Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Drops Charity Exhibition Game 82-75 to Illinois - No Need to Panic

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, recapping KU basketball's exhibition charity game lost to Illinois 82-75. 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 wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also like and subscribe to our show on our YouTube page.

Starting point is 00:00:46 We did a bunch of recap stuff with the KU Oklahoma game. We're going to have more KU Oklahoma recap on our next episode, but here we're recapping the KU basketball game, falling 82 to 75 to Illinois in the charity exhibition game. First, today's episode is brought to you by PrizePix. Go to prizepix.com slash lockedoncollege and use code lockedoncollege for a first deposit match up to prize picks.com slash locked on college and use code locked on college for a first deposit match up to 100 daily fantasy sports made easy with prize picks so ku falls 82 to 75 to illinois charity exhibition game on the road being played

Starting point is 00:01:18 in uh champaign it was a return for bill self to illinois it was uh in a sense a return for hunter dickinson to the Big Ten days and playing Illinois, a team that he, I guess, still has not beaten in his time at the collegiate level. Certainly there was, I don't know, I guess an interesting tidbit to start the game because Elmarco Jackson started the game at the two-guard spot, at the shooting guard spot. There was obviously no Johnny Furphy.

Starting point is 00:01:40 He had the shin splint issues, and so he was unable to go for this game. And I think that hurt a little bit because he certainly, to me, feels like somebody who, I don't know, is probably in line to play like seventh most minutes on the team. You kind of look at it like Timberlake or El Marco, whoever doesn't start, that guy will probably play the most minutes off the bench. Furphy probably the second most minutes, at least based on the projection of what he could be.

Starting point is 00:02:05 Now, for all we know, McDowell will be in front of him, and maybe he gets buried out, or maybe the lack of reps going on right now with getting to not practice because of the injury. Maybe that hinders him. Maybe that affects things here. But I do think Johnny Furphy is going to be a good player for KU. But Amarco started at the two,

Starting point is 00:02:19 so there is that takeaway right away of saying, okay, clearly he has the upper hand on this. Now, we can hold that assumption. We can hold that reservation or opinion for now. If we get to Wednesday and the KU4A state section exhibition game, they start Nick Timberlake. Then I think we'll look back on El Marco Jackson starting against Illinois and just say, okay, it's like how Bill Self was operating in the games in Puerto Rico in that they started a different shooting guard all three games to give guys different looks.

Starting point is 00:02:47 I don't know if that's going to be what Bill Self's plan is here or if this is an indication El Marco is the guy in front of him. Now, it is interesting that El Marco played like 25, 26 minutes in the game and Timberlake was in the teens. So maybe that is indicative that, yes, he is indeed in front of him and the starting was a notion of that. Then again, who knows where Johnny Furphy kind of factors in to all of this sort of stuff. But that is kind of interesting.

Starting point is 00:03:09 And right now, you'd obviously have to make your lineup projection based on what we just saw with Elmarco Jackson at the two. And Elmarco didn't have stats that jump off the page. He didn't have a great game or anything, but neither did Nick Timberlake to make you think, oh, he's going to usurp him. Kind of a weird game from Hunter Dickinson, to say the least, right? It was a tough start for Hunter Dickinson. I think it's pretty apparent to me he was tight in the game.

Starting point is 00:03:32 Was he tight because he wanted to beat Illinois so bad, a team that he's had some animosity with, with some of the fan base and stuff, and so he was tight because he really wanted to get that done? Was he tight because it was early season rust or because it was, you know, one of his first games in a Kansas uniform? I know you have the Puerto Rico games in the late night, the fog scrimmage and stuff, but this felt more like a real actual game.

Starting point is 00:03:52 So were you just kind of tight there, missing some early shots that I feel like he normally would have kind of made? But it's a weird game because even though that stuff happened, you look at the stat sheet at the end of the day and Hunter Dickinson put up 22 points and nine rebounds. So here we are where you felt like it was a bit of a more lethargic Hunter Dickinson game. And yeah, there are reasons to still think that. I mean, he took 20 shots to get to the 22 points. That was a lot. He had zero assists for a guy who was a good passer. He had some defensive struggles maybe with how Illinois, with how Coleman Hawkins was attacking him with how they were

Starting point is 00:04:27 kind of approaching playing against him in ball screens and stuff. And I will say like, Illinois is going to know how to play against him probably better than some of the other teams you're going to play either in the non-con or the big 12 because they haven't seen him as much as Illinois has. And then you have the early misses. He did bank in a three, which adds to the weirdness of the game. And honestly, you know, it wasn't the best hunter dickinson game and that has to be one of the biggest best signs

Starting point is 00:04:50 from this game that came out of it i'm not saying hunter dickinson played bad i thought he played a fine game i just don't think it was one of his best games and i'm sure if you asked him he would say yeah i i wish i would have played better um but i think that's a great sign because if you're talking about that, this ended up being just a mid, you know, kind of whatever Hunter Dickinson game and he put up 22 and nine. What is the good Hunter Dickinson game look like? 25 and 12. What is the him? What is Hunter Dickinson going off game? What is, what is the Hunter Dickinson can't be stopped game look like 30 and 15? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:05:26 It is clear KU is going to feed him and feed him a lot and let him go to work. And so if you're playing against a team who doesn't have as good of big men, like Coleman Hawkins and Dane Danger, if you're playing a team who hasn't played against him as much and isn't able to scout against him as much, you're playing a game where he has a better game, those numbers are going to be absolutely unbelievable for a hundred Dickinson this year.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Now, as far as the game, you had a ton of fouls called overall, both way. I mean, it felt like there was a moment there in the second half where every time Illinois was driving, they were getting a foul call on,

Starting point is 00:05:56 on KU. And I'm not even saying that necessarily like it was like bad. There were a few calls that, yeah, of course I disagreed with. There's going to be calls over the course of the game. The both fan bases are going to disagree with one way or another um but it was just clunky man and for an exhibition like to have the reviews and have all these foul calls it's like what are

Starting point is 00:06:12 we doing can we not just play maybe that'll be a good teaching tool for the the players because probably in in practices with each other you're fouling yourselves more than you would in the game um and you have to get used to the game whistle that's going to be a little bit tighter than that. But yeah, lack of kind of shooting for KU certainly stood out in this game. You did have a few minutes of slog where it felt like a handful of minutes stretch where you really struggled on the offensive end.

Starting point is 00:06:36 But actually in the end, some of your numbers and like points per possession stuff actually ended up pretty good, especially considering Illinois has a good defense or at least is expected to have a good defense after they had one last year and kind of expected to once again this year. Defense did have some issues defending the arc, defending the three-point line, defending ball screens, defending pick and pops.

Starting point is 00:06:56 So those are things to kind of keep note of and put in your back pocket. But it's hard. It's hard when you're talking about a first game and trying to detail because some of this stuff, like maybe they haven't gone over yet. We heard from Bill Suffolk, Big 12 Media Day, that they go into their offense more than their defense. They haven't gone into everything about how they're going to cover pick and pops, how they're going to cover screen and rolls, how they're going to cover this.

Starting point is 00:07:18 Are they going to hard hedge? Are they going to play drop coverage? Like where are they going to switch? When are they not going to switch? They haven't done some of that stuff yet. So it's hard to pick too much, and it's hard to be like well that didn't look good that's a sign of things to come yeah maybe some of the stuff is signs of things to come like the three point shooting that could be a sign of things to come because i don't i never really expected this

Starting point is 00:07:36 to be a great three-point shooting team but there are other things where it's like yeah but that could just look better in two weeks that could look better in two months that could look better in march i don't know so even despite all kind of the the weird stuff and the things that didn't go your way and the things you didn't do well you lost in a close game on the road against a team who is ranked 25th in the preseason poll but they're ranked 19th in Ken Palm in the preseason and that Illinois team I think we saw like talent wise I think they have four players who are fifth year or better. They've got some really talented players. If Coleman Hawkins is taking that next step, which moments it looked like,

Starting point is 00:08:08 if Terrence Shannon looked like an All-American, that is a talented enough Illinois team that they could compete to win the Big Ten title, that they could be a top 15, top 10 team in the country. But at the very least, they're being picked 19th. It's a top 25 team. You lost close on the road. I'm not holding this against KU at all.

Starting point is 00:08:24 They lost to Illinois supposedly in a secret scrimmage last year by like a point. And guess what? Last year's Kansas team, they ended up being the third overall one seed and won the Big 12 in one of the toughest years that they've ever had with the Big 12. And guess what? Over the course of a season, like even the teams who are number one, number two, number five, whatever, top five, top ten teams, you still lose a handful plus of games. And a lot of those games happen when you're playing top 25-ish opponents on the road. It happens, right? So it's almost unfortunate that the game was on TV because if this was a secret scrimmage, you'd probably worry less about it. And, you know, it was so early in the season. It featured the weird foul rule. Like who knows how that would have changed things with players if they

Starting point is 00:09:09 foul out or not, like how that affects how players play. Coleman Hawkins would have fouled out. Kevin McCuller, KJ Adams would have fouled out, but would they have played different? I don't know. It's so hard to say with all this stuff. And obviously I don't know how much like game planning goes into it too. Like, are you actually scouting for the opponents? I'm probably not in a situation like this. You're more so trying to figure out what you need to self-scout in the end of this. So certainly there's some things KU needs to do better. And certainly some questions I have about possible flaws, but they're just kind of questions that we had coming into the game that were kind of accentuated in this one and nothing really

Starting point is 00:09:41 new popped up to make me overly worried that this happens i didn't really expect this to be one of those kansas teams or that that only loses two or three games over the course of the season like i don't know i wouldn't be surprised if they end up being the seventh best team in the country okay that's whatever but that still puts you in range could they win a national title could they make a final four like yeah absolutely and uh let's not overreact to uh one one game now if you are looking for the thing that was maybe most Kansas only led for one minute, Illinois led for 36. But that's happened in other road games, too, that Kansas win in Big 12 play. We're going to get to more of this goats of the game, good and bad, here on Locked on

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Starting point is 00:10:41 What about another big play? J.B. Brown sticking the running back, forcing a fumble. KU recovers. Big moment in the game. You needed each and every one of the three turnovers that you did for. So I guess the one on the kickoff, you ended up not being able to score on. But that's neither here nor there. That was a game-changing play for KU. That's

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Starting point is 00:12:48 The goat, the greatest of all time. Bad goats, when I was growing up, that was a bad thing if you were the goat. It was like short for scapegoat, right? It was not good to be the goat. So good goats here. We have Kevin McCuller. He got hurt at the end there, which that sucked because that would have been by far the biggest negative takeaway.

Starting point is 00:13:03 KU is obviously very thin, not very deep and everything. But on top of that, Kevin McCullough looking to have a big season. We've seen him have injuries in the past. Boy, did he have a good game. But it sounds like he's okay. Bill Self said in the postgame it was just like whiplash stuff. So I think he'll be all right. He had 25 points, 9 of 14 shooting, 2 of 3 from 3-point range, 8 rebounds.

Starting point is 00:13:23 It's a slight difference in how the 3-point shot looks, but it looks a little more clean. It looks a little bit higher, looks like a little bit slightly quicker release. Beyond that, he just looks so much more confident and looks like he has a little bit more in his bag on the offensive end, that he has more that he can get to. And he's just been so good on that end. On FanDuel, you can get him 200 to 1 to a national player of

Starting point is 00:13:45 the year i don't know if it'll happen it's gonna be tough there's all these big men who put up like 22 and 10 and if kevin mcculler puts up 18 and 6 how is that gonna fare the other way i think you know it should fare well when you look at his defense and everything but but um i don't know why not it's a fun little bet that you can have there he was awesome though uh kj adams gets a good go here. 14 points. He went 6 of 10 shooting from the floor. Good efficiency there.

Starting point is 00:14:09 Four rebounds, three assists. He was really smart about when to cut, when to move around. We did see him take a three. The three didn't look super good. It didn't look as clean as when it was in Puerto Rico. But he's going to continue to need to shoot those and or mid-range shots to make defenses sag off. But one thing that you can do to make defenses sag off but one thing that you can do is with defense sagging off is cut and try to take advantage of that and he

Starting point is 00:14:29 did that a good amount and uh there was the one offensive put back on an offensive rebound like I thought he had a pretty good game overall and also like switching on the defensive end I was impressed with how KJ Adams looked as as you're continuing to see well how does he fit in as more of a perimeter player kind of forward type the inside scoring for KU was actually really good. This is something we talked about in our preview show for the KU-Illinois game, that Illinois was number one in the Big Ten last season in Big Ten-only games in two-point offense and two-point defense. And they were top 25 in the country in both two-point offense and two-point defense overall.

Starting point is 00:15:04 Well, KU led Illinois 50-22 in points in the paint. So you limited them from getting to the paint for the most part, and you easily got in the paint the other way. Now, part of that could be strategic. Obviously, for Illinois, they probably were more content to take open threes and stretch it out a little bit with you having basically a couple big men and more of a lumbering center in there that they wanted to have Coleman Hawkins fire up threes and stretch it out a little bit with, you know, how you haven't basically a couple of big men and more of a lumbering center in there that they wanted to have Coleman Hawkins fire up threes and stuff.

Starting point is 00:15:28 So part of that strategic, but still 50 to 22 points to pay. That's pretty dominant. And for what it's worth, you held Illinois to 14 of 29, which is slightly below 50% on two point shots. That's not a number you're going to like celebrate about, or that's some outlier, unbelievable number. But again, I mentioned Illinois led the Big Ten in two-point offense last year they shot 54 percent in Big Ten games last year you held them

Starting point is 00:15:49 below 50 percent so in theory you had a pretty good game there meanwhile KU shot 55 percent on twos in this one and again that would have been better than Illinois who led the Big Ten a conference filled with all sorts of big men and gigantic dudes in two-point shots. Actually, your inside offense was pretty good. And going back to the Hunter Dickinson weird game thing, like Hunter Dickinson missed some shots he probably normally makes in other games. So that number could have gone up even more. I'll also mention a good goat here, just the athleticism of Marco Jackson. That was very apparent from watching the game a couple times.

Starting point is 00:16:20 There were some flash plays. Unfortunately, though, it was just a few flash plays, and it wasn't something that led to a bunch of success in one way or another. That brings us to our bad goats of the game. Shooting is a bad goat here, both in terms of volume and efficiency from three-point range, and then the free throw shooting. So you only took 12 threes. That number needs to go up. Teams are going to start sagging off at some point in the season if you're only taking 12 threes a game. On top of it, they only hit three of them two of them came from Kevin McCuller everyone else on the team was one of nine from three-point range they're gonna have to find some success of three-point shooting and

Starting point is 00:16:54 I don't know where the answers are necessarily DeJuan is more of a if I'm open I'll take a guy same with kind of Hunter Dickinson and set plays a Marco Jackson like you're probably only going to take the wide open ones there. It'd be great if Nick Timberlake was playing more to get up more threes, but he's got to do the other things well to get that more playing time. And even then, it didn't lead to him hitting a bunch of threes in this game. Johnny Furphy, maybe that's somewhere where he can make a mark or an impact on this team coming back and being one of your better three-point shooters. But you need the three-point shooting to go up. Kansas also just went 63% on free throws, so that's not great either. Let's see, our next bad

Starting point is 00:17:29 goat here, guarding pick and pops and ball screen defense. As I talked about, this could be something that gets better the more you go over it, the more you practice, the more the season goes on. So there are ways that this could have just been bad because it is so early on, and that's a communication thing or whatever. But it helped Illinois go 11 of 27 from three-point range because of your poor ball screen defense at times, guarding pick and pops. They shot 41% from three with Coleman Hawkins and Taryn Shannon combining for nine of the team's 11 made threes.

Starting point is 00:18:05 I think that's going to be something that bothers KU all year. If you have a stretch five, it's going to cause you problems. Now, not every team has a stretch five. It's more of a rarity, so that is the good news. But we've seen before KU have really good teams in the NCAA tournament and play teams with a stretch five when they had a lump ring big man, caused them problems, right? So that would be something I'm keeping an eye on very early in the season

Starting point is 00:18:27 that could come up depending on a matchup, possibly as late as March. Rebounding gets a bad goat here. KU was out rebounded by seven. They lost the second chance points by four. There was a stretch there where it felt like they were getting beat on a lot of hustle balls. And Milsom even said so during the broadcast in one of the kind of midway interviews that they were doing during the game.

Starting point is 00:18:46 And the thing is here, like Illinois is a fine rebounding team. But if you're going to play with essentially two, whether that's Hunter Dickinson and K.J. Adams, Hunter Dickinson, Parker, whatever mismatch of bigs. If you're playing with two bigs, you're going to clearly lose some ability to shoot the basketball or space the floor. You have to make up for that in other areas you have to make up for in defense you have to make up for it in rebounding you have to be able to if you're going to play big rebound like you're playing big and not lose in that area so that's something you're looking to get better maybe uh once the lights come on it's not an exhibition game you'll see that level kind of go up uh the last bad goat here i got is the other guys so to speakU should feel good about the three returning starters with DeJuan, Kevin, and KJ, and then Hunter Dickinson, who you added on,

Starting point is 00:19:29 just from like a big picture perspective, not necessarily talking about this game, just big picture. You feel good about those four. You're still trying to develop who's going to be the other starter, the fifth starter at the two spot. Who's going to be the guys coming off the bench? Are you going to get enough punch from the guys coming off the bench in however far the rotation goes and playing in those role spots? Well, against Illinois, the combination of El Marco Jackson, Jamari McDowell, Parker Brown, and Nick Timberlake, those players who you feel like are going to be part of that rotation, played a combined 54 minutes. They scored just eight points on four of 10 shooting. They had just four rebounds and three assists.

Starting point is 00:20:05 And at times it felt like some or multiple of those guys were just kind of out there drifting along. And just furthering this, KU had four total bench points in a charity game where you should have been playing deeper on the bench. Can Johnny Furphy save this? Maybe a little bit, but that's something that has to go up because we saw that so many times last year that the bench was not giving you a punch, that the other guys were not giving you a punch, and that's something that you thought would be better on this year's team

Starting point is 00:20:28 with the way they reshaped the roster in the offseason. You didn't see it against Illinois. All right, we're going to continue on with what's next for the KU basketball team. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by PrizePix. You can test your skills on PrizeP picks this football or basketball season in the most exciting way possible with. It's really simple to play. You can make your picks,

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Starting point is 00:21:14 I know I was just big on the KU football with Jason Bean and Mason Fairchild and some of those. It was a fun weekend when you add to it that not only did KU beat OU, but you might have hit big on PrizePix. prizepix.com slash lockedoncollege with code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for first deposit match up to $100. PrizePix, daily fantasy sports made easy. Finishing things up, early look at what's next for KU basketball.

Starting point is 00:21:38 So they'll be back at it on Wednesday. That'll be a bit of an easier exhibition for them. Fort Hayes State in Allen Fieldhouse on Wednesday. That'll be a bit of an easier exhibition for them. Fort Hayes State in Allen Fieldhouse on Wednesday night. The real thing will be next Monday for their first regular season game. Got kind of like two cupcakes before they get into the Champions Classic game. How much better can Kansas get in a week or two before the Champions Classic? Can you take this to the next level, right? Honestly, more than you'd think, because early in the season, things are moving exponentially and how much better you're getting. And, you know, actual having college games and tape and scouting reports

Starting point is 00:22:15 and that sort of stuff, you're going to really see the level of play rise, or at least you hope it does, because otherwise bad things. And so if it doesn't over the next couple of weeks of play, even then, though, there are going to be certain growing pains early in the season that's the beauty of these next three games including this exhibition with Fort Hayes State it's going to more so just to be about what are you doing what are you doing internally what are you doing self-inflicted as opposed to what your opponent is doing as maybe the Illinois game was where it's like well if you do something bad it's going to be taking advantage of more with Illinois.

Starting point is 00:22:45 This gives you a little bit easier of a launching pad into the champions classic while also now having in mind of the Illinois game of what happens to be like, okay, if we don't do this well, that's what happens. So a four day state on Wednesday, we'll have a basketball preview for it coming up later this week, locked on Jayhawks tomorrow's episode, more KU Oklahoma talk from the Jayhawks football win there. Make sure you're catching our podcasts anywhere you get any of your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:23:08 You can find us on our YouTube page as well. Like and subscribe to the show. We'll see you next time with Locked on Jayhawks. Have a great rest of your day.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Drops Charity Exhibition Game 82-75 to Illinois - No Need to Panic

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