Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Recap: #7 Kansas Jayhawks Get Another Johnny Furphy Game in 74-69 Win vs Cincinnati Bearcats

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Recap of #7 Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball winning 74-69 vs the Cincinnati Bearcats on Big Monday in the Big 12. KU bounced back after a loss to West Virginia thanks to 23 points from Johnny Furphy, 20 points from Kevin McCullar and more despite Hunter Dickinson foul trouble, rebounding woes and a tough, hard-fought contest against UC between Bill Self and Wes Miller. GOATs of the Game like KJ Adams and what's next with at Iowa State Cyclones in Ames and more.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelRight now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY in BONUS BETS – GUARANTEED when you place a FIVE DOLLAR BET. 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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas bounces back on Big Monday with a 74-69 victory over Cincinnati. We recap the game. 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. You can hear me as well Monday through Friday 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're free and available anywhere that you get your podcasts,

including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We are recapping Kansas-Cincinnati. Jayhawks bounce back on Big Monday in a Big 12 matchup over the Bearcats. Going to get to our overview of the game. Another Johnny Furphy game for KU. Our goats of the game. We'll get to our good and bad. Things that stood out on both sides.

And what's next for KU basketball in this ever-living gauntlet that is the Big 12. First, we are brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed. When you place a $5 bet, visit fanduel.com slash locked on to get started. Kansas 74, Cincinnati 69. Jayhawks on the season improved to 16-3

and 4-2 in Big 12 conference play. And it was a good bounce-back win. Obviously, the final score is by five. It was a tie game at halftime. Then in the second half, Kansas mostly played with a six- to eight-point lead. At one point, it got up to 12. Give credit to Cincinnati. That's a tough team.

They kept fighting back. You probably could have easily won that one by eight to ten at the end, but you gave them a couple of buckets late and everything. So you end up winning by five, but a good bounce back win after the performance against West Virginia. It doesn't wash away your sins from the loss of that West Virginia game. I think that'll more so be your next game gives you the opportunity to do that, but you have to bounce back and you have to hold serve at home. And it was another Johnny Furphy game. Really has been apparent his impact coming into the starting lineup for KU and what he provides.

And ever since he has become a starter, it has taken this KU offense to just a whole nother level. It has given them so much more. It was really cool for him to do this too, by the way, in front of his parents who made the long travel out and were able to come see the game. But now you're looking over the four games he has started, seven points, 15 points, 13 points, 23 points,

which means over the four games that he has started, he's putting up about 14.5 points per game. And he's doing it on very high efficiency. He's not scared of the moment. He's shooting shots when he's getting open. He's also rebounding the basketball well. So far he has averaged seven rebounds per game over the last four games, which is ironic because the end of the West Virginia game, yes, freshmen are going to make

mistakes and that one came at a costly moment, but overall that's been good too. He's getting steals for you. He's averaging a steal per game in those moments, half a block per game in those moments, over an assist per game. He has just been excellent since adding into the starting lineup. He brings just so much to this team that you've been looking for. They need added offense, right? Before he became a starter, they were ranked around 40th in Ken Palm's adjusted offensive efficiency. Now they've gotten to a point where they're in the top 25 and or right around the top 25. He adds a element of not just to the offense by having somebody else out there who can score the basketball and hit open threes,

but also by the spacing by opening things up a little bit more for Kevin McCuller or DeJuan Harris or Hunter Dickinson at KJ Adams. And he adds so much hustling. He's getting on the court, getting the jump balls, getting those extra possessions for you. He has been able to get rebounding opportunities. I think he reminds me a lot of Grady Dick with the rebounding.

Grady Dick was a really good offensive rebounder. He was opportunistic, knew when to crash in, and was really good about using his athleticism and length to get in there and get extra possessions for KU. And he did that. I think KU had eight second chance points. I feel like all of them were on offensive rebounds for Johnny Furphy. I don't know if that's true or not, but I feel like that was kind of the case. And he just gives you another rebounder and more length out there. He brings so much to this team. Now he's not perfect. He's not a great defender yet. There are many times at the game that Cincinnati was switching and was going at him. And there were a few times that they were able to beat him, right? Either able to get by him or kind of shake him by or lose him off the ball.

I will say though, when you look at the hustle he has, when you look at the athleticism he has, now there's a difference between being a vertical athlete. There's a difference between being a straight line athlete. There's a difference between being an athlete who has quick feet and has lateral quickness, right? Lateral quickness is the biggest one for playing defense. Who knows if that's something that can prevent him. But when I look at Johnny Furphy, I do see a good athlete.

I do see someone who tries hard. I do see someone who seems to be a good kid. Everything about him tells me that eventually he will be at least a decent defender. At the collegiate level, he should eventually be at least a plus defender, right? Because of all those things. If you just continue to try, you continue to learn, and you're athletic and long, eventually at the college level, at least, right, you're going to be at least an above average defender. He's not quite there yet, but that was kind of the case with when you're a freshman, you have a lot to learn and little things and intricacies that you have to figure out. So I don't know, maybe that doesn't come until a future year or something like that. Who

knows? Maybe he's going to start popping up on draft boards after this. But anyway, point being, even despite that, with some of the defense stuff that I, like I said, basically I'm saying that I think there is an avenue for it getting better. He does so much for the team and adds so much that even if he's not as good of a defender, say as Elmarco Jackson, for instance, it doesn't matter because it's a net positive what he is bringing you overall. And I don't know. I feel like it has at least been, even though KU lost the game to West Virginia, since he's been in the starting lineup, maybe this is me, I feel like the product of watching KU basketball has been a lot better here. It just looks a little bit more free-flowing. Maybe this is a bad game to say that in because it was more of a rugged game,

the under hit in this game, right? Like this wasn't a super great offensive game for KU. It just feels like things are more free-flowing, though, and there's more options for KU out there. And it was really about just the two wings carrying the day for KU. We mentioned coming in that Cincinnati, the one that got a weak point on the defensive end was some of their wing defense, and that's what carried the day for you. Kevin McCuller and Johnny Furphy combining to just really carry your offense. They had more than 50% of your scoring combined. You had Hunter Dickinson

being in foul trouble, which made this more of a necessity that other guys were going to have to step up, and they certainly did. You had enough defense. Both teams missed a ton of shots at the rim. This easily could have been a much higher game, higher scoring game, if both teams hit more shots at the rim. Cincinnati missed a good amount of open threes, and it's kind of a weird game in evaluating the KU defense because Cincinnati shot just 39%. That's great. Cincinnati was just 3 of 18 from 3. That's great, too. They missed a lot of open looks.

I think KU may be a little bit fortunate with some of those. Then again, you could say, well, Cincinnati hasn't been a good offense coming in. They were more known for their defense and rebounding. So theoretically, they are going to miss more of those. That plays into their profile. And it's a bit of a reversion fortune after the West Virginia game, right? It's like, hey, you just had to deal with West Virginia. We're going to, this team's going to miss a few open ones that normally maybe you'd make. But even then, I did think KU was playing a physical game in a lot of areas and did make a lot of the shots, at least inside or around the rim,

more difficult and got a hand up in there and contested them. So I think a little bit of Cincinnati just missing shots, a little bit of Kansas playing good defense, a little bit of good fortune. But again, KU missed a lot of inside shots too, right? So that stuff probably balanced out with some of the missed layups that KU kind of had on that end of the floor. I think elsewhere, KU obviously got spanked on the glass. That was not great. We mentioned coming in, Cincinnati was top 20 in offensive rebounding rate.

Cincinnati was top 20 in defensive rebounding rate, Cincinnati was top 20 in defensive rebounding rate. And they really took advantage in this game, 40 to 29 on the glass. They grabbed 16 offensive rebounds. KU had just 23 defensive rebounds. So that was a really high percentage of offense rebound rate for Cincinnati. We'll get more into that coming up later in our GOAT segment. They also, Kansas had six offensive rebounds out of comparison. I mean, in Cincinnati, basically got 10 extra possessions there

with offensive rebounding. There were times where it felt like KU just didn't grab the ball. They were there. There were a few where maybe they were long rebounds and you were just kind of unfortunate, wrong spot, wrong time. But that's something over these last two games that you need to kind of wash up. And then with the West Virginia game,

that one's more concerning than this one because this one, Cincinnati, that's just what they are. With West Virginia, that wasn't the case, but certainly something to go back to the drawing boards on for KU. Honestly, probably fortunate for KU that despite that big rebounding advantage, you only lost second chance points 13 to 8. Things also did not go well for KU with bench scoring, and we talked about that coming into the game. We said Cincinnati plays their bench a ton of minutes. Cincinnati is one of the best bench scoring teams in the country. Kansas is not. And that's, you know, okay when you view it from a standpoint of, well, KU's just not playing nearly as many minutes. And of course, they're

not going to get up as many shots and minutes and have the totals that Cincinnati is on the bench. This isn't about can KU outscore the Cincinnati bench. It's can the KU bench give you something off the bench when they do come in the game? Can they at least make it a little closer than maybe the numbers on paper would say? Well, turns out it was actually worse than the on paper number said. And that ended up being a bit of a problem. Cincinnati outscored you 32 to two in bench scoring. Again, you're not playing your bench much. So it's kind of like time of possession in football. If you win time of possession, it doesn't mean you're going to win the game. But if you're winning the game, there's a better chance you're going to win time of possession because you're going to hold on the ball. You're going to be kneeling the ball at the end. It's

like with bench scoring. Well, if your starters are just playing well, like who cares if your bench isn't scoring, but again, you want it a little bit more in the minutes that they were out there, a little more efficiency from when they were, if that kind of makes sense. But KU won an ugly game, rugged game, despite that, because of the two wings, because of the turnover battle. They did a nice job forcing 16 turnovers. 12 of those came off of Kansas steals. So that's really good. They also had five less on their end, 11 for KU. You had a 12 to 6 advantage in steals. You had a 15 to 8 advantage in points off of turnovers. It was a group effort.

Three steals for Kevin McCuller, two for DeJuan, two for El Marco, two for Furphy. Kind of just all added up with what everybody put together. The good passing continued, 17 assists. Cincinnati had just seven. And KU even with Hunter Dickinson being in foul trouble and unable to fully establish himself, Cincinnati was still outscored 32-24 points in the paint. So you're still able to have

a bit of an advantage there. So bottom line, you need to hold serve at home as difficult as it is to win on the road in this league. You've already dropped two on the road to two of your easier road opponents so far this year. You gotta hold serve at home if you want to win the big 12 and you bounce back in a physical game. You want a game where one of your all American candidates was limited with foul troubles and you're not a very deep team. Now go win in Ames on Saturday to make up for what happened this past Saturday. We'll get more into that coming up later in the show. Coming up next, though, what's our GOATs of the game with our good and bad performances.

First, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. The NFL regular season is wrapping up, but there's still time to get in on the action with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place a $5 bet. That's $150 in bonus bets, win or lose. The app is so easy to use, and there's so many different ways to bet, like live same-game parlays.

You can find bets in the new Explore tab. Make a parlay in the Parlay Hub, the best way to find popular parlays, and more. So visit FanDuel.com slash LockedOn and make your first bet at a layup. FanDuel, official partner of the NFL. All right, continuing on with our goats of the game. We'll start with our good goats here, then move to the bad. Let's start with Johnny Furphy, man.

Another Johnny Furphy. We can't's start with Johnny Furphy, man. Another Johnny Furphy. We can't even say the Johnny Furphy game anymore. Usually when we have that, it's more reserved for guys who, you know, they're more bench players, role players, or maybe they just play above in one game, and then they kind of take over and have a big game for you. Furphy is just doing that lately in, like, every game. So it's no longer the Johnny Furphy game.

It's a Johnny Furphy game. He had 23 points on a 7 of 8 shooting, ultimate efficiency, 3 of 4 from 3. He finished with 11 rebounds. This is double-double and two steals in 36 minutes of play. He basically hit the dagger that puts you up 10 at the moment. Cincinnati had a quick 4-0 run in like 30 seconds that made it still be like, okay, you still got to take care of the ball, hit your free throws. But for the most part, that was kind of the dagger in the game. And how many extra possessions did he win? How many hustle plays did he have in addition to the shot making, in addition to the spacing, in addition to the scoring? And then a game where, you know, really everybody else struggled scoring. I think your third leading scorer in this game was KJ Adams with 11 points. Your second leading scorer, Kevin McCuller, had struggling shooting the ball and struggled with efficiency.

Hunter Dickinson was in foul trouble. Furphy had to step up on the offensive end for you to win this game, and he did. Really cool to see, like I said, with his parents in attendance. Unbelievable performance by him. He continues to skyrocket up, and that's what gives me hope that, even if Kansas is to lose the Big 12 this year, let's say you go 11-7 or you go 12-6 and 13-5 or 14-4 ends up winning the league.

If you continue to have a positive trajectory here from Johnny Furphy toward the end of the season, at the very least, the big picture is that you're going to feel better about where this team will be in the NCAA tournament than where you were from the beginning of January. Even if you didn't win the league, which isn't a normal thing that you would feel good about just in general or as a Kansas fan. But that's kind of the way I feel that Johnny Furphy's long-term potential is really, really high. And he's kind of showing that right now. Kevin McCuller gets a good goat here. I know the efficiency wasn't there shooting the basketball. He had 20 points, only five of 17 shooting. Not great. He was 2 of 6 and 3, 8 of 12 at the free throw line, but he grinded his way out. This is similar to what Jalen Wilson did last year in a lot of performances. He had ones where he had good efficiency, but there's a lot of times,

and I think sometimes some people get caught up in the box score where it's just like, oh, well, if this guy only shot 35% or 40% and this other guy shot 80%, well, why did that guy take so many shots? They should be giving all those shots to the other guy. As if when the other guy starts taking more shots and the first guy starts taking less shots, that the shooting efficiency is going to be the same. When you are the primary option of an offense, you are going to get more keyed on. And guess what?

You're going to be stuck with the crap shots when the shot clock is winding down, when nobody has anything open, when you need somebody to take a shot that goes to the best player. So just in general, you're going to take more shots. The efficiency is going to go down. The idea is you still want good efficiency, but theoretically, like shooting 50% from the floor on 15 shots a game is better than shooting 55% from the floor on 10 shots per game. Just because it's one of those, you have to have somebody take those shots, basically. And so, yes, this was not a great shooting game for Kevin McCuller, but he grinded through.

And that's important to keep grinding through for a game where KU with Hunter Dickinson on the bench because of foul trouble, who else was going to take those shots? It's easy to be like, oh, KJ Adams is 5-8. Well, if Kevin McCullers is not on the floor, does KJ Adams have to hoist up those shots at the end of shot clock? He was at least able to get to the free throw line, and in a game where you're not shooting well, that's a great trait to have. Get to the free throw line, get easy points. He also had five rebounds, five assists, three steals, 35 minutes.

He played a good game, and it was strong on the defensive end too. KJ Adams does get a good go here. Not one of his best overall stat lines 11 points he was 5-8 from the floor only three rebounds you do need more over the last two games you've seen those rebound numbers i think three games actually kind of drop off but the two games it's notable because you've struggled as a team rebounding basketball so you want to see hit those numbers go back to where they were a couple weeks ago where you had that four-game stretch averaging basically double digits. Did have two assists. He had a steal.

But he had a couple big buckets in the second half. The big thing here with KJ, why I put him on this list, Victor Locken, the Cincinnati player who I believe is their best player on the team, he was coming into the game averaging over 13 points, seven rebounds, two assists per game, shooting over 50% from the floor. Really good player. He plays the four and the five.

And it wasn't always KJ on Lackin. I even know there was like a time where I think DeJuan Harris or something got switched on. I remember he was a Marco and they forced a miss. So it was a little bit of everybody, KU switches and everything. But the primary guy was KJ on him. And Lackin finished with just seven points, about six and a half below his average.

He was just one of six from the floor. So partially the whole defense, partially because of KJ, partially because Cincinnati maybe missed, and him included, a few shots that maybe they normally make. You took their best player or their leading score out of their element to help you win this game. So I think that does deserve some credit here. As far as the bad goats here, DeJuan Harris layups and turnovers. I think DeJuan Harris as a

whole did some good things. He had eight assists. Normally if you say he scores eight points, that's on the higher end of things. He also had two steals. He looked for his shot. He took 10 shots. You want him to be aggressive. Those are some good things. And I don't think overall I have DeJuan on here. It's just these specific areas right that kind of tank it a little bit the 10 shots did not involve him making many layups it felt like he missed three or four layups in this game but it's more excruciating you're gonna miss some layups when they're contested but you don't want to miss like every layup and it's specifically like there were two that I remember where it was like, yeah, those were kind of bunnies. The one was very much so where he just had like a wide open shot and just kind of smoked it. So that wasn't great to see.

And that's kind of been a weird theme this year for DeJuan Harris. He hasn't been able to shoot layups very well. Maybe that that renaissance is coming. I think he's at like 40 percent on layups so far this year. Last two years, he had been in the mid to high 50s. That's not great. And so obviously he would have got to double figures if he would have able to hit one or two layups along the way.

And he probably would have ended up on good goats. Now he did also have five turnovers, more than you like to see, especially for a veteran point guard, especially considering, check this out, the rest of KU as a team had six combined turnovers. DeJuan had five. And there was one where you had an entry post where I think it was Hunter Dickinson was being fronted and it was just bad angle is thrown out of bounds.

Never really gave him a shot. Those are the plays where it's like, Hey, you're, you're a fifth year guard. You gotta make the simple ones happen. And over the last two or three games that had gone away this game, it kind of came back a little bit, so you want to get that shored up and something to watch moving forward. The bench gets a bad goat here. Self-said postgame on SVP on SportsCenter. They did like a one-on-one interview there. He actually said he liked what Elmarco Jackson and Parker Brown gave. Parker Brown actually had a plus three and plus minus, so I don't know, maybe that backs up a little bit there,

and he was kind of forced into more action because of Hunter Dickinson having foul trouble, but I don't know, man. man uh the rest of that McDowell was minus four Marco Jackson was minus six Nick Timberlake was minus six I know plus minus stats can be fluky game to game so I don't know but what about this how about this then 27 combined minutes for your four bench players with Jackson Brown McDowell and Timberlake. 27 combined minutes, and they had just two points on 0 of 2 shooting, two rebounds, one assist, three steal, and four fouls. If you had a starter who played 27 minutes and had two points on 0 of 2 with two rebounds, one assist, three steals, and four fouls, you would not say that was a good game, right? It felt like Parker

Brown dropped a few rebound opportunities that were just right there that he could have had an even better game. Marco Jackson, I feel like every drive just ends up being a drive and kick that doesn't gain Kansas any advantage or added space, which is unfortunate because he's such a good athlete. I would like to see him just drive to score, honestly, at this point, especially coming off the bench. Nick Timberlake couldn't carry it over from last game. And then McDowell just kind of plays a few possessions, just tries to get in there for maybe a quick defensive sub and then comes out. It might not be a huge long-term issue because teams with out-depth win in March all the time, longer breaks during the timeouts. You're in a situation where it doesn't matter as much,

and you look at the past NCAA champions, a lot of them rank in the bottom 100 in bench minutes. Look back to the Kansas team from a couple of years ago. My thought has always been with the bench though, that it's okay to have a short bench. And in fact, again, like the numbers show that that has actually worked better for teams in March madness,

but that you do have to at least have one or two guys you can trust each game. Because realistically, one of your five starters, if not two, in a given game is going to be a little bit off. And you need to be able to count on at least one guy, maybe two to come off the bench and do that. So you think of the team two years ago that won the national title, that team wasn't an overly deep team. By the end of the year, you were playing a seven-man rotation with technically an eighth guy. The seventh man, it was, it year, you were playing a seven man rotation with technically an eighth guy, like the seventh man. It was,

it was Remy Martin was six man, Mitch life. It was the seventh man. And then every so often you'd throw Jalen Coleman lands for an offensive sub. Every so often you throw KJ Adams for defense sub, but both guys are playing like five or less minutes per game. So it was really a seven man rotation,

but guess what? If Ochaibashi, you know, had a bad shooting game or something, which I think he did against Creighton, Remy Martin has a big game to kind of pick it up. If one of your starters, David McCormick, has a lesser shooting game, Mitch Leifold can come in and hit some hook shots.

Right now, Kansas doesn't have any of those guys to come off the bench. So if any of the starters don't play well, they don't have that one guy who can come in and kind of impact it. So it's sort of not a long-term issue, but it sort of is. You need to at least get one guy you can count on off the bench, if not two guys. Maybe with the Parker Brown role, you feel like that's trusted because it's a very limited role.

But it'd be huge for this team if Marco Jackson can start figuring out scoring. Also, the last one here for Bad Goats is rebounding. We mentioned that earlier. Not a good rebounding game for KU. If you look at offensive rebounding percentage, this was their fourth worst of the season. Their other worst ones were Tennessee, which makes sense, physical good rebounding team, West Virginia, the game they just lost, Connecticut, big physical good rebounding team, and now Cincinnati. And then you look at the defensive side, this is by offensive rebound

and defensive rebound rate, to be clear here. By defensive rebound rate, That was KU's worst game of the season and rebounding. And you look at their five worst defense rebounding rate game Cincinnati, which I guess was a five point game, Eastern Illinois, only an eight point game in a game. You were supposed to win by like 30 West Virginia Marquette with losses and TCU a game that you almost lost. So got to pick up the rebounding moving forward on Saturday headed to Ames. Let's discuss what's next for KU coming up in just a moment on this episode

of Locked on Jayhawks. What's next for KU men's basketball? They're going to be back at it on Saturday in Ames, Iowa, taking on the Iowa State Cyclones. Iowa State's got a really good team so far this year. They're ranked in the top 15 on Ken Palm. In fact, they're actually ranked higher than what Kansas is so far. And right now they're projected to win that one on Ken Palm by five points.

Now part of that, they ballooned it up a little bit by some just beatdowns of bad teams in non-con play. But Iowa State's been kind of what they have been the last two years. So, so far this year, they're 54th on offense. They're third on defense. Again, that's similar to the last couple of years. Last year, they were 114th on offense, eighth on defense. Year before, 171st on offense, fifth on offense. They're third on defense. Again, that's similar to the last couple of years. Last year, they were 114th on offense, eighth on defense. Year before, 171st on offense, fifth on defense. So this year has been similar defense. They're just an even better offense. They're instead of being like a bad offense, they're like an okay offense, which has been

enough with the defense. They've got an athletic team. They are a team that has like some five-star recruits. When you look at Milan Momsilovic, he's kind of hit right away. When you look at their other five-star recruit with Omaha Blue, he hasn't quite figured it out yet. But physical team, they've got length. They beat Houston in aims. It's a tough place to play. This is the number one turnover defense in the country.

So DeJuan Harris, KU, they got to strap them up. And they kind of got walked off the floor last year in Ames. We'll see how they can do in this one. After that, it's Oklahoma State on Tuesday. And then the gauntlet really begins because once you turn to February, you start with Houston, and that's kind of indicative of how the rest of the season is going to go for KU in terms of the difficulty of schedule. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the action. We'll be back later this week. Jordan Peterson leaving KU discussing some of that and some, I guess, residual impact that's come since then. Nick Schwartz is going to join us later this week, and we'll also get to a KU Iowa State preview. Later.