Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Crushes Seton Hall Behind Balanced Attack + Big 12 Football Awards

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

Recapping the Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team's 91-65 victory over Seton Hall in Lawrence at Allen Fieldhouse led by six players scoring double-digits. GOATs of the game from Kevin McCullar to Dajuan Harris and Jalen Wilson. Plus, some KU Football talk ahead of their bowl game, Big 12 Football awards, and some Kansas Volleyball talk as Ray Bechard's bunch gets ready to face Nebraska.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! LinkedIn LinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply. Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. BetOnline BetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! SimpliSafe With Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnCollege to learn more. Upside Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/locked to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more. Omaha Steaks Omaha Steaks is a gift from the heart – a gift that will be remembered with every unforgettable bite. Order with complete confidence today knowing you’re ordering the very best. Visit OmahaSteaks.com use promo code LOCKEDON at checkout to get that EXTRA $30 OFF your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we recap Kansas' win 91-65 over the Seton Hall Pirates last night. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also hear me on Rock Chalk Sports Talk on KLWN in Lawrence, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6.

And on today's edition of the show, we are going to be going over the Kansas Seton Hall victory last night in Allen Fieldhouse, 91 to 65, the final score for Kansas. Impressive outing against the Pirates. Today's episode is brought to you by BetOnline. BetOnline has you covered this season with more props, odds, and lines than ever before, but online where the game starts. Kansas down Seton Hall pretty easily last night, 91-65. Overall, one of the more complete games of the Kansas season to this point as they improve to 8-1. Sure, not a great opponent.

Not someone who, I don't know, is favored to make the NCAA tournament right now, but certainly someone who is going to be contending to make the NCAA tournament, maybe like a potential bubble team this year, top like 60 or 70 team in the country. Again, not great, but you blew them out and you never showed any weaknesses. As much as the big wins are important, those are the most important, you know, beating the top five, top 10, top 15 opponents. When you play the teams that aren't those, blowing them out is just as important to showing how good you can be. Like if you consistently blow out teams who are maybe more middling teams, that shows you're a really good school as well.

Like remember, I know this is a football cross comparison, but you had Georgia last season who ended up winning the title. They go 12 and 0 and then they lose Alabama, the SEC title. But over the course of them going 12 and 0, they hadn't really beat anyone. I don't remember if they had any like top 10 wins or anything. And they just bludgeoned everybody, even though they didn't have like a litany of, you know, they had three top 20 wins or five top 10 wins or, you know, they didn't have this crazy resume in terms of the wins they're stacking up but they blew everyone out clearly they showed they're a good team so you can do that even in games like this and that's what Kansas did last night against Seton Hall you

made a middling team look really bad offense was totally in sync for Kansas last night you shoot 57 percent from the field you shot it well from three on kind of limited attempts 7 of 17 you got some extra possessions on the glass were able to hit the offensive glass pretty well you avoided turnovers just 11 turnovers for kansas that's a really good number to be at and you actually shot well at the free throw line which has been kind of a story that this team hasn't shot well at the free throw line but you go 18 of 21 and that certainly raises your percentage against the team that was going to put you on the line because that's kind of been their mo this season that was something we talked about as a possible matchup in

the game on the other end of the floor defensively they never really got into a rhythm or had a big stretch of play they never really had like an 8-0 run to feel comfortable. They never got up big in the game. It was kind of back and forth through the first, I don't know, 30 points of the game. And then Kansas built up the double-digit lead, and they never really looked back and just carried on into the second half. Not quite a shutdown game from the defense. We've probably seen better defensive games this season from them,

but it wasn't, you know, there's a fine defensive game. They were pretty inefficient. They didn't shoot well from three. They didn't shoot well at the foul line, which you don't really control that. So maybe you got a little bit lucky there. They shot okay on twos. And maybe the most important thing was

Seton Hall came into that game as one of the better teams at getting offensive rebounds. They grabbed a good amount of their misses off the offensive glass. You held them to nine offensive rebounds, whereas you got 26 defensive rebounds. That'll play. That'll play for this team especially, but it'll play just kind of overall that you're getting basically 75% of the misses. That'll be more than a good enough number for this team.

And now you get a really important time of the misses that'll be more than a good enough number for this team and now you get a really important time of the year you get some time off in between your next game and you're going to have kind of that time off between games for the next few here you're off for about a week before you play missouri then you're off for another week before you take on indiana then you're off for a few days before you get har. And then you're off for over a week, albeit some of that time is going to be players going home for Christmas for the following game, which is your big 12 opener against Oklahoma State. This is the time right now over this next three, four weeks where Kansas is going to really learn what they are and hit their potential about what they can be. And it's not even necessarily going to be determined in games, in Allen Fieldhouse against

Indiana, a really good team, or on the road in a tough environment against Missouri, who started off really hot at going 8-0. It's going to be determined in how much you can improve in those practice times, because to this point, KU hasn't really practiced a ton. That was something Bill Self talked about in his press conference this week before the Seton Hall game that they haven't really had time to practice since the battle for Atlantis. I think they had one practice between the battle for Atlantis and the Seton Hall game. And even then it was maybe more of a practice right before the Seton Hall game where you're kind of getting ready for the Pirates and not just working on internal stuff.

This time off in between games where you only have a few games over the next four weeks, like one game a week kind of thing, gives you a real opportunity to get in the practice gym, work on some things. And that's the best opportunity for players who maybe aren't playing as much to show they want to play more and earn that extra playing time. You got to do it in the practice gym before you can do it out on the court. And also for KU to develop and get those young players to improve.

So that's really exciting. And I don't think you'll see, like, maybe you'll see the David ends right away. Maybe the fact that you have all this time in between games, like you'll see the improvement rapidly game to game from the players, or maybe it'll be something where we kind of see it all lumped together for that experience once we hit big 12 play. But either way, this is a really important time of year. Good that you got a big win. Good that you both in terms of the score and just what it means headed into kind of the break here.

And now obviously a big one ahead with Missouri. But you get time in between to certainly work on some things and do some extra game planning for the Tigers. In just a second, we'll get on to our goats of the game for Kansas taking on Seton Hall. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by BetOnline. BetOnline.net is your number one source for sports betting information, stats, news, and analysis. You can get the latest odds and trends for every professional amateur league out there,

from football to basketball to soccer to esports. They've got it all at betonline.net. And if you love sports podcasts, you can find those at BetOnline as well. They're the fastest and easiest way to get your betting fix. You can right now bet on Jalen Wilson toson to win national player of the year he is going at 16 to 1 odds certainly zach ed of purdue looked really good last week and that's going to be a tough guy to unseat but if you're jaylen wilson you continue to average over 20 points per game near 10 rebounds per game and you're on a kansas team that's nationally televised every

game and they end up winning or competing for the big 12 title and they're one of the high seeds in the ncaa tournament and purdue falls off a bit and they end up only being like a four seed boom there you go jaylen wilson so you can get him at 16 to 1 you can also bet on the college football uh action this week in the the championship games world cup with usa against netherlands whatever you'd like head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more bet online where the game starts okay Okay, GOATS of the week. Kansas taking down Seton Hall 91-65. We'll start with the good GOATS of the week.

First up for the good GOATS, let's go with Kevin McCuller. First game back off the groin injury and didn't really seem to be bothering him. He played 35 minutes in his first game back off the injury I didn't really think he was going to play coming into it but he ended up playing and he became KU's first leading scorer not named Jalen Wilson or Grady Dick this season 17 points to lead the way it was a very balanced scoring effort I think six players ended up in double figures for Kansas also had 10 rebounds logged the double double had uh four steals too he was fantastic once again he's just so good man and so smart on defense it's not just the steals there was a play that um I don't think Seton Hall ended up scoring on this

possession but it didn't end up being like a stat you look at this one play it was in the first half um I think it was Zuby Ejiofor was the big man. And I want to say Joe Yesfu was guarding the ball. The ball handler dribbled into the lane, and Zuby came over for help defense to guard at the rim for the Seton Hall player who was about to shoot at the rim. And Kevin McCuller sees it from the outside. He's guarding on the perimeter,

but sees that this guy gets basically pinned underneath the hoop where he has no angle to really shoot the basketball, with Zuby kind of walling him off. And his only option is going to be to have to throw it behind him to a guy that has kind of rotated over and cut into the middle of the lane who's going to get an easy stick in because Yasufu and Ejiofor are sucked into the guy with the ball who's like underneath the hoop. And McCuller sees this from the side, sprints over, the guy passes it in,

and McCuller knocks it away, knocks out of bounds. There's like five on the shot clock, and then I think they end up making a stop. Just small little plays like that that don't necessarily show up in the box score that you may not notice, that is what Kevin McCuller excels at in addition to the actual things you're going to notice on the defensive side. He is so good at that stuff, and the fact that he can be a scorer like this, Kansas needs that. He's been a great rebounder, averaging over seven a game. Great game for him. Jalen Wilson, good goat. I think you could argue maybe not on here because not his best performance shooting-wise, inefficient shooting game for him goat. I think you could argue maybe not on here because not his best performance shooting wise, inefficient shooting game for him. But I think that's kind of the point for me.

He had 15 points and 13 rebounds in a game where the shot wasn't falling. He certainly shot it really well from the outside. It was actually the two point shots, funny enough, that weren't going for him as much. But in a game where it felt like Jalen, you know, did have to really struggle for his points. And in a game where he really did have to push hard to get those totals, he still wound up with 15 and 13. So think about that. The floor games, the games where they're not as good, he's still ending up with double doubles where he has 13 rebounds and 15 points. That is the true sign of a national player of the year candidate. It's not just the guy who can score 20,

25, 30 points on a given night. It's the guy who, even when they're not at their best, they're doing that. So that's really impressive from Jalen. Good goat for the center offense. Haven't had a lot of center talk in,

in the good goats so far this year, but for the offense specifically from the center position, you got 23 points combined from the centers they played KJ Adams, Ernest Uday, Zuby Ejifer, Zach Clemens at the center last night Clemens didn't score but specifically those three with KJ, Uday, and Ejifer they went eight of nine shooting 23 points it's mostly the first two KJ at 11 who day had 10 with some hard dunks. KJ looked good, had a couple of takes to the rim and had a couple of dunks. Also, you got good center offense from them.

And I was thinking about this the other day. You know, we, we make a big mention of, well, can K you have anybody that you throw the ball into the post and they kind of go to work and they get a bucket inside. They hit a hook shot or they do a drop step and right now the answer has been no but there have been other like great offensive team like Baylor the past few years Baylor has been a really good offensive team the past few years I get it different roster construction they have a bunch of guards who can score off the dribble and create their own shot for themselves. But think about those Baylor teams the past few years that have had the great offense.

Their centers are just rim rollers. They're not guys you're throwing the ball to on the block and saying, hey, go hit a hook shot for us. They've been really good. So it's not that these guys even necessarily have to be guys you can hit a hook shot for it would help they could it would add an extra element to the offense but you have to at least be able to duck in get good angles because there are going to be certain plays that bill self creates an easy shot for you based on the angle if you can seal off and being a good rim roller

whether it's catching off a pick and roll and taking a dribble and finishing, whether it's catching a lob and throwing it down or being in the dunker spot for those easy dunks. You have to at least be presentable in those situations, and last night was a perfect example of that where you don't look at it and go, yeah, they really had to work for those 23 points. A lot of it was set up by others, but that's kind of the idea there. Be presentable that you can build off those opportunities. That, at the very least, is what you need from the centers and they did it against seton hall dewan harris kind of a ho-hum 10.7

assists but again you could just put him in the good goats every game with the way that he orchestrates the offense and that he keys the defense makes big plays three steals just in control in command at all times he's so good and and so I don't want it to be overly, I don't know, missed out of how important he is for the team. It'd be interesting if he has a big game in Columbia where he's from against Missouri. Grady Dick's second half specifically deserves good goat. He only had two points in the first half, but he had 13 in the second half,

really picked it up, and you saw a little bit of everything from Grady. And then the free throw shooting. That was something we mentioned coming in. Seton Hall fouls you, puts you at the line a good amount of times. Kansas coming in was shooting just 62% on free throws, which would be about five percentage points worse than the next Bill Self team. They went 18 of 21 at the free throw stripe. And maybe most importantly, KJ Adams free throw stroke looked a

lot better I wonder if he got in the gym and worked on it a bunch I think he went three for four at the free throw line it just looked a lot cleaner from him coming out and that's going to be important for not just him but KU as a whole so good free throw shooting night to get those numbers up last thing rebounding for the good goats KU did a good job keeping Seton Hall off the offensive glass. You got about 75% of the misses, which that'll do, especially against a Seton Hall team that had kind of thrived offensively and getting offensive rebounds. Like Seton Hall is not a pretty team offensively, but they got a lot of offensive rebounds and that was kind of their calling card. Kansas limited that and that would make sense why it was kind of an ugly game for

Seton Hall because one of their calling cards was not able to be that. You took away one of their strengths. Also, on the offense glass, you got a couple handfuls of offensive rebounds, too. I think you had 11 offensive rebounds to get you extra tries. Good rebounding game for Kansas, one of the few overall really good ones they've had this season. Bad goats of the game, not a ton here. Kansas won by 26. Grady dick's dunk attempt in the first half that's there was a bad goat went up for it two-handed and ended up getting fouled i didn't see it live i never saw a replay i don't know if it was a good foul or not but kind of a funny moment with the dunk miss especially when kansas wins by 26 you saw bill self say something kind

of smile and laugh on the sideline. So you know he'll be getting crap for that, especially in the film room. The other one is Zach Clements shooting, man. Just continues to struggle. Zach Clements is now, he went 0 for 1. He missed another 3. It was an open 3 in the corner. He is now 0 for 11 on the season.

Struggled shooting the ball last year after a hot start. He ended up 27% from 3. 0 for 11 now this year i think he's missed 15 something like that consecutive three-point shots it's just not working for him and what's weird is i know we heard a lot about him having a good stroke and we saw it early in his time at kansas and now you see the overall sample size and you go we sure he's a good shooter he's got 40 percent in high school at sunrise which yes it's you know it's high school basketball grady dick shot around there as well though and i wonder now like it almost feels like it's just a confidence thing if it's just a mental thing if there's a mental block right

he just needs to see one go in so that he can go on a hot streak i still think there is more shooting there than he's shown clearly going 0 for 11 but how much of a shooter can he be i don't know that kind of remains in question and that's a big problem for him because the main way for him to get playing time is that he is hitting shots like he is one of those players that is dependent on his playing time on making shots that can be his different element he provides at the center position right now that's not happening so if you're not making shots then if you're just looking at it from a physicality standpoint at the center position, grabbing rebounds, being physical inside, dunking the basketball, that's going to be more playing time for Ernest and Zuby, which I think you've seen to this

point. Okay, we're going to take another time out, at least on the podcast side. When we come back, we're going to get to actually some football stuff, volleyball stuff as well to wrap up this week's edition of Locked on Jayhawks. This is Locked on Jayhawks and we're going to be awaiting the bowl game and the announcement there

for this weekend. So we'll talk about that on Monday's show, whatever KU gets sent to. I will just one quick note, I put this out on Twitter and I'll just say it again on here. If your idea is, because on ESPN they have a big bowl game selection show, just to let you know, because I love college football.

I watch it every year, even with Kansas not in it. But for a lot of people, you're going to be tuning in, going, okay, this is Kansas' first time in the bowl. Warning to you, the first two or three hours of the show the like top eight or something like that and releasing who's in the college football playoff breaking down the different college football playoff matchups resetting to the topic and getting back to it that's the first few hours then at least this out's been passed like I don't know ever since the college football playoff started. Then the next, like, two or three hours, they release the New Year's Six Bowls. And they release the full Top 25.

And they spend the next two or three hours breaking down the new Top 25 and the New Year's Six Bowl matchups. In between, on occasion, they might throw out, here's this other bowl game. Here's the Holiday Bowl. Here's the Alamo Bowl that they might throw out, here's this other bowl game. Here's the holiday bowl. Here's the Alamo bowl that they might throw in every so often, but don't be holding your breath because for the most part, a lot of these bowl games don't even get brought up on the entirety of the show. And they just keep talking the college football playoff with the occasional year six mentioned. And like I said, the occasional-in of this other bowl that we find to be an interesting matchup. Maybe they'll bring up the Kansas game, but it'll be very brief,

and it'll probably be like six hours into the broadcast, if they even do, if they do at all. So my recommendation to you, just, you know, there's different websites that have like bowl trackers that you can go to and refresh. If you're looking on Twitter, usually like Brett McMurphy does great with this stuff with the different bowl games. I know the athletic has had a bowl tracker update as well.

And there's going to be other people on Twitter that are going to have certain things. Like I'm sure some of your local newspapers and stuff like the LJ world and the Kansas city star and the capital journal, like they're going to have 24 seven sports. Like they're going to all have an update on it so just that would be my recommendation if you don't want to just be sitting around for six hours hoping that they talk about kansas because the likelihood of it happening is low and if it does happen it's going to be very short-lived and you're going to feel like you wasted a lot of time before you got

there anyway all big 12 football awards came out first First team, Kobe Bryant had so many impact game changing plays for KU. Makes some sense. I wasn't sure he'd get the first team. I thought it might be second team or honorable mention because there were times where maybe he was attacked a bit, but overall he had a great season. Certainly deserved there. How about this? Jalen Daniels being on the second team. Talk about respect from the coaches. He played seven and a half games and earned second team. If that doesn't show the respect that coaches have for how good Jalen Daniels is, I don't know what does. Mason Fairchild's second team had a great season, both as a pass catcher and a blocker. He can come back next year with the COVID year,

so that's exciting. Mike Nowitzki, which is the same case, Jalen and Kobe could be, I think Jalen would be a senior, technically a junior next season because the COVID year, Kobe would be a junior next season. Mike Nowitzki can come back next year too. He was second team, good season for him. Lonnie Phelps can come back next year as a senior, good season for him, obviously. I did see some people saying he should have been first team. I'll just say this, like he was a wrecking ball. He was fantastic this season, had to deal with a lot of double teams, got held a lot, and that would have impacted his numbers. But also if you take out the FCS game in the opener, I think he had four and a half sacks, the final 11 games. So good season,

very impactful player, best defensive lineman for Kansas, maybe the best defensive player overall. I guess you would say Kobe Bryant based on these awards, but I wouldn't put him first team. I thought second team was kind of the right call there. Honorable mention picks Earl Bostic, Kenny Logan Jr., Devin Neal, who I thought could have been at least second team, but you look at the numbers of those top running backs like Bijan Robinson on the first team, Kendra Miller for TCU ran for over 1,200 yards, 16 touchdowns.

On the second team, you have Deuce Vaughn and Eric Graylahoma ran for over 1300 yards personally i wouldn't mind if you put devin neal over eric gray because with eric gray he's running a lot like ku runs way less plays per game they they get way less of a tempo than oklahoma runs they run a lot more plays eric gray runs the ball a lot more devin neal can get a ton of carries early on i would put devin neal over eric gray but i don't think it's like a huge crime that he didn't end up on it. And I'm sure he'll end up on this list next season. Lonnie Phelps got a vote for defensive newcomer of the year,

defensive lineman of the year. Devin Neal got an offensive player of the year vote. And then Dominic Poonie ended up on a honorable mention team. I thought he could have just, I thought, to be honest, Dominic Poonie was the team's best offensive lineman. Also though, I understand that Mike Nowitzki, who is a close second there, if I'm having that conversation has maybe more impact as the center, the guy in the middle. So again, kind of splitting hairs there. The one that I was really mad about, Jared Casey, I get it. There's only one tight end spot in the first and second team. So it's hard to put in there, especially with Mason Fairchild playing more snaps and being the

first tight end and catching more passes. But Jared Casey played mostly as an H-back, to be honest, which you could have put him in as a fullback. One of the fullbacks on the Big 12 list was actually just a part-time fullback who's also a linebacker on the defensive end. Jared Casey played more. He was one of the best blockers on this team, consistently sprung big blocks for KU football, and he was maybe the best pass catcher in terms of just the best hands on the

team made big, consistent clutch catches. He should have been on one of the two teams as the fullback at the very least he should have been honorable mention. That was the biggest crime for the awards here. Last thing before we finish up KU volleyball. Um, congrats to them.

Ray Bouchard continues to do great. They last season were unseated made their way to the sweet 16 upset their way through this season they took on a seven-seated miami team swept them in the first round of the ncaa tournament and now they get nebraska tonight it's going to be really fun highly recommend tuning in to watch on espn plus uh nebraska is the two seed in this region and ne's hosting. They fill that place out. 8,000 strong volleyball fans in attendance, watching, making noise. It's a ruckus environment, ruckus crowd. It's going to be super fun to watch. You have Aneshka Zabo, who's a really

good player for Kansas. She transferred from Nebraska a few years ago. So she's going to have the opportunity to spoil a Nebraska season, come out with an upset. We'll see if Kansas can, can come away with a, uh, upending in lincoln would certainly be fun if they could so i'll be on on uh tune out or tuning in i guess to that one and uh yeah on monday's show we're gonna let you know whatever's going on with ku in the bowl game if you have anything you'd like to uh reach out about for the show to talk about. You can hit me up at D Johnson radio on Twitter. You can also comment on YouTube. Don't forget to subscribe to the show. So you're getting all the latest with locked on Jayhawks.

That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. I'll see you talk sports talk later today. Bye.