Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #8 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Drops #4 Houston Cougars 78-65 in Title-Worthy Performance

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas beats Houston by 13. They are title good in the Big 12 and in the country. We discuss what happened and 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.

Starting point is 00:00:38 We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page, anywhere that you find Locked on Jayhawks for free. And on today's episode, Kansas beats Houston, 13-point victory for the Jayhawks and Allen Fieldhouse. We recap the game, go to the game, what's next for KU, and why this win signifies that KU can win a Big 12 title, can win an NCAA title. Doesn't mean that they'll do either, but it signifies that they have the potential to do both of those things.

Starting point is 00:01:03 First, this episode is 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, visit fanduel.com slash locked on to get started. So Kansas 78, Houston 65. This was the biggest win of the season and the best performance of the season by KU. They

Starting point is 00:01:25 coincided in the same way. Obviously, other good wins for KU this season when you look at this being their fourth top 10 win. You think back to the UConn win, for instance, that was obviously a big one. And I'm not necessarily saying that, you know, Houston and UConn, you could split hairs like which team is better, whatever you want to say. But when you look at this being in the thick of conference play, when you look at the combination of who you played, when you play them, and the importance of this game for the Big 12 title race, and I guess everything that's going to happen over this final month and a half push of the season when you have a very difficult schedule, this was the most important win for KU of the season. And honestly, this game reminded me a little bit of that 2022 Baylor game. So if you remember in the 2021 to 22 season, the year

Starting point is 00:02:06 that the KU won the national title, just all those long two years ago, right? Kansas was coming off recently. It wasn't directly, but they had lost by a billion points to Kentucky at home. And that came off of some close wins, closer than maybe you'd expect against teams who weren't great. There was a Texas Tech loss in there too. And they ended up beating Iowa State in the next game after the Kentucky, which that Iowa State team wasn't like a great Iowa State team, but still. Then you had a Saturday, February 5th game. This was a Saturday, February 3rd game. So basically same weekend. And you played a Baylor team who was one of the best in the country. That Baylor team in 2022 was coming off winning the title,

Starting point is 00:02:48 ended up being a one seed in the NCAA tournament. You beat them 83-59. You beat the doors off of them. Now, funny enough, you ended up losing that big Monday, which you hope Kansas doesn't repeat this big Monday with Kansas State coming off that. But then they ended up getting hot from there, and they ended up only losing two of their final 17 games or whatever it was after that point, after the Texas game.

Starting point is 00:03:10 And you beat the doors off the Baylor team 83-59 to show that like, okay, see, even though that you lost big to Kentucky, when you're on your A game, you're as good as anyone in the country. And I think that's what this reminded me of. Now you didn't win this game by as much as that one, but I also think this Houston team, you could argue, is better than that Baylor team was. And you could also, you know, there was one big difference, the turnovers, which we'll get into here, among those two games. This was a good reminder that KU, when they're playing well,

Starting point is 00:03:36 is still just as good as any team in the country. And college basketball is still wide open, really, ever since COVID happened. And even then, there were still some years where this was the case, the combination of the extra year of talent, the combination of the increasing usage of the transfer portal, it is balanced out the playing field there, you know, isn't that 2014, 2015 Kentucky team. And there really hasn't been like, you know, even that, I don't know, we had some years with some great teams in there, but really over the three last three, four, five years, like it felt like there hasn't necessarily been that team. Maybe you would classify Purdue as that. Maybe you would classify this Houston team

Starting point is 00:04:07 as that, but if that is the case, Kansas just beat them by 13 points. It was an all-around effort for KU, and the most notable was the offense. Houston came into this game the number one defense in the country on Ken Palm, and the difference between Houston as the first best defense and the second best defense coming into the day was just as wide as the gap. In fact, it was actually wider than the gap between second place Tennessee and 25th place Kansas State if you're going by Ken Palm. If you're going by Evan Miakawa, it was the distance between second to 14th. So it's not just that this Houston team coming in had the best defense in the country.

Starting point is 00:04:39 It's that they were the best defense by far that we have seen in the country and historically good. I heard a stat on College Game Day earlier today. Coming into this game, Houston had the number one defense in points allowed per game and field goal percentage allowed, and they would be like the first team ever to do both of those things in the same season. And this was an unbelievable executed game by the KU offense.

Starting point is 00:05:00 There were only 64 possessions. This was the third slowest game of the season by possessions played for KU, and yet they became the only team on the season to score 70 or more points on Houston in regulation. Houston had only given up 70 or more points once all season. It was last game before this one to Texas, but it took overtime to get there. In regulation, nobody else had done it, and KU got all the way to 78 in a lower tempo game. You shot 69% on field goals. That included going 14 of 15 on layups plus dunks. You went 25 of 32 overall on two-point shots. That's good for 78.1%, which was KU's second best this year, which led to a 42 to 24 points in the paint advantage,

Starting point is 00:05:44 and they went 6 of 13 from three. Low volume, but 46.2% from three was their third best of the year, which led to a 42 to 24 points in the paint advantage. And they went six of 13 from three low volume, but 46.2% from three was their third best of the year. So you shot it extremely well. You got good looks. You've got open layups. Obviously it probably helped that JV or Francis, who is a good defensive center for them ended up having an injury and you hate to see that happen. And you hope he's all right, moving forward. That obviously helped, but even if he was in there and even when he was in there, you were still giving up some buckets early.

Starting point is 00:06:08 And this Kansas team executed so well, they were clicking on all cylinders. And obviously it did go beyond just the shooting and the offensive execution. KU grabbed six offensive rebounds, which doesn't seem like a high total, but that was compared to just 13 Houston defensive rebounds. There weren't a lot of rebounds to be had in this game. So you might look at it and say, oh, Houston grabbed, I think they grabbed 13 offensive rebounds as well or something like that. And you say, oh, they had more offensive rebounds than you.

Starting point is 00:06:32 You only missed 14 shots, you know? And so if you look at it by rebound rate, as opposed to just pure number of rebounds, this was Kansas' fourth best offensive rebound rate of the season. And you did it against a physical, tough Houston team. Houston did grab a tad under 28% of their offensive misses, which that's a solid number there, but that's actually really good considering the matchup.

Starting point is 00:06:55 Kansas came into this one basically giving up about 27% of an offensive rebound rate per game, and Houston came in a top 10 offensive rebound team. So if you're talking about you basically had an average defensive rebounding game against a team who typically counts on that and typically relies on that and it's a strength and you turned it into just an average thing for them that is a good game for you and you held Houston to just 16 of 40 which is only 40 percent on two-point shots. So you played good interior

Starting point is 00:07:25 defense. You did a great job on the glass overall, specifically on the offensive glass, and did a good enough job on the defensive glass. You shot extremely well. You executed. You got open looks. You took advantage of the open looks. This was an all-around performance for KU. The weirdest part of it all was the turnover numbers, 18 to 3. Now, in watching the game live, I was fortunate enough to get to go to the game. We haven't been able to attend a game live in person this year with having a pregnant wife and a baby and everything like that. Went to the game for the first time this season. And watching the game, it was very apparent that there's a lot of turnovers happening,

Starting point is 00:08:05 that KU was having a lot of unforced turnovers and some issues in that area. I had not realized that it was 18-3. More specifically, I had not realized that you only forced three Houston turnovers. If you told me coming into the game that they were going to out-turnover you 18-3, that you were going to have 15 more turnovers than them, you would have thought you lost the game, or at the very least, it would be a very close game. They led 20-6 in points off turnovers. So going back to how I would compare this to the Baylor game from two years ago in 2024, same first weekend in February, that kind of proved that,

Starting point is 00:08:35 yes, when we are up for it and we have that ability, we can beat anybody in the country and we can still win the Big 12 and all those things. If that wouldn't have happened, if it would have been 12 to eight in turnovers, if it would have been, you know, 11 to six in turnovers, the Baylor game would have happened because that was the one thing that kind of kept Houston in the game. It was some timely threes by LJ Cryer and it was you having 15 more turnovers. And so there's two ways to look at that one. Ideally, you don't want to have those turnovers and certainly that would be a question the next time you play them, or I guess moving forward, because you've seen that be an issue in some other losses like UCF and TCU and Marquette. But the other way to look at it is you overcame it, and that that was the one thing that kept this from being a 20, 25, 30-point

Starting point is 00:09:18 victory coming your way. Because again, that's a 14-point edge and points off turnovers. You already won by 13. And I think you look at it now, tying this all back into the idea that Kansas proved in this game, Houston was the number one team on Ken Palm. They still are. That you can beat anybody in the country, that you are good enough to win the NCAA title. Now, obviously it takes doing this over a six game stretch, and this doesn't mean that you're going to win the title, but it puts you in the conversation to be like, yes, we are as good as those other teams when we are playing our game. And that at least gives you a shot in a random NCAA March Madness tournament, which is kind of all you're asking for. But beyond this, we said coming in, this is kind of a must

Starting point is 00:09:52 win if you want to win the Big 12, which is a school like Kansas, winning the Big 12 very much matters, right? And you had to win this game to feel like you're in that. And the statement you did, the way that you performed in it, feels like, okay, you know, you not just don't have an opportunity now and you feel like you've set yourself up that you still have that chance, but you also feel like, hey, this is still our conference, right? Like, you got to start winning on the road. That's part of it. And that hasn't happened for KU really so far this year,

Starting point is 00:10:23 at least consistently in Big 12 play. You still got to do to do that right you go back and you lose on Monday to Kansas State then it's like okay well there you go but you feel like you got a little bit of that yeah Big 12 title still runs around Fieldhouse and how about this by the way uh since Johnny Furphy entered the starting lineup so January 13th that was the game against Oklahoma since that point on if you look at Bart Torvik you can can sort by certain dates. Since that point on, Kansas is the number four team in the country since Johnny Furphy entered the starting lineup, and they're the number two offense. They were ranking around the 40th best offense before Furphy entered the starting lineup, just overall on Ken Palm, since he's entered the starting lineup, top two offense. I think

Starting point is 00:11:04 that Furphy addition into the starting lineup has been, been pretty important for KU to say the least. All right, let's continue on with our goats of the game. Good and bad. What's next for KU men's basketball in this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Happy Superbowl to all who celebrate from FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. If you're like me, then Super Bowl Sunday

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Starting point is 00:12:14 or to win the NCAA tournament, whatever it is. Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL. On to our goats of the game. If you're new to the segment, we talk about the goats in a good way, which is the new age of the stages of the people say it, the greatest of all time, which you heard all the, when I was growing up though, goat was kind of a bad thing. It was, it was the scapegoat basically. All right, starting with the good Johnny Furphy. Can you imagine what this season would look like if KU didn't make the late addition. When was that that he came on? Like late August, something like that? I know it was after the Bahamas trip.

Starting point is 00:12:49 Imagine if, or Puerto Rico, whatever it was, imagine if KU doesn't add Johnny Furphy. What does this season look like? And since he's entered the starting lineup, I mentioned that number that they have a top five overall team in offense at this point. He had 17 points in this game. He was six of seven from the floor.

Starting point is 00:13:05 He had 14 in the first half. He had eight rebounds, two assists, and he also had a game high plus minus of plus 17. Now, I thought it's interesting because this is like the second time this happened this year where I feel like a lot of time, Johnny Furphy is going off in the first half, and then maybe the numbers dip a bit in the second half, 14 in the first half, three in the second half.

Starting point is 00:13:23 Like you saw the Oklahoma State game in Stillwater, he had 15 in the first half, zero in the second dip a bit in the second half 14 the first half three in the second half like you saw the oklahoma state game and still water hit 15 in first half zero in the second half i think there's a reason why teams come out automatically and they go hey we got a game plan for hunter dickinson and kevin mcculler these two all-american candidates and then all of a sudden you're double teaming hunter dickinson and it leads to an open johnny furphy three in the corner and he just you know buries it or he's able to take advantage and then the second half teams over adjust to johnny Furphy and it opens things back up for Kevin McCuller and Hunter Dickinson it's such a good problem for opposing defenses to have from Kansas's perspective right that it helps them out in a lot of ways and I will say this like

Starting point is 00:13:54 this was a conversation coming into the game Houston plays a lot of iso offense they were going to work into certain switches there were times where they got you know one of their guards Jamal Shedd or LJ Cryer or someone one of these players, on to Johnny Furphy. And I thought this was one of his better games defensively too. He really stayed in front of guys. He didn't really get beat much in the game. I thought this was a really solid defensive game too for Furphy in addition to the offense that he provided.

Starting point is 00:14:17 KJ Adams gets a good go. 10 points, 4 of 5 shooting, 4 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 block, 1 steal. Now, we got a talk coming in that you were hopeful with Houston's rebounding acumen that this would be one of those games KJ gets seven eight nine ten rebounds in the end that didn't quite happen he did have a couple nice rebounds in traffic but overall KU had a good rebounding game so like you know you can't really fault him there necessarily he was efficient enough on the offensive end um against an aggressive Houston defense he found a way to dice them up, getting assists.

Starting point is 00:14:47 Seven assists is such a big number to lead Kansas in the game. I thought he played good defense overall. I just continue to be impressed by what he kind of adds. And some of his plays just continue to be, you know, big-time energy boosts and momentum boosts for your team in such a big way that is so important, especially when you're playing at home and getting that crowd really into it. Hunter Dickinson, even though he could have had, I felt like, four or five more rebounds, it felt like how many balls tipped off on possible rebounds. He still ended up with 20 points,

Starting point is 00:15:16 eight rebounds, four assists, one block. He went nine of 15 from the floor. We mentioned Houston didn't have a great two-point offense. I think part of that does go to KJ and Hunter for clogging the lane a little bit there, doing a good job on that end. Hunter had kind of a quiet 20 points in this game, but he was efficient enough. And in the early going, it felt like the first three, four, five minutes of the game when Kansas was, you're trying to find your rhythm at the outstart of the game. I think he had six points, something like that in the first three, four, five minutes. And then all of a sudden Houston, it felt like they weren't doubling him as much early, had to start doubling him.

Starting point is 00:15:50 And that led to openings for other players like Kevin and Johnny and some of these other guys that hit shots that he was able to adjust to it really well. He was able to see that when he saw the double coming, he was able to see the pass, the skip pass all the way across the court that led to the defense having to rotate and get into shambles and try to recover and everything. So there were even some shots and openings that the KU offense got because of just his passing acumen and understanding where the double was coming. I thought he had a really good game. Kevin McCuller gets a good go here. How about him coming back off the injury? Now the question

Starting point is 00:16:16 becomes, you have a quick turnaround with the bone bruise. How is he going to play in the next game quickly on Monday against Kansas State? But still, 17 points in this game, seven of eight from the floor, seven rebounds, three assists. He had a steal. He kind of closed the game late with the last couple buckets that he helped Kansas finish off Houston with. And he was just providing kind of whatever you needed him to. And the amount of energy that you had from him on defense, there was a lot of time spent by him on really any of the three main guards for Houston. There was a lot of time he spent on Jamal Shedd, who is obviously so active on that end of the floor, just trying to take him out of the game. All around great game for Kevin McCuller in this one. Do I put DeJuan Harris on here? Okay. So here's the case against seven points, only three

Starting point is 00:17:03 assists. You're like, or three rebounds, two assists. Sorry. For DeJuan, and you're like, oh, only seven points, two assists. I don't know. Here's why I do want to put him on here for good goats. So three of four from the floor. Efficient. That's good.

Starting point is 00:17:16 He hit the early three, which helped you in the early going when you were building that big lead. And to be clear, there were still a couple other shots where, and this was the case for a Marco 2 in this game where it was like dude just shoot the ball like there was one three I very much remember it was like he was open enough against defense like this you take open enough because you don't know that you're gonna get wide open and it ended up leading to a turnover so like there's plays like that that you don't love and everything like that but still he only had one turnover in a game where you had 18 turnovers and Houston has a good turnover defense wasn't one who was having him he only had one of them in this game he had the second best plus minus in the game for KU plus 15 when DeJuan was not on the floor things started to go south a

Starting point is 00:17:53 little bit because you needed that ball handler and point guard against an aggressive Houston defense the drop off from him to say El Marco the you can you know very clearly see that there so I think that's another reason to put him on here but it was the timeliness of what he did too. Like the best thing about DeJuan when he is working right is that he doesn't have to score 10, 12 points. It's that, but if he does score eight, 10, 12 points, they come when you need them. And that's what you saw in this game, the three in the early going, when you need it to establish that run in the early going, the biggest shot that I thought he made of the game might've been the biggest shot for KU of the game. So Marco Jackson has the back-to-back turnovers that lead to back-to-back threes. All of a sudden, the score is 60 to 48.

Starting point is 00:18:33 It's a 12-point game with like eight minutes to go. This is the opportunity for Houston to make it single digits. This is the opportunity for Houston to make it a game late. DeJuan Harris goes down, not a lot working for the offense, shot clock winding down, and DeJuan hits a floater from the elbow free throw line area, pushes the lead back to 14, gets the momentum back for KU. He came in when you needed him to. And I think this goes to credit for Kevin McCuller and DeJuan Harris because they were switching and there were different points

Starting point is 00:19:00 where DeJuan was guarding him, there were different points where Kevin was guarding him. But both of those guys were the primary guys who were guarding Jamal Shedd throughout the game. And Jamal Shedd came into this game as one of the front runners for Big 12 Player of the Year. I know you looked at the stats and said, oh, he was only averaging 12 and a half points per game, but they play at such a slow tempo. If they were playing a faster tempo, he'd be getting more points and everything. And one of the bigger impacts in the conference. And he came off a game where he scored 25 points against Texas. Well, Kevin and DeJuan held him to a combined two of nine.

Starting point is 00:19:28 And that was one of eight before he hit a mid-range shot with like under a minute to go. So I think DeJuan deserves to be on here, even though the stats don't necessarily jump out. Rebounding, that was something we discussed earlier, especially given that was strength for Houston. And then I actually think a few bench moments you could put on the good goats here. El Marco had that one offensive rebound and then just turned around from the outside of the lane and hit the little fading, I don't know, six, seven foot or whatever it was. That was a nice moment from the bench. Parker Brown hit the one three. That was a great moment from the bench. Parker Brown earned the foul and got a trip to the free throw line. Good moment for the bench. It was not an A game for the bench. I don't even know if it was a B game for the bench,

Starting point is 00:20:04 but you at least had a few moments. And when you have as good of a starting five as Kansas had, that's all you're asking for. You don't need to be consistently an A plus. It'd be nice if you had more consistent play and it wasn't consistently a B or something like that for what you've got, but at least just give some moments there where it's not just a wasteland of opportunity coming off the bench. And at least you got some of those. Bad goats, though, still a few bench moments. The one Nick Timberlake pass where he just threw it out of bounds. He also had the missed open three, and then he gets pulled right away. Unfortunately, so Marco had that really good play,

Starting point is 00:20:37 which was the offensive rebound and then a little turnaround bucket, and it was like, okay. After a first half where he passed up on a couple shots, where he was like, dude, just be aggressive, take the shots. And then he made that. It was like, okay, maybe it's after a first half where he passed up on a couple shots, where he's like, dude, just be aggressive, take the shots. And then he made that. It was like, okay, maybe it's going to be a better second half for him. And then immediately he has two straight turnovers that lead to two straight LJ Cryer threes. Or I can't remember, maybe one was Cryer and maybe one was Sharp or something like that.

Starting point is 00:20:58 But that leads to back-to-back threes that makes it 60-48. And all of a sudden you let him back into the game. So still things to work on for the bench, but at least you did see some of those positives the other bad one here is turnovers but specifically the free throwaways you gave Houston is really good at forcing turnovers they get a lot of steals they had eight of them in this game in fact they led eight to two in steals so clearly they were going to enforce more turnovers and that was going to be a problem it's the ones that are unforced that get you. That means if they had eight steals, you had 10 other ones that were not steals. Now, you could still say, okay, well, there's going to be some turnovers that are not steals that

Starting point is 00:21:32 are caused by the pressure, right? If you double team a guy in a corner and then he throws it out of bounds, that's not a steal, but it was kind of forced by the pressure. So there's still going to be a couple of those, but that means there was a lot of turnovers by KU where they just straight up airmailed it or threw it out of bounds. And that was pretty apparent in watching the game. That was actually KU's second worst turnover game of the season just to the UCF game by turnover rate. So not a good turnover game for KU. You hope to get that figured out.

Starting point is 00:21:57 Obviously, they're good at it, so you can understand why it would happen. But it's the ones that you're unforced that really hurt you. And I guess on the other end, you could say are correctable. So I guess that's kind of the positive of it. All right, let's finish up KU basketball. What is next for the Jayhawks with a quick turnaround to a big Monday? KU basketball takes on Kansas State this upcoming Monday. So that is a quick turnaround for them.

Starting point is 00:22:23 They're playing that game at eight o'clock. It's in Manhattan. They obviously lost there a season ago. K-State's lost like four straight games, including this Saturday at Oklahoma State, who hasn't been very good. So two ways of looking at that. One way is they're not a very good team. The other way is, uh-oh, they're going to be very reared up.

Starting point is 00:22:39 You're coming off a high. It's very difficult to continue to do that stuff in the Big 12. Quick turnaround. So this will actually be a very tough game for Kansas, much more than I guess you could say for some of K-State's recent opponents because you'll have them with full alertness. You'll have probably a sellout crowd when some of those other games you probably wouldn't necessarily have that.

Starting point is 00:22:58 So this will be a tough one for Kansas. And these are the types of games where if you want to win the Big 12, like beating Houston showed that you can contend with anyone in the country that you can beat the big boys. You want to win a big 12 conference. It's not just about winning those games though. It's about being consistent. It's about winning these games too, right? You got another big one on next Saturday with college game day against Baylor, right? You beat Houston and beat Baylor. That's great and everything. But if you lose this game to K-State too, you're still sitting at seven and four and it's like, but you still dropped one. You're still having your road struggles. So I think you'll learn a lot as well on this Monday

Starting point is 00:23:27 game playing at K-State. I did want to also mention KU football has hired a new defensive backs coach in DK McDonald. He was an assistant and a DBs coach with Iowa State for about a handful of years under Matt Campbell. They've had some great DBs and great systems and great schemes and everything defensively. Then he ended up going to the Philadelphia Eagles where he was over this past season. Now the Eagles didn't have a great defensive year or a great secondary year, but I think from a college coaching perspective, this guy is a younger coach. He'll be able to connect with the players. He will be somebody who does have a lot of great success in his time at Iowa State,

Starting point is 00:24:00 working inside the Big 12. Obviously, it remains to be seen how is he going to come in and recruit and have all those relationships with people. But I think all the writing is on the wall that this will be a really good hire for KU with DK McDonald. All right, we'll get to our KU K-State preview on Monday. That'll do it for us today on Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us.

Starting point is 00:24:19 You can catch our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the action. See you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #8 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Drops #4 Houston Cougars 78-65 in Title-Worthy Performance

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