Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Mauls Missouri Behind KJ Adams and Company

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Recapping the 95-67 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball victory over the Missouri Tigers on Saturday December 10 in Columbia, MO. KJ Adams, Jalen Wilson, Gradey Dick, Kevin McCullar and Dajuan Harris went off as the starting five for Bill Self's squad. What the win means, what looked best, and analysis moving forward. Plus, GOATs of the game and some AP Poll Top 25/College Basketball talk.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn 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 BarBuilt 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.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!SimpliSafeWith 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.Omaha SteaksOmaha 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.NHTSADrive sober or get pulled over. Click HERE to learn more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we go over the Kansas crushing of Missouri on Saturday in Columbia. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Johnson, thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. I'm on your side. You can also hear me on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas just absolutely mauls Missouri and an impressive win. What it means, breaking down the win, goats of the game, goats of the week, I guess, for KU basketball. And then we'll also give in to some of the rest of college basketball across the other of the top 25. Today's episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs, helping you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster.

Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. That's linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. So Kansas comes down with a 95-67 win against the Missouri Tigers, and it was just an absolute beat down from the word governs us a game that you never had to worry about you never really stressed about and you know sometimes as far as you know rivalry games go that can be the best way for it to happen it reminded you a lot of the game last

year Kansas just jumps out on top to an early lead and they never looked back. There were a few moments where Missouri would maybe hit a three or something and cut it to 12 or 15 where it's like, okay, maybe are they going to go on a run here, go on an 8-0 run to make it interesting at the end? And they never did. Kansas just cut them off seemingly each and every time. So absolute beat down from the opening tip for the second straight season uh certainly it was it was you know you almost i'm sure for some of the players enjoy that one a little bit more from getting to hush the road environment i know there's stuff that came out uh that you had

like the missouri head coach holding up for football holding up a sign saying five level one violations it's like dude you just skirted playing Kansas in the Liberty Bowl. Have some self-awareness here. They gave out like cheat sheets to the Missouri fans about how to root and what chance to do and stuff, which always is just kind of lame to begin with nonetheless. And yeah, like nearly 30 point victory for Kansas. Just everything clicked in the game for KU.

The offense was rolling. They did have just kind of a few weird turnovers in there where the guy just hits the side of a player, just thrown out of bounds. Somebody wasn't looking for the ball. They had a few of those, but overall they took care of the ball pretty well, especially considering Missouri came into that game

number one in the country in steal rate, albeit against lesser competition. But everything was clicking. The offense was rolling. You shot the ball really well from two point and three point range. I mean, the start to that game shooting over 70, 80 percent. But it wasn't just like Kansas is hitting these ridiculous shots to get to that 70, 80 percent mark that they were through the first whatever 10, 15 minutes of the game. Like they were getting open shots. They were getting open looks from the outside and they were getting easy shots around the rim. Bill Self said that

they executed the first 10 minutes about as well as any team he's ever had execute like a stretch like that. And, you know, just getting easy buckets finding right angles sealing guys off it was a master class on the offensive side of the ball for Kansas had 24 assists and you really thrived in in a tough environment against a team with a lot of hype like that clearly I think resonates for once you get to big 12 play there's going to be some tough environments you're playing in you know whenever you go on the road you're going to be the team with your target on your back. You're the defending champs, your KU, and there are a lot of really good road environments in the Big 12. That's a really good sign that you were able to handle that, and it didn't really bother you at any point in the game. Now, there's another level

of, does the crowd bother you late in the game if it's a close game that you didn't actually get to figure out, but that certainly was a good sign there. Defensively, they looked pretty good too. Missouri was averaging over 90 points per game coming in. Again, with the caveat, very bad schedule that they had played against. But really at no point did Missouri go on like a long run. And even a guy like Grady Dick, who has struggled at times or been a little inconsistent there on the defensive end this season, like he was solid on that end.

You just kind of put the clamps on him. They shot right at 40% in the game, which you would have taken coming in. They didn't light it up from three-point range. You didn't let their offensive rebounding become a problem. You just played good defense overall. And I do think that does go a little bit back to the idea that you took care of the basketball pretty well. Like I said, there were a few head scratching turnovers, but even those weren't live ball turnovers, at least, which is the easiest way

for Missouri to score. They're a really good transition team. They play fast. They get easy buckets off of turnovers that lead to layups and dunks and open threes and transition. By avoiding some of those things, you kind of cut them off and made them have to play more half court, and they're not as good of a half court offense, and you were able to kind of take advantage of that. Kansas, I think, just overall really matched up well, personnel-wise, to what Missouri wanted to do.

I mean, you look at this Missouri team, and it's a small ball kind of don't know, small ball kind of lineup with Kobe Brown at the five, it's six foot eight. And even the, the Noah Carter kid, they're playing him at the four, occasionally at the five at like six, six, six, seven. So it is a small ball kind of lineup. And I think you saw Kansas match up well, because that's how Kansas plays with KJ Adams. But I think in general, that tells you that like if you're in the NCAA tournament and you happen to be matched up against a mid-major team who plays a small ball five, who can stretch it from three, like in some years past, we've seen

it like perfect example, right? You think back to, I don't know, VCU or Northern Iowa, where you have these maybe teams who can stretch the floor a little bit and you have maybe more of the traditional lurking center down low and it causes you issues. Now, obviously, that was like a decade ago and a lot of different things are different from there. But it just it makes you more matchup proof, I guess, is the way of saying that they do have that small five. And if one of your traditional centers can come along to where you can feel like your matchup proof for the bit the the traditional big man then that'll be a really good sign but i think that's really important especially because there are a lot of teams that are going to play

smaller in that regard and kj matched up very well there um but now you look at possibly a trend here the last three games have been against um you know i don't know subpar opponents like in the case of seaton hall that's maybe a borderline ncaa tournament team same for missouri like they're both in the top 65 on ken palm but they're neither one is like top 40 teams where you're like oh they're for sure ncaa tournament team they're kind of on that fringe like i don't know they're they're interesting right and the other one was against te Texas Southern, who is not good. So, you know, take it with a grain of salt. But you're still talking about games in the last two where you were favored by 10 points and you were favored by three and a half points.

And you combined to win those two games by 54 points. Like that on its own says something about how good this team can be and that they are playing really good basketball at this point in time truly the indiana game is going to be the best test of how they can fare against top competition um they passed the duke test but duke's been kind of up and down kind of weird since that win uh they haven't been bad but i don't know man i i think it's a team in duke that that win's gonna look a lot better in february and march when maybe their young team uh is clicking a little bit more super test um you obviously did not pass the the tennessee test against another really good opponent um but i think kansas has clearly shown they can be dominant

against lesser teams which is obviously very important for good teams to do. But now the question comes up on Saturday and ahead, how can they do versus other elite teams, which you get a chance to showcase as soon as this week. In just a second, we're going to get on to our goats of the game for Kansas. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager

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to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. So, Kansas takes down missouri once again 95 67 i'm sure that won't get old for anybody hearing that um we're gonna finish up with a little college basketball talk around the country the the number one team in houston just lost so we're going to talk about that in a second here, but goats of the week. Let's start with the good goats, plenty of good goats. I just lumped this all together. We'll get to them in each individually too, but the starting five, just as a whole, the starting

five, unbelievable for Kansas. And they, they pretty much did all the production and did all the work. I mean, you had a game where all of them played over 30 minutes. They were all between like 32 and 33, except for Kevin McCuller, who was at 28 to right around it. And they were dominant. K.J. Adams. I mean, the guy plays so hard. The one play where he like falls down to like save it or keep it in bounds or whatever, and it goes to DeJuan and then he quickly gets back up

and then DeJuan dumps it off to him and he dunks it was I think such a a pure example of what he can bring to the table and this was a good matchup for him with a opposing center that was a bit smaller he ends up with 19.6 rebounds three assists two steals one block he went nine of 11 shooting this is also back-to-back games where KJ hasn't had a bunch of defensive rebounds he had three on the defensive glass, and that's something we've talked about before, but you've still actually done okay defensive rebounding because the wings have stepped up on the defensive glass. So I think it furthers the idea that you need one of two things. Either the other wings have to be really good defensive rebounders, or your center has to be a good defensive rebounder. Last two games, it's been the wings, so it's been fine. But if that dissipates from the wings,

then all of a sudden you're left with a bit of an issue of the KJ Adams defensive rebounding thing. But KJ does everything else that you could want there. Obviously, he doesn't have a back-to-the-basket game. But we've seen a little bit from him in being able to take a dribble, catch a short roll, pass it out. He ends up with three assists or finding the right guy or taking a power dribble

and finishing through contact being in the dunker spot catching lobs throwing down jams 9 of 11 shooting and maybe the the most important thing that he did in that game consistently was that he constantly was getting proper angles and basically sealing guys off. It doesn't sound like a huge skill. It almost sounds like something that just like is manufactured by other people. And to a certain extent, it is. You have to have the right pass in there and get the right angles and movement around the floor.

And the coaches and Bill Self do a great job at creating that. But really, to this point, we hadn't seen the KU centers execute that super well of creating that angle where they seal off their defender and just get an easy basket because of the angles that Bill Self and the offense provides. And that's an easy way for, I don't know, four, six points at the center position a game. And we saw KJ do that very well against Missouri, which is a great progress for if he doesn't have a back to the basket game, but he can be a good pick and roll guy. He can dunk it. He can throw down lobs.

And if he can do that, that is enough for you to have at the center position. I think offensively, Jalen Wilson, 24 points, 10 rebounds, three steals, seven of 16 shooting. So efficient there, 24 and 16 shots. And it's just funny because Jalen was not the standout player of the game not in terms of having the most points or having the most rebounds like he did both those things but like everybody looked to kj adams or grady dick in the first half or whatnot and this is kind of the the the biggest signal of a player who is like a national player of the year candidate in games that they're not necessarily the guy who

we're highlighting or talking all about they still have unbelievable numbers 24 and 10 and everybody's talking about kj adams afterwards which deservedly so for kj but like that's where we've gotten with jaylen wilson that he is just so productive and so impactful that it's almost like patrick mahomes we like rarely talk about patrick Mahomes where it's like, oh, we just know he's really good, right? That's kind of where we've gotten with Jalen Wilson. Grady Dick, especially in the first half here for the starters, had 15 in the first half, 16 for the game. Also had seven rebounds, five assists, kind of filling up the stat sheet more than maybe usual there. Six of 11, three of five and three. He could not miss to open up the game, really thrives in those environments, and that was cool to see then you have dewan harris he goes for six points has nine assists

also added two steals he was in complete control of the game a lot of what kj adams did well and ended up with is i think in in large part to dewan harris being able to open things up for him and make good passes crisp passes and keep the offense engaged and locked in. He just keeps everything so organized for this team. It's unbelievable his impact on the floor, even though the numbers, again, don't necessarily jump out with the six points. And then Kevin McCuller, 21 points, four rebounds, three assists, five steals. The five steals, just unbelievable.

He just does a little bit of everything for you. He's scoring really well the past few games games which is a great sign for this team because i i don't know you don't necessarily need him i mean it'd be great if he did to score 20 points per game the rest of the season to be successful but you need at least 12 13 14 a game from him to i think be at your peak offensively and the last two games he's doing it all he is over the last two games 19 points per game seven rebounds per game two assists per game and four and a half steals per game that'll do uh also good goat of the game sharing the sugar that's a saying i think for i don't know assists passing uh 24 assists for kansas to 14 turnovers k Kansas right now ranks top 20 in the country in the rate of their makes that

are made on assists. So they share the ball really well. DeJuan Harris, obviously a big reason why he's already had, DeJuan has four games this year with eight or more assists, including the Missouri game. You have to go back to 2017-18. So what would that be? Six seasons ago or five seasons in between for the last KU player to even do that. It was Devontae Graham.

He had 17 of them. So good luck for DeJuan to get to that level or pass it. Very possible with the way that DeJuan gets assists and everything. And then the last one, good goat, continuing the trend of a walk-on putting the final three to kind of add the cherry on top to mizzou last year it was chris tehan it got him over 102 big cheer this year it was michael jankovich with just i mean purest of all swishes on the the straight on three that came from him good goats uh bad goats we actually do have two bad goats even as good as that game was

for Kansas the first is the bench played 43 minutes combined which it was really piecemeal work you had a lot of guys getting three minutes one minute um but overall 43 minutes from the bench a combined nine points on three of nine shooting five rebounds two assists two turnovers they didn't really need them so it's fine and it didn't obviously impact the game from a negative standpoint but it does continue a trend that we've seen all season long and something you're looking to kind of overcome or see if it can turn around at some point you're looking for people to step up joe yesifu seems to have made the most consistent inroads there. He played 15 minutes even in Bobby Pettiford's return. I'd imagine Pettiford will surpass Joe Yesifu soon,

if not this next game in terms of minutes because it was Pettiford's first game back. Slightly at the same position, slightly different positions. And then we saw Cam Martin back for the first time, only played three minutes. I think he had a shot blocked, but, you know, first game back. But it was certainly telling that he came in before Zuby Ejifer and Zach Clements there. I don't know if that was just a, you know, time and score situation where, hey, you're up so big, we haven't played this guy in a while, he's coming back off injury. That's a perfect opportunity to get him in there. Then if it would have been a closer game, if they would have gone with somebody they trusted more.

I don't know the answer there, but certainly you're looking for those guys to kind of step up. MJ Rice and the centers have just been super inconsistent. All the centers off the bench. MJ Rice, four minutes, didn't score for you. That's just been kind of up and down with what you've gotten from him. So you need more from the bench. Didn't't matter in that game but we have seen it impact Kansas in other games and they need more moving forward uh the last bad goat no Liberty Bowl

versus Mizzou you know because if if Kansas would have lost to Missouri in basketball and then they would have been playing them in the Liberty Bowl in football, you would be freaking out that, oh no, this could be a horrid month where you lose twice to Mizzou once you need sport. But now that Kansas won in basketball, it's too bad there's no Liberty Bowl because then you could just sit there and go, man, this is the cherry on top. If we beat

them in football and basketball, this is one of the greatest December sports months in Kansas history. If you lose the game, you can at least be like, well, at least we blew them out in basketball, right? So no Liberty Bowl, though. Well, Liberty Bowl, but no Liberty Bowl against Missouri. All right, in just a second, we're going to get on to some

around the college basketball front. Look at some of the top 10 teams in last week's AP poll and dive into that. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by SimpliSafe. At Locked on Jayhawks, we believe home should be where you and your family feel safest, especially over the holidays. This season, give yourself and your family the gift of peace and protection with the

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from SimpliSafe to capture critical evidence and verify the threat is real so you can get higher priority police response. Don't miss your chance to save big on my favorite security system get 40 off any new system at simply safe.com locked on college today that's simply safe.com locked on college there's no safe like simply safe finishing things off with the uh ap poll we'll have a new one out coming later i know we had a comment on youtube asking if we could kind of go over some of this stuff and also evaluating how all the players have done to this point in the season.

For that part of it, don't worry. We're going to do that in between the Harvard game and the Oklahoma State game. So after non-con play into Big 12 play, we're going to kind of reevaluate how all the different players and positions have done to this point. But in the AP poll, Houston was the number one team.

They lost to Alabama, a game they were up big on, and then kind of lost it away. Alabama is the ultimate team that if you want the number one team to lose, you probably want Alabama to play them because they're a high variance team. They take a lot of threes. They run fast. Very talented team too. They can have some shooting lulls and have some weird games that they'll lose, but they can play up to kind of anyone. So they end up losing, but I still think Houston is really good. Alabama's clearly very good. Texas loses for the first time to Illinois, which we circle back to the Illinois thing. So Illinois lost kind of a weird one, but they've been really good against good competition. And Illinois was the team that

Kansas played in the secret scrimmage the rumor the the supposed talk was that uh Illinois was up by one it was only like one half of play and then they did a bunch of situational stuff from there but they did say I think Bill Self said everything came down to like the last possession essentially and everything they did so it's a very tight team um but i think i think that's further reason to think both teams are kind of good between kansas and illinois um i guess virginia is probably going to be the number one team i don't know maybe the poll will be out by the time this episode comes out um but purdue and yukon man yukon has been unbelievable so far they are just blowing everyone out they've got a really good defense they brought in a really good transfer from east carolina uh where joe dooley was was coaching at

and um yukon's been ultra impressive i think i hit him at like 20 25 to 1 to win the title or something make the final four before the season started and that's feeling good but it certainly is interesting that you look at the the top 10 right now and you have again it's going to shift up or change up a little bit after this week but like houston texas virginia purdue yukon that was your top five headed into the week this is going to be a little bit more of a weird year and as much thought as there was coming into the year that hey all the blue bloods are going to be really good this year with Kansas being top 10 preseason, Kentucky, Duke, same, North Carolina preseason number one. North Carolina's kind of struggled so far.

Kansas has been good. Kentucky has, I don't know if I would quite say struggled, but they've definitely not looked like a top 10 team so far. And then you have Duke, who kind of the same thing. Like, Duke's been pretty good, but have they looked like a top 10 team? No, And then you have Duke, who kind of the same thing, like Duke's been pretty good, but they look like a top 10 team. Now it's been a little clunky. So this does feel like

a pretty wide open year so far, but it feels like we say that at the beginning of a lot of years. And then we get to like February and it goes one of two ways. It either goes, this is the most wide open year ever. Everybody can win it.

Or it goes to, no, there are a handful of teams that we probably narrow it down. If you gave me a selection of five to eight people, we can probably pick the national champion. So we'll see how this one goes from there. All right, that's going to do it from this edition of Locked on Jayhawks. If you have anything you want the show to talk about,

hit me up at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter or in the comment section on YouTube. Tomorrow's show, we're going to be joined by Nick Schwert to talk a little KU basketball, do another Whose Stat Line Is It Anyway? A little KU football with Nick, too, ahead of the Liberty Bowl. Don't forget to subscribe to the show wherever you get any of your podcasts or on our YouTube channel

with Locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. I'll see some of you on Rock Chalk Sports Talk from 3 to 6 on KLW and Lawrence later today. Till then, bye.