Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Defeat Duke Behind KJ Adams & Dajuan Harris Despite Hunter Dickinson Ejection

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas beats Duke 75-72 as they show all the player acquisition, all the depth they acquired, worth every penny. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Derek Johnson, you can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio, on Blue Sky at Derek Johnson. This is Locked On Jayhawks. Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every show. Thank you for making it your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:37 We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We're going to be breaking down Kansas Duke on today's episode. Recap of the game. Kansas defeats Duke 75-72. Hunter Dickinson was ejected. The veterans showed up for KU. The depth showed up for KU. The defense was there. We're going to talk all about it on this episode of the show. Get to our game awards and what is next for KU. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. If you would have got Kansas on FanDuel plus two and a half, I think it even closed at like three and a half. You would have been sitting pretty in this one.

Starting point is 00:01:12 Kansas wins 75 to 72, and you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a $5 bet, and you get started with $150 in bonus bets. If you win your first $5 bet, just visit fanduel.com to get started today. So the Jayhawks end up winning by three, despite not having Hunter Dickinson for the final 10-ish minutes of the game. This was a game about two things to me, the experienced veterans of Kansas and mainly the returners, right? KJ Adams hunter digginson that it was about hunter in a different way in this game uh and dewan harris along with the depth that you acquired in the transfer portal paying off in a real way in this one okay let's let's think about those in two ways one kj adams

Starting point is 00:01:58 had a phenomenal game for ku um he missed those last couple jump shots which were kind of like oh no what are those shots but he's also hitting them throughout the game and uh you know it was something where he had such a big impact on the defensive end of the court uh dewan harris had a phenomenal game doing everything for you pressuring the ball you know nearly had a double double played 36 minutes and was still looking spry through the end of the game it was about your veterans in that way but it was also about the depth you were you were acquired last year year, Hunter Dickinson gets ejected with 10 minutes to go. Kansas is tough. Pack it up, right?

Starting point is 00:02:30 Fold it up, right? It's over, especially against the tallest team in the country. But because you have Flory Budunga, right? It's not all transfer portal. Some of it's freshman. Because you have Flory Budunga, you're able to survive that game at the very end. Because you have Ryland Griffin coming off the bench in the second half and hitting some big shots, you're able to survive that game at the very end. Because you have Ryland Griffin coming off the bench in the second half and hitting some big shots, you're able to survive that game. Because you have Diggie

Starting point is 00:02:49 Coy coming in and hitting a key three for you in the second half, you're able to win that game. This game was about those two things. The key returning starters that KU brought back from last year and filling it, supplanting it with the players you made the additions of in the portal. And it's not perfect right now. They're still figuring each other out they're still figuring out the roles right you're still figuring out everything that you want to be as a team but there was a little post-game moment where chris budden was interviewing bill self and he was kind of smiling he has a big smile on his face as you'd imagine because they'd just be duked by three points and he's got this big smile on his face and he's like and we're still figuring stuff out. And I think it was a light bulb moment probably for him. Like,

Starting point is 00:03:28 man, we got a pretty good team. We've already beaten North Carolina, Duke and Michigan state, and we're still figuring it out. And we didn't have Hunter Dickinson for the final 10 minutes. In the back of his head, he's going, I have something special here. Let's make the most out of this thing. And I think the crazy thing to me as make the most out of this thing and i think the crazy thing to me as a part of all of this is that you know you'll be able to point to this one and clearly like if you're a duke fan there's no you know there's no shame in losing a game like this as there wouldn't have been any shame if kansas would have ended up losing this game in a close game right uh love games like this uh you know it's it's gonna help both teams down the

Starting point is 00:04:05 road and everything obviously duke's gonna sit here probably and say well listen we almost won this game and we only got 13 points from cooper flag who was shut down in the first half and con canuple uh only had what was 4 of 14 like you know this a game keasley but that's the thing you can do with kansas in this game this wasn't even a situation where it's like okay well yeah kansas was hot from three they were 8 of 17 47 but like that's not super high volume and it's not like duke wasn't hot from three either they were 11 of 26 like tyrese proctor could not miss so you can't really point to that and that's even with like like there were some good looks for david coy uh the second one that he missed was actually probably a better look than the first one he made uh rylan griffin had a

Starting point is 00:04:42 couple other good looks like you easily could have made another one or two threes in this game uh the 16 turnovers like that's something where you can point to if you're kansas and bill self and be like okay well if you know down the road we we'd expect to not have that many turnovers i think you can also point to down the road that okay well you would hope hunter dickinson wouldn't get ejected again and that like that could be better out of this game too and on on top of it, like in the minutes Hunter Dickinson played, he was really struggling on the offensive end of the court, right? He missed the dunk. He was four for 11.

Starting point is 00:05:10 He had three turnovers. That's the cool part about this. The Kansas won this game. And there's still a lot of things you could point to and be like, oh, but they're going to improve at that. Or they're going to be better at that. Or like, this is going to get like, right. We still haven't really seen Shaq Moore factor into the rotation maybe that's something that just never happens but like I kind of think

Starting point is 00:05:28 it will it's just tough to to go from oh you've been on a five minute per game limit to now all of a sudden you're going to play in our hardest game of the season against Duke right so like there are a lot of tangible reasons that Kansas can get better from a team that already has these three gigantic non-conference wins this was an excellent defensive game for ku um obviously the offense was was good too you shoot 50 on twos against a duke team that has all sorts of length you shoot 47 from three uh you had a ton of assists in this game you were money at the free throw line right like you you won the game doing everything you don't beat a team like this just doing nothing,

Starting point is 00:06:05 but you held them without any field goals over the final two minutes and 29 seconds of the game. You made them uncomfortable. You forced 16 turnovers. You had 12 steals. You had four blocks in the game. The ball pressure, I was really impressed with the KU. The first half specifically, like you were doing a good job keeping them out of the paint. And so yes, Duke ends up shooting 50% from the floor and 42% from three. But I look at this game and I look at KU leading 21 to 15 in points off turnovers. I look at you keeping them to just five offensive rebounds. And I sit there and go, yeah, I mean, Duke just made some good threes and Cooper Flag Flagg had a couple really good plays where he just made that runner, or he had that one dunk over Floyd Badunga. I don't know. I just felt like Duke had some good offensive moments.

Starting point is 00:06:54 I don't think it was that KU was bad on defense. I thought this was a good defensive game for KU. Other notes from this game before we get into our game awards aj store ended up starting the game now i i don't know if that was specific for the matchup for ku thinking that hey duke is this ginormous team aj store is a little bit more built than a guy like rylan griffin gives you a little bit more size out there i like to think of it as okay you had a week off between games there was a lot of practices he probably did well in those practices now what's interesting though is aj store did not finish the game part of that was because rylan griffin

Starting point is 00:07:28 earned to finish the end of the game because he was playing well in that second half um and aj store was better in the first half than he was in the second half for ku he wound up with eight points in the first half three of six shooting uh in the second half he had three points he only took one shot um so you know he was still fine in the second half, but the first half was what he was more known for. But I think that's a good sign for KU that AJ Storr ended up starting because again, that probably means he was doing really well in practice and is showing the things that Bill Self wants him to show to earn that spot. And I think AJ Storr is one of the most talented players on this team. So if he's fulfilling what Bill Self wants him to do,

Starting point is 00:08:02 that is a very good sign for KU. Another note that I want to make mention of, we talked about this in the takeaways, Kansas needed to find something to increase their possession maximization, right? You don't have to do great at everything, but what are you going to do? Are you going to get more steals? Are you going to get more offensive rebounds? Well, you got more steals, you got 12 of them, and you got 10 offensive rebounds while you were able to hold you got 10 offensive rebounds while uh you were able to hold

Starting point is 00:08:25 Duke to five offensive rebounds that is the value of Kansas being able to win more possessions that you know you have to find a way to win on the margins in some of these ways and Kansas did that in a very real way in this game and um you know when you look at it like Hunter Dickinson had two offensive rebounds Flory had two offensive rebounds. Like those are the guys you're kind of looking at to be able to do that. And then it was really everybody pitching in on the steals. We've had some other games where it's like just Hunter and DeJuan getting steals. But I think everybody in your starting lineup got at least one steal.

Starting point is 00:08:58 You had two players off the bench get a steal. You had three players with multiple steals in this game. Like just really good stuff from KU overall. So bottom line here, I think you've kind of proven you're a deserving number one team. I think there were some questions about, okay, we think Kansas is really good, but maybe from the national perspective, right? But are they really number one? And even I've had some of those questions where it's like, okay, I think Kansas is a really good team, but are they number four? Are they number five? Or are they number four are they number five or are they number one you know and i think you look at some of the metric sites and maybe it had them closer to being in that camp than being number one and you have some of these other teams winning big games like i don't know maybe auburn is the best team in the country they're winning all these these big games but now you can't really question it until kansas loses a game or unless they have like a streak of bad play right like i mean if the next couple weeks you're playing you know not as good opponents and you're barely winning every game like then yeah sure we can question it that but like until you lose a game outside of that you have collected

Starting point is 00:09:53 wins over north carolina michigan state and duke you can't really question the resume right now right like they are they are knocking down gigantic wins you have proven you were a deserving number one team in the country right now and and while you're still working on things that we just talked about, like if there's reason for things to get even better, you've shown you can beat anyone in the country. And this, this is why you went out and made sure you had depth in the offseason to overcome a situation like this. Maybe in your wildest dreams, you didn't think Hunter Dickinsonon was going to get ejected but was there always a possibility when you're talking about a center that um he could have uh you know fouled out of a random game absolutely and now you feel a lot better that if later in the season let's say we get to an ncaa tournament game let's say you're in the second round and you get a bad whistle and

Starting point is 00:10:40 hunter digginson's in foul trouble all game or he does end up fouling out of a game don't you feel a little bit better being able to go back to this game and lean on it and be like, yeah, you know, it's not ideal, not the best thing in the world, but we trust Flory, and we trust the bench, and yada, yada, yada, that they're going to be able to have enough to win a game, and to win a game like that, really impressive stuff for this KU team. Let's continue on with Game Awards.

Starting point is 00:11:02 This is Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook because right now, new customers can bet $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if you win. The FanDuel Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place

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Starting point is 00:11:49 Continuing on with this episode of Locked On Jayhawks with our game trophies. If you're new to this, we just give out random game trophies. We have some that are the same every week. Best moment, worst moment, offensive MVP, defensive MVP, and then we kind of ad lib from there. Thank you for making this your first listen, by the way. And don't forget you can check out Locked On College Basketball. Probably going to have some fun things to say about KU on tomorrow's episode,

Starting point is 00:12:08 as well as Locked On College Football. All right, our first one is best moment. I mean, it has to be when you force the turnover on that drive by Con Canepo, right, when it's kind of a combination of like KJ Adams and Flory Budunga that are kind of forcing it. At that point, the game wasn't over. You still needed to make the free throws and then make the stop. But that was like the big possession to make the stop because otherwise, if you give up a bucket there, then it's a different game.

Starting point is 00:12:33 Then you're having to score against what's a really good, really long Duke defense without your best offensive player in Hunter Dickinson. So that was obviously a great moment. I guess when the three just banked out i mean think about how close the the grayson allen and then the con canepal three in some recent games against duke were to you know falling in but they ended out and uh you know good result at the very end to say the least uh that zeke mayo floater that bounced off the rim like that was a really good moment honestly my favorite just like play i guess or like series of plays for best moment might be in the first half you had uh the alley oop that was thrown to florida bedunga throws down a really cool dunk where again he just gets you know it

Starting point is 00:13:15 feels like he's like 14 feet in the air and then very like running down the court um very shortly after blocks a duke player for a second i I thought it hit the Duke player out of bounds. It was still off Kansas. But just seeing that was really cool. And anytime you have somebody who makes big plays on both ends of the floor like that is really cool. So I think all of those definitely deserve some mention. And there's plenty others.

Starting point is 00:13:39 So if you have another one, hit me up on Twitter, at DJohnsonRadio or on Blue Sky, Derek Johnson. Okay, worst moment of the game? Probably has to be hunter's ejection right i mean we haven't really touched on it much outside of that it happened um if you want to debate whether it was or wasn't whether he should or shouldn't i mean i'm not really gonna have that on this episode i just want to talk about the kansas beat duke and like that's cool enough for me and that they had to overcome it happening because i i do think it's important to talk about it but like i don't know man um i can see it from both sides like if if that if a duke player did that to kansas um i think

Starting point is 00:14:20 everybody would be up in arms from the kansas side of things right which you probably are if you're listening to the show um and would probably be like, oh, that was dirty, like, eject that guy. I can also see it from like, well, I mean, did it look like he did it on purpose? I don't know. I don't really know. And Hunter knows in his heart of hearts, and I don't really know. And then again, this might sound crass because it's a player getting ejected, but I don't really care. Like I said, all I really care about is that kansas won the game and they found a way to do it without hunter dickinson but that was uh probably the worst moment for ku also hunters missed dunk that was uh not fun either uh this might be the actual worst moment if you're not counting like because the ejection has has

Starting point is 00:14:57 more than you know just uh the game itself but there was that end of first half run so kansas like forces a turnover and then they get a run out. And it's like a four on two or something like that. And there's like 15 seconds left in the half. And there's a situation where they're up five. And it's like, okay, you can hold for the last shot of the half. If you get a wide open layup, sure, take it. And instead of just being like, hey, we're going to either take a wide open layup or hold for the last shot.

Starting point is 00:15:23 Rylan Griffin just pulls up from a random three. He misses. Then on the defensive end, I don't know if you saw him, he's underneath the paint. He slips and falls, gets up, slips, and falls. Again, falls to the ground. Then Tyrese Proctor hits a tough three over a hand, and it ended up going from you could have been up seven or eight points at half at worst five to now you're only up two that was a really bad moment um i i think for ku that deserves some some talking about at least there uh okay this award is the exhausted but giving is all to the very end and that goes to flory budunga if you want to go back go watch the possession where ku has the basketball there's like three and a half minutes to go.

Starting point is 00:16:05 It's right before the under four timeout hits. And Flory Badunga on one end just came up with like a big defensive rebound. He is exhausted. He's not used to playing this many minutes consecutively without Hunter, right? There's a difference between, yeah, he's in great shape, but there's always that difference between great shape and game shape. And he's playing more than maybe he's used to. And you can see,

Starting point is 00:16:26 he's like running around trying to set screens. He's exhausted. So the, the under four timeout comes out at perfect time after that possession. And then he's probably exhausted through the finish, but he keeps battling. He's into the very end on that last defensive possession. I love Floyd,

Starting point is 00:16:43 but doing a man, he's so fun to watch the motor doesn't like he's exhausted but he's still going 100 as much as he can and uh uh really cool stuff there okay this one is the uh the fnbo i'm going to piss everyone off early but in the long run be helpful award okay if you were unaware on tuesday morning kansas announced that FNBO, which is like First National Bank something, is going to be like sponsoring and they have like a logo on Allen Fieldhouse now. Some people have been out, whatever, if it gives more money and allows them to bring in more players, great. Other people, it looks horrible.

Starting point is 00:17:18 Why does it have to be green on the court? Can't it be blue? Or just like, why are you disgr know disgracing the uh holy allen field house and everything like that um so the reason i put this here it's pissing a lot of people off early but i do think in the long run if it comes out that like fnbo is paying kansas you know whatever i don't know how much you pay for uh court name i have no idea 10 million dollars right let's say that's what it is 10 million dollars a year and that means you're gonna land a darren peterson type every year like a top five recruit in the country every year because of this i think a lot of kansas fans would be like in the long term okay i didn't like you the first

Starting point is 00:17:54 but in the long term sign me up for that right so that this award goes to rylan griffin and the reason why is because i mentioned that sequence in the first half. And Rylan Griffin did not have a particularly good first half. He had zero points in nine minutes. He was 0 for 2 shooting. He was minus 10. So you look at it, he was minus 10. David Coit was minus 12 in the first half. But then the second half, the long run, Rylan Griffin, eight points.

Starting point is 00:18:24 He scores all of them over the final six minutes of the game. He ends up plus one in eight minutes of play, and he hits those two free throws at the end, including a key three at the end of the game. So stuck with him to the very end, and it was very helpful in the long run for KU. What about the plus minus king? Who do you think that would be in this game? Well, it wasn't Hunter Dickinson. He was minus two.

Starting point is 00:18:44 DeJuan Harris was great. He was only a plus four. David Coit was the lowest here at minus 16. KJ Adams had himself a great game, which we're about to get into a little bit more here coming up, but he was plus 14. The answer is Zeke Mayo. Zeke Mayo was a plus 18 and plus minus.

Starting point is 00:19:02 He was four for 11. It wasn't his best shooting game. He did hit two threes, but he had four assists 11 it wasn't his best shooting game he did hit two threes but he had four assists he had two rebounds he had a steal he just has been factoring in in a lot of different ways and uh he can hit some tough shots for you so the efficiency you know hasn't fully been there um especially you know four of 11 but if you go back to like last year i'm not even sure like i don't know what player can even get some of the shots off he's getting like another player in his shoes from last year's team might

Starting point is 00:19:31 go two of 11 so to go four of 11 like it is a tangible difference from what you were getting last year so uh i think that's why he was the plus minus king he just adds so much spacing on the court and dynamism uh in a very real way offensive mensive MVP, though, is going to go to DeJuan Harris. He led you in scoring with 14 points. He did so efficiently. He was 6 of 10. He hit a 3. He was 1 for 1 at the free throw line.

Starting point is 00:19:52 But also he led you with 9 assists, and he did it compared to just 2 turnovers. He controlled this game. He was able to constantly get paint touches, dribble under the hoop you know draw the defense in um no wind to kick no who to pass it to like dewan harris controlled this game and i think really on both ends of the court because he provided a lot of really good ball pressure at the other ends too and uh you look at um caleb foster like he didn't have like a big game uh

Starting point is 00:20:21 zion james hit a couple threes those were just like ku it almost felt like was just kind of leaving him open and being like we're just going to kind of see what happens so i thought dewan harris deserved offensive mvp in this one what about defensive mvp like i said i think honorable mention you could give to one harris he had those three steals he was great applying ball pressure i think uh i would also honorable mention florid badunga he helped in at the end there. He had a block and a steal. He had six defensive rebounds. I thought he was really good for you having to fill in for Hunter Dickinson. Honestly, honorable mention for Hunter Dickinson here because this was not a good Hunter Dickinson offensive game. He had 11 points. He was four for 11 from the floor. He was missing bunnies at the rim. He missed the dunk. I feel like Hunter's missed like three or four dunks already this season. It was not a good 100 against an offensive game. And obviously, it's harder against Duke because they have another 7-2 center and more size that is coming at you to double that it's going to be a little bit more difficult.

Starting point is 00:21:18 But he was missing shots that we normally see him miss. I thought this was one of the better, until he got ejected, I thought this was one of the better defensive games I've ever seen Hunter Dickinson play at KU. He had two steals. I thought he was doing, I thought a big reason why Cooper Flagg, you know, had basically nothing going on for him until Hunter went out was that not only that KJ was defending him, but also that the help defensive having Hunter and his size and strength against Cooper Flagg, who is a little bit of a thinner guy, I think helped deter some of that stuff. And so I thought Hunter actually had a good defensive game. But our defensive MVP is KJ Adams. I mean, KJ had the matchup of Cooper Flagg. And again, Cooper Flagg goes five of nine.

Starting point is 00:22:02 He has 13 points, but he had four turnovers he was basically a non-factor until the really end of the game and i think there's something to the idea of like cooper flag is this ultimate athlete he's he's you know so good with the ball in his hand for a guy that size and he's got incredible length and everything he's not like i said the the strongest thickest guy in the world like by the time he gets to the nba in year three year four like sure that stuff will be figured out i'm sure for him but right now kj adams i think certainly kj's strength his stoutness so to speak bothered cooper flag early and i think it took a while for cooper flag to adjust to that to later in the game and then it also didn't help for him that that hunter

Starting point is 00:22:45 dickinson was giving you extra strength and size when he was in as well um and so i think it took him some time to adjust to that and if it hadn't taken him as much time to adjust to that then uh maybe duke doesn't you know get behind early in the game and then maybe it's a different game till the very end also kj hit some of those you know tough jumpers and everything but three blocks and three steals for KJ Adams. It just felt like he was playing like, I'm just going to take the ball away from you in any way I can. He was unbelievable on the defensive end of the court

Starting point is 00:23:14 and good for KJ to perform that way. All right, what's next for KU basketball? We'll talk about it next. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And on Thursday's episode, we're going to have a KU Furman preview. So that'll be early in the week to get you ready for Saturday's game. Friday, we'll have our KU Baylor preview.

Starting point is 00:23:38 And then over the weekend, we will recap all the action that we're going to see unfold for you. So what is next for everything? Well, for KU men's basketball, Saturday they're going to be taking on Furman, and that will be in Allen Fieldhouse. It's going to be, I believe, a 5 o'clock tip-off for that one with Furman. They waited to announce the game time

Starting point is 00:23:56 because I think they're waiting to see in football. Yeah, it's going to be 5 o'clock in Allen Fieldhouse. And Furman, you know, that's a team that, what, won a tournament game a couple years ago. They're ranked 121st on Ken Palm right now. They're 6-0. So that is one of those kind of like trap-ish games where they're like a good mid-major team that very easily could make the NCAA tournament. You're riding high off the Duke game. You're coming off Thanksgiving. And all of a sudden, it's a six six point game at the under eight

Starting point is 00:24:26 timeout or the under four timeout like that would not be uh the most shocking thing in the world so uh still got to take care of business in that one um but like I said we'll preview that one on uh Thursday and then after that it's a tough two-game road trip with some power conference opponents Creighton and Missouri now neither team is like Creighton has kind of fallen off in a real way uh they just lost big to San Diego State, but they still got some key players. And Ryan Kalkbrenner has been unbelievable to start at the center position. So that's going to be a really fun matchup. Obviously, playing on the road, they're going to be tough.

Starting point is 00:24:54 Although I'll be interested to see how many KU fans make the travel up because it's only what, like three hour drive up to Omaha. And then you have the at Missouri game, which that's, you know, just a different level of kind of hatred coming at you and road environment. So even though neither of those teams is, is seen as like a top 30 team in the country right now, they're both going to be tough environments against teams that, you know,

Starting point is 00:25:15 if you don't play your best can, can certainly a snipe you and Furman's going to be an interesting one too. So stick around for all our content previewing or talking about all of those games. In addition to KU football later this week against the Baylor Bears. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. See you next time

Starting point is 00:25:35 with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Defeat Duke Behind KJ Adams & Dajuan Harris Despite Hunter Dickinson Ejection

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