at the chance to take that. What's crazy is if you lose both road games,

which you've done a lot this season and win your home game, you'd be 10-8 in conference play. That would be the worst conference record by winning percentage because obviously some years in the past the Big 12 was 16. The Bill Self has ever had at KU, which is pretty crazy. I'd love to go back and I wonder, I guess if I go back to his Illinois days, 11-5, 11-5, 13-3. Then he was at Tulsa 12-2, 9-5, 10-6.

You'd have to go back to Oral Roberts for the last time Bill Self had a worse conference record because the worst conference record he's had at Kansas, I think 12 and six, 12 and four, yeah, 12 and six. So even if they do go two and one, still be 11 and seven. This is going to be the worst conference record that Bill Self has had at Kansas. And maybe since you go back to Oral Roberts, pretty crazy. But go win this week at Baylor and you feel like you would sneak one back at least a little bit. Who knows? Maybe you can get Kevin McCuller back.

Maybe you start to feel desperate, but you don't want to. That's the problem with this loss. You hope this doesn't lead to you feeling desperate in the Baylor game where it's like Kevin feels like he has to play, and then all of a sudden he's not healthy for the tournament. At this point, you're not going to win the Big 12 if of a sudden he's not healthy for the tournament. At this point, you're not going to win the big 12. If you have to punt on the rest of the regular season.

And that doesn't, I mean, you can't really afford to go like, Oh, and three, the rest of the regular season. Cause then you're going to be like a six or seven seed in the NCAA tournament.

You lose all those. And then you lose in the, the first round of the big 12 tournament. Maybe that's overselling it, but still you got my point. Like you can't completely tank on stuff here. I not saying that but like you at this point you are just playing for the ncaa tournament i guess you are playing for the big 12 tournament title too in a year where it would be really fun to win it because there's more teams now and uh that means

more with the imbalance schedule and everything but but still Saturday against Baylor bounce back opportunity. I don't know how confident you are after losing at home to BYU and KU's road struggles, but we will persist. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back to talk more about Kevin McCuller later this week and also a KU Baylor preview on this episode of LOJ. See you next time.