Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #8 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Destroys Oklahoma State Cowboys Without Injured Kevin McCullar

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Recap of #8 Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball destroying the Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball team in Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, KS despite Big 12 player of the year candidate Kevin McCullar being out with an injury and Elmarko Jackson getting the start. What the win means for Bill Self's team, GOATs of the game like Dajuan Harris and KJ Adams and what's next for KU with Houston Cougars and the top defense coming in on Saturday.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelNew customers, join today and you’ll get TWO HUNDRED 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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, no Kevin McCuller, no problem. Personal growth for some players for KU and the bench as they take down Oklahoma State. 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 are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we are recapping KU destroying Oklahoma State in Allen Fieldhouse. No Kevin McCuller, no issue for KU in this one, and now sets up a pretty big one on Saturday against Houston. So we'll start with the game recap, go to the game, and then work into that what is next for KU. First, we are brought to you by FanDuel. Make every moment more. New customers join today, and you brought to you by FanDuel. Make every moment more. New customers join today and you'll get $200 in bonus bets.

If your first bet of $5 or more wins, just visit FanDuel.com slash locked on to get started. Kansas 83, Oklahoma State 54, Jayhawks improved to 17-4 on the season. They moved to 5-3 in conference play

and to their credit, even though they've had some choppy losses and on the season. They moved to five and three in conference play. And to their credit, even though they've had some choppy losses and on the road, yet to lose back-to-back games. So they've been able to bounce back. Now, part of that could just be the schedule has been favorable, right? You play Oklahoma State at home after you lose to Iowa State. That's certainly nice. You won't have as many favorable parts of the schedule coming up over this back half of the season. And that was the importance of getting this win for KU that, you know, Oklahoma State's going to be the worst opponent that you play left on your schedule. But this is really your last opportunity to get a win where you could kind of breathe through and, you know, the last win that you could maybe count on the most among everything you're playing.

And now you gear up for kind of bunker down for February when things get extremely difficult. So take advantage of the ones that are kind of gimme's and freebies right before you do. It was a completely dominant effort for KU from the word go. They led for 39 minutes and 30 seconds of the game. Last I checked, basketball games are played for 40 minutes. Oklahoma State never led in the game. And in total, this means that Kansas in their two wins over Oklahoma State beat them by a combined 53 points. And yes, Oklahoma State is not a very good team. They're not going to be a tournament team or anything like that. But when you're playing a team like that, you know, beat the brakes off of them, right? And it's not like Oklahoma State has always been blown out every Big 12 game.

They had a five-point loss in overtime to Baylor. They had a four-point loss at K-State. They had a five-point loss at home against TCU, a four-point win over West Virginia. So they've played some other teams tough, and you were able to get over them in a big way. Now, Kansas, without Kevin McCuller, certainly it wasn't to a point where even before the game when they said Kevin McCuller is going to be out and he has the bruised knee, that it was something where you figured you were worried to a point that, like, hey, you would lose the game. Kansas came into this one as 16-point favorites, right? That was before the Kevin McCullough injury news, I guess I should say.

Like, they were 16-point favorites before that news kind of came down. So you're talking that Kevin McCullough, as great as he has been, you know, one of the Big 12 Player of the Year frontrunners, national recognition front runner stuff, when you look at all American possibilities and stuff, even then he's not going to be worth a 17 point swing. But maybe that was enough to make you think, okay, this could have been like a 10 to 12, 14 point game, something like that. And obviously it didn't end up being the case. Obviously Bryce Thompson, who is one of Oklahoma State's best players, not as good as Kevin McCuller, but him getting hurt early also took Oklahoma State out

with taking one of their two or three best players, too, but still without Kevin. And for what it's worth, Bill Self in the postgame said, I think this was the quote, this came from Trey Slott of Kansas City Star, I don't expect him to be out a long time. It's a bone bruise. He hurt the outside of it when he got hit the other day. If he had played today, he would be 50 to 60%. So I mean, obviously that becomes the big question moving forward with Kevin. Is he going to be good to go for Saturday against Houston? Is he going to be good to go moving forward for the rest of the season? Is this something that he's going to be able to play through, but it's going to bother him? Is it going to be something that if he does play through, it's going to get worse or it's not

going to get better, right? There are all those questions that come with it that we won't totally know. It does help though that you're playing on a Tuesday as opposed to, you know, one of the Wednesday night games gives you that one extra day of rest before Saturday with Houston. But the thing is with Houston, they are one of the most physical teams, if not the most physical team in the country. So you certainly worry about how he would come back into that, but it does maybe explain some of the poor performance a little bit in the Iowa State game, maybe shooting the ball. I wonder if that was part of it.

And I do wonder if for this game, if Bill Suff said he would have been 50% to 60% today, if this game was for the Big 12 title, does he play through the 50% to 60%? Maybe he does. Whereas Kansas figured and Bill Suff figures, hey, we're at home. We're playing a team we should beat. We're playing Houston next. Let's just not risk it and save Kevin McCuller.

Who knows where that all went. I think the repercussion of it, though, was it gave more opportunity to some of the players who are coming off the bench. And in this specific game, Elmarco Jackson ends up starting for Kevin McCuller. So in this game, Elmarco Jackson is a starter. But for the purposes of where Elmarco Jackson fits into the rotation at this point in time for KU, when everybody's healthy and everybody's back, he is a bench player. And when you look at what the opportunity provided those players and how they took advantage of them in certain instances, I think there are some positives

you can move forward from. I talked about in the preview for this game, shout out to the everydayers if you tuned into this on yesterday's episode, that this was one of your better chances to maybe get the bench a little bit more run, because this would be the game that you felt like you weren't going to have to sweat out in the final four minutes, that this would be one that you had a longer leash. Obviously without Kevin, that became even more of a thing because there were just more minutes to go around in the game. And then it didn't hurt that you blew them out too, that, you know, you were able to get those guys extended run. And then it didn't hurt that you blew them out too, that you were able to get those guys extended run.

And when you look at those bench guys, plus El Marco, there was some roller coaster to it a little bit. I think overall more positive than negative. How much of that is just you were playing Oklahoma State? I don't know. How much of it was extended confidence from extended minutes that aren't always going to be there in future games. Yeah, maybe.

On its face, 10 points is excellent for Marco Jackson. You know, you get anywhere near that. You get 8 to 10 points a game from Marco, especially at this point when he's going to be coming off the bench. I feel great about that. Sometimes you do have to decipher what is a good game between, you know, did you just make shots or did you do all the little things well? Now, for certain players, if you made shots or not does determine if you were good.

Like Nick Timberlake, that's his job. Come in and make shots. So that determines if you had a good game or not in a lot of ways for Nick Timberlake. For El Marco Jackson, it's a little bit more than that. And I think this was a case of a little bit of both. Things look better when you're going two for two from three. They just do, especially if you're El Marco and you're not known for being a great three-point shooter, right? So are we walking away from this game saying, oh, Marco's fixed and Marco looked better just because he had an overall good game?

Or are we just saying it because, okay, he happened to go two for two from three and that ballooned him up to 10 points. Things don't look good when you're turning the ball over, throwing it into a triple team to Hunter Dickinson, and then it leads to a run out the other way, or just driving and kicking for no apparent reason to nobody, right? I do think, though, I think it was somewhere in between because the ultimate reason why I still view this as a positive performance and possibly a step in the right direction for a Marco is it wasn't as much as, yes, like the two threes kind of balloon things. And yes, this was a game where he made shots. There was more decisiveness. He was more aggressive. He had that one nice take

to the bucket, which is something that I think I really looked to like, okay, you're this really athletic dude, get downhill, get to the line, get to the rim, like hit some layups, stuff like that. He looked more aggressive. He looked more decisive in a lot of ways. Is that all product of playing free against the bad Oklahoma State team when you're winning by a lot? Is that a product of knowing that Kevin Kohler's not here and the bench is even shorter and I know that my leash is a little bit longer, so I'm more comfortable, but once Kevin comes back, I'm going to play a little bit tighter there, right? But if that's the El Marco you get the rest of the way, even with some of the ups and downs,

even understanding that you're not going to always get two for two from three, even with, you know, like the turnovers, for instance, coming into play, like thrown into the triple team, Conor Dickinson. Even with that, that's the importance of this game that, you know, there are still areas that you can point to and be like, yeah, freshman mistake there, or yeah, you messed this up. And I think this applies for the entire bench in this game. Like for instance, Parker Brown had six rebounds. Really good. Jamari McDowell had six points, three boards. I thought he was really good off the bench. Nick Timberlake had 7.6 rebounds to assist,

but still there were negatives for all the guys through the bench, basically, right? Nick Timberlake went just two for eight in 24 minutes. Parker Brown had three turnovers and didn't score. Elmarco Jackson had a couple turnovers here and there. It was not a perfect game for the bench, but you're not asking them to be perfect. You are just asking them to give you a pulse. You are asking them to be average, right? And in this game, they're probably even better than average, but when that carries over to better opponents, can you just be average instead of only giving you two points, instead of giving you four points, instead of being one of the worst, least productive benches in the conference

and in the country, can you just be average? Because if you're just average, KU has a really good starting five, and that can be enough. And so, like, tonight, you were outscored on the bench 19 to 18. That's good enough in every single game. If you're within the same range of bench scoring as the opponent, you take that. And, you know, it was super nice that the starters didn't have to play 35 minutes and that DeJuan and Hunter played 30 and 28 respectively,

one of their lower minute totals of the year, along with getting the walk on some run and having Wilder Evers hit that kind of alley-oop layup and Michael Jankovich hitting a bucket from the outside. So, overall, just about everything you'd expect given the score. Kansas shot 58%. They shot 63% on twos, 44% from three at eight of 18. Oklahoma State shot just 29%, 31% on twos. I do think that the KU defense deserves a lot of credit for how well, and 31% on twos. That's really good.

28% on threes, obviously not having Bryce Thompson hurt there for the Cowboys. And the Cowboys are actually even in turnovers. Neither team had a ton. Both teams just 10. Oklahoma State actually won points off turnovers after being a far cry from that the last meeting. But KU led 15 to 7 in fast break points, 44 to 14 in points in the paint. And you were up 22 to 8 in assists, 7 to 6 in steals, 4 to 1 in blocks. Even the rebounding stuff, like KU nabbed 11 more rebounds. Oklahoma State did have nine offensive boards.

KU only had five, but they missed way more shots. If you just go by rebound rate, Oklahoma State got 20% of their misses. Kansas got 19%. Both teams were right around the 80% mark on defensive rebound rate. So when you look at it, like the rebounding was kind of a wash. Now, I do think there's a conversation. KU needs to be a better rebounding team. Going back to the Ken, they win a national title conversation

that we had earlier this week, if you're an everyday and tune into that. So that is certainly something they need to be better, but it wasn't something they lost tonight, for instance. All right, let's get on to our goats of the game and what's next for KU on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, we're brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Happy Super Bowl to all who celebrate, which why wouldn't you be, from FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.

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We'll start with our good goats, then work to our bad goats uh first up to one harris here he had 12 points he was 5-9 from the floor seven assists to one turnover three rebounds one steal only played 30 minutes of play so you know in a lot of other games he's playing 35 and maybe the stats go up a little bit even more and you knew that with kevin mcculler out you needed to want to score a little bit more and from the you knew that with Kevin McCuller out, you needed DeJuan to score a little bit more. And from the get-go, he was willing to. He hits that three to kind of get things started, and he was more willing to score in this game.

And then when things got, you know, out of hand or you start getting up big, maybe he starts, you know, doing a little bit of both with the facilitating everything again. It feels like, because I thought he played well in the Iowa State game. I put him on the good goats in that game. You know, he held Tameen Lipsy to 10 points, and he did some impressive things, like, on the off, like didn't have a ton of turnovers against the best turnover defense

in the country. So there was a lot of reasons. And now he has a good game here. It feels like after having maybe some ups and downs with DeJuan so far this season, we're on a good string of play. We're on a good run of play here over the last week or so for DeJuan. The hope is that carries over to Houston because I don't know that anybody's going to be more important than DeJuan in the Houston game,

given that Jabal Shedd is like the leader right now for Big 12 defensive player of the year at their point guard spot. He just had 25 points against Texas, so he impacts the floor on both ends of the court. Houston's a tough team. They force turnovers. I mean, there's going to be a lot of this game on DeJuan Harris, so you feel like he's headed in the right direction coming into that game.

K.J. Adams gets a good go. 16 points. He was 7 of 7 from the floor, and that wasn't just all dunks or layups. You know, he hit a couple of those little push shots. He hit like one kind of just straight-up mid-range shot from the elbow. Six assists as well. He's so good passing, and having a guy who can grab and go like he can is helpful you wish there was more grabbing though as part of that only two rebounds again wish those numbers would go up with the rebounds there was that like four game stretch where he

was putting up like double digit rebounds I don't know what's happened to that uh certainly there's less rebounds to be had when you have a guy like Johnny Furfews coming in there. But today, like there was no Kevin McCuller to grab some of those rebounds. So you would like to see that up. But outside of that, KJ really good, 16.6 assists. He also had a block and two steals and bringing the energy as always. Johnny Furphy gets a good goat for KU, 11 points on a four of seven from the floor. He also had six rebounds, more of a quiet stat line for Furphy compared to maybe some of his more recent ones where he scored 15, 20 points in the game. He didn't have to score a ton in this one though. And he also had the two assists to zero turnovers and one block. He had the team best plus minus in the game. He was plus 28 and Furphy just continues to have a big positive impact. Hunter Dickinson

gets a good go to your 16 points, 11 rebounds, another double-double for Hunter. He was 8 of 14. He missed some, I guess, kind of easy ones early, kind of similar to the Iowa State game there, but still was able to kind of get things going. He also had two assists, one block, one steal. He only played 28 minutes, so another guy who, if he would have played more towards his regular minute totals, maybe ends up with 20 and 15 again.

One thing that's peculiar, though, that I did notice, he was only 0 for 1 from 3 in this game. He has just won for his last 14 from 3 after he started the year 16 of 31. Now, when you start the year 16 of 31, there's bound to be some sort of a regression there. But it feels like the regression monster has come and been, I don't know, vengeful, like it has gone above and beyond. So I do think Hunter is really smart that in this game,

okay, he misses his first three. He goes, you know what? I haven't been feeling it from three lately. I'm just going to back off. We don't need it. Oklahoma State's got not a great interior defense, and we're just going to go to that. So give credit to that.

But that's something that I'm looking to turn and then maybe even out because you have that hot start. Now you have a cold go. I feel like it's going to find kind of a baseline at some point in time. As far as our bad goats here, I really only have one. I mean, it's hard. KU blows out Oklahoma State, and there weren't a lot of things. Like, there are some things where you're like, ah, that could have been better.

Like, yeah, rebounding could have been a little better. And, yeah, maybe you could have won points off there. But all that stuff was kind of a wash or at least even the really big bad one here is just injuries going into the rest of the season and into the Houston game, right? So Kevin McCullough unable to play in this one, and we'll see what that means for the next game and for the rest of the Big 12 season. Kevin has obviously had to deal with injuries throughout his career. I think now that he's missed this game every single season that he's played of college basketball, he's missed at least one game. I think last year at Kansas, when he missed two games, I could be wrong on that, was like the season low for him in terms of, or I guess least missed games in like a season. He's had to deal with some injuries,

which is unfortunate because he's a heck of a talent. So you hope that he's all right and gets through the season and everything and can go through this but then hunter even got banged up hunter dickinson goes down and how they kind of described it on the broadcast he was slow to get up and they were kind of describing it as like a hip he probably you know just hit on the floor and obviously when you're seven two however many pounds hunter dickinson is when you hit the floor probably doesn't feel too good you know that's a big fall with a lot of weight going down so maybe it was just one of those like hey i just need to shake it off there's probably going to be a bruise there or something i weight going down. So maybe it was just one of those like, Hey, I just need to shake it off. There's probably going to be a bruise there or something.

I'm going to be fine long-term, but that'll be something to monitor as well. If with more days, there's more swelling or how that causes any other things, because again, going into this next game, it is going to be physical down low and grabbing rebounds and, you know, playing smart and all those things. So let's get to what's next for KU coming up in just a moment on Locked on Jayhawks.

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What's next for KU men's basketball? By the way, we will have a KU football schedule release episode coming up later this week, and then we'll get to that KU Houston, which is next for them, preview. So make sure you're subscribed to the show. Thank you to the everydayers tuning in, teaching everything. Houston is the best team in the country right now by Ken Palm, their top five team by the eight people, and they get it done on the defensive end of the floor. This is the number one defense in the country, and in fact, they right

now have the best defense by rating. It's an 84.6, which is an adjusted rating to points allowed per 100 possessions based on your schedule and everything. They have the best defense by that rating since that 2019 Texas Tech team, 2018-2019 Texas Tech team that went to the national title game and almost beat Virginia in the national title game. It is an unbelievable defense, and when you look at the difference between, I guess the gap between their number one defense to the number two when you look at that rating, it's even wider than that Texas Tech teams was, I believe, to the second best team. So unbelievable defense.

They've only given up 70 points or more once all season, and that was last game to Texas, and it took overtime. So in regulation, they have not given up 70 or more points. That said, if you score 70 if you're Kansas, you probably feel good about how this one goes. There are two losses so far, though, at Iowa State, at TCU. So both on the road, you have a tough home court environment. You have to be willing to play physical, play tough, because this is an excellent rebounding team. They're top 10 in offense, a rebounding rate. They don't turn the ball over. They force a ton of steals and turnovers and blocks, and they defend the two-point shot, and they will get after you and get under your skin and contest each and every shot. You have to be physically tough in this game. You have to be mentally tough in

this game. And for Kansas, I mean, if you want to win the Big 12 overall, like if you end up losing at home to Houston, it'll certainly look bad that you're five and four in Big 12 play because we're not used to seeing that with KU. But realistically, if you lose to Houston, it won't have a huge impact from a negative standpoint of being like, oh, you can't do anything in March. You can still make a run in March. But if you win this game, all of a sudden, you're going to be talking yourself back into, yes, this is one of the best teams in the country. All of a sudden, you're going to be talking yourself back into, yeah, this team can win the Big 12 title. And so if you're talking Big 12 title, this almost does become a must win.

You still have to go at Houston. You still have a bunch of tough road games. You got to hold serve at home at this point, and that includes beating Houston. So we'll preview this game a little bit more later in the week. Should be a fun one on Saturday in Allen Fieldhouse. 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 see you next time with LOJ.