Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Demolish Furman with Strong 2nd Half: Is KJ Adams KU's Most Valuable Player?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, Kansas demolishes Furman with a second half that was beautiful. KJ scores 22 points. Let's have the conversation. Who's the best player on this KU basketball team? You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. Johnson, you can find me on Twitter at DJhonsonRadio, at Derek Johnson on Blue Sky. And thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:37 We're free and available anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We got our KU football Baylor recap as well. Check that out. And on this edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we are breaking down KU Furman with a great second half for KU basketball. A little conversation because I think there's a real conversation right now to be had.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Who actually is KU basketball's best player? We're going to get into that. We're going to get into our game awards and plenty more on today's edition of the show, which is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. You can start, which is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. You can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a $5 bet and you'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. Just visit FanDuel.com to get started today. Kansas 86, Furman 51, Jayhawks win by 35 this was a game that uh coming in like Ken Baum for instance

Starting point is 00:01:27 had it as an 18 point game which I always find it funny that I didn't mean to make a quick diatribe on this that like beating a team by 18 and beating them by 35 is going to give you more value in some of the metric sites than beating say Duke who you were projected to lose by two or three or something beating them by three which is dumb to me but anyway um Kansas just demolished Furman in the second half the first half Kansas goes up 11 so you know you're kind of on pace with what you would expect in this game second half was just everything clicking for KU Furman could not make their open looks but also KU did a really good job defensively and Kansas outscored them 47 to 23 in a second half on slot 86 to 51 the final score just domination by KU all the way through in a game that you ended up not having to sweat uh the first half was kind of about a uh clash of styles I would say like Kansas didn't make a

Starting point is 00:02:22 three in the first half Furman's making uh six or seven threes in the first half, and Kansas is dominating on the inside. And then the second half, it was just everything was working for Kansas, and that's what you end up seeing. And you're just firing on all cylinders. But KJ Adams scores 22 points in this game. He goes 10 of 12 from the floor. He had six rebounds, which is a high number for KJ. Three assists as well. I'll say this. If KJ Adams is rebounding like that, if he's giving you five, six rebounds a game, I think you can make a real argument that KJ is the best player on this KU team. Now, I know some people continued to dislike the playing kind of two bigs together and everything like that. I would point to the idea that actually there's a lot more teams

Starting point is 00:03:05 that are good that are playing this way than you might think. But also, like, okay, you see the one graphic before the game starts if you're watching on ESPN Plus. And Bill Self talked about, you know, going back and watching the film in that Duke game, I didn't even realize, like, how good KJ was because he was covering up for, like, everybody's defensive mistakes. He knew where to where to be he knew to cover it up and sometimes you don't know that stuff as a fan watching the game so if KJ is rebounding like this and scoring like this it's hard not to say that because you look at Hunter Dickinson 10.6 rebounds okay game for him he missed uh I don't

Starting point is 00:03:38 know maybe a shot or two at the rim that he normally would make you know um you also look at it at the defensive end of the court like clearly kj has a ton of value for the team on the defensive end of the court all six of the threes made in the first half for firman were with hunter dickinson on the floor they hit four threes they subbed him out they put in flory for like uh five minutes they didn't hit a three they subbed hunter back in they hit two more threes eventually they subbed them out around the three minute mark and then flory ends up coming back in they don't give them up their three up at the end of the first half so like and it's not that all of them were hunters guy it's just that when hunters out there's a slower big man you have to play differently and account for certain things

Starting point is 00:04:15 and you're gonna end up leaving more guys open for three and that's not to me to say that like hunters hunters still a positive player he's an unbelievable offensive player for this team uh he's a really good outlet passer. He's a great defensive rebounder. Obviously, you want Hunter Dickinson on your team. He's an All-American level big man. But if you're talking about impact on the game, you can make an argument that these last couple of games,

Starting point is 00:04:38 one against an opponent you were expected to beat big. The other one, though, in the Duke game, and obviously it helped that Hunter was ejected, KJ was all about defense in the Duke game. KJ was doing everything in this game and you know Zeke Mayo still hasn't seen the shooting come around just yet like AJ Storr only four points one of four still need to get him figured out in a game like this you can make a real argument right now that KJ Adams is is playing the best basketball for Kansas and and I don't know how far back you want to talk about that if you want to say full season if you want to say over this past week, if you want to say, you know, recently,

Starting point is 00:05:07 whenever it is, you can make a real argument that that is the case. Now, honestly, you can make that argument for DeJuan Harris, too, who had a near double-double in the Duke game. He had eight points, eight assists to one turnover in this one. He was good on the defensive end of the court as well. Like, I would hear arguments for both players as KU's best. Now, at the end of the day, in the award voting, would it go to one of those guys or would Hunter Dickinson have the best chance of being on the highest team? Probably him because he's going to have the counting sets and both the guards. But again, if you're talking just pure value to the team, at least right now, this could change. AJ Storr in February could be averaging 15 points per game. I would argue that either KJ or DeJuan

Starting point is 00:05:40 has been Kansas' most valuable player to this point in time. And I think this was another indication of that from what KJ did in just doing a little bit of everything for KU. Other notes in this one, you know, there was the news earlier this week that I kind of missed, but Shaquille Moore, I guess, is going to be out indefinitely. And that's something where, you know, it kind of means David Coit has both an opportunity and needs to take advantage of the minutes uh if she kill more than now how long is indefinitely indefinitely like that's that's what makes it difficult is it going to be a month is it going to be the rest of the season like i don't know we should kill more right it's going to be two weeks you don't know

Starting point is 00:06:19 um but for david coit that both means he has an opportunity that if he can play well in the time that she kill more is gone he can solidify well in the time that Gilmore is gone, he can solidify himself in the rotation, and it also means that Kansas, with one less possible player, needs David Coit to play good minutes, and I thought that was an important part of this game too. David Coit scores nine points, four of six on the floor, had five rebounds, which is always nice from a little guy,

Starting point is 00:06:40 two assists, he had no turnovers in 22 minutes, he was a plus 22. You look at a plus minus, DeJuan Harris was a plus 22 you look at plus minus dewan harris was a plus 27 best on the team kj was second at plus 25 and then rylan griffin and david coit were next on the team at plus 22 each so coit was really good in this game and that's going to be important to see if he can continue to stack those together uh with shaquille moore out indefinitely i also uh liked what we saw from rakeese Passmore in this one. It's eight minutes, which, you know, it's not a ton, five points. He hit the three. I thought he was active when he

Starting point is 00:07:11 was out there. It was plus 16 and plus minus. But again, like same goes for him. You know, if you're talking about KU playing a nine-man rotation, if Shaquille Moore is out, that ninth man becomes Rakeese Passmore. So you have aj dewan z kj uh rylan david coy uh flory those are your your eight in the eight man rotation in no particular order your ninth would be rickies pass more again with she kill more out and definitely and not every game bill self's going to play a nine man rotation especially when we get to the bigger games and big 12 play and everything but in the games he does right now that spot is occupied by rickies pass passport i think he's going to have an even bigger role potentially on next year's team should everything go well this year so i like what we saw in uh those specific minutes but bottom line here

Starting point is 00:07:54 this was to me a really impressive win because i i do think firman is a very solid team right it's it's not as impressive as a win as the duke game it's not um obviously like it's you know it's not beating north carolina but like you know firman's just outside the top 100 on ken palm um that's a team and you know you look at the southern conference which has typically been a good conference east tennessee state firman like samford wofford unc greensboro like these are teams mercer that have made some noise in the NCAA tournament or have been 13-seeds. Typically, it is a league that is putting their conference champion in as a 12, 13, 14-seed, right? And Furman has as good of a chance as any of them to win the league.

Starting point is 00:08:36 In fact, they're projected to be tied first if you look at Ken Palm in terms of their conference standings. So there's a chance Furman's an NCAA tournament team at the end of the day that ends up getting a 12-5 matchup 13-4 where people are picking them to win a game so to beat a team like that by 35 I think is very impressive right and I think it's also impressive from a standpoint of this could have easily been a letdown game for KU you're coming off that big Duke win you're coming off a trip to Vegas and I don't know how much the guys got to go out and everything like that but still right um you're coming off a trip to vegas and i don't know how much the guys got to go out and everything like that but still right um you're coming off a apparently there were some plane troubles or something like from vegas um thanksgiving break just happened like it would be very easy to have kind of a look ahead game not play your best you slug through it and you end up

Starting point is 00:09:20 having to you know you're up four at the under eight timeout and you have to hit a 11 to two run in the final eight minutes at one point to kind of pull away. Like that could have very easily happened, but it didn't. Kansas just dominated the game. And so while we go back to and we look at, say, the Duke game, we look at the North Carolina game, we look at the Michigan State game. I guess Michigan State beat Duke in Maui, right? So I guess Michigan State becomes a more impressive win than Carolina. But anyway, you look at those wins and those represent the ceiling for Kansas, right? If Duke is one of the best teams in the country, which I think they are, you beat them on a neutral court.

Starting point is 00:09:53 Kansas is undefeated. They have all these good wins. Kansas is also, ergo, one of the best teams in the country, right? That represents what your ceiling can be, that you can beat any of those teams. What represents your floor in a given season is how you do consistently against the lesser opponents. And I think this is the big thing from this year to last year, right? You look at last year, Kansas ceiling, they could when they were healthy, right?

Starting point is 00:10:16 When they were healthy, they blew out Houston. When they were healthy, they grabbed a lot of these big wins. You beat Tennessee in the Maui Invitational and ended up making the Elite Eight, right? Like you had some of these big wins over the course of the season when you were healthy now when you weren't healthy different conversation but that represented the ceiling of last year's team unfortunately the floor you saw games where they were closer than you would expect to be against uh like eastern illinois for instance or you know losing a lot more big 12 games to the

Starting point is 00:10:40 middle pack or the lower half of the conference than you might expect like losing to west virginia that was last year's team floor so far this year's team in these games they've been blowing them out and like even the games where okay against uh I don't know Oakland where you won by 21 like that's a game you're up by like 30 UNC Wilmington like you win by 18 you're up by what like mid-20s before you kind of put the walk-ons in you've consistently shown that your floor is to beat these teams consistently and that's an important skill to have for one of the best teams in the country as well, because you got to have the high ceiling and the high floor. Otherwise, if you just have one or the other, you know, you're in kind of a different category

Starting point is 00:11:13 from one of the elite of the elites in the country. And so far, Kansas continues to pass each and every test. All right, let's get to our game awards next. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode of the show today is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. This is Locked on Jayhawks. to place live bets on the NFL all in one place. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view live play-by-play, and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. Just visit Fanduel.com to join today.

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Starting point is 00:12:10 Make your second listen, the KU football Baylor recap, and make a third listen, Locked On college basketball, Locked On college football, whatever you like. Make the other one your fourth listen every day here on Locked On. Okay, our game trophies for the game. Let's start with our best moment. Honestly, like the opening tip was really game. Let's start with our best moment. Honestly, like the opening tip was really fun. KU wins the opening tip.

Starting point is 00:12:30 DeJuan Harris goes to Zeke Mayo, drives on the left side, underhand dish after getting the defender to jump into him on the layup attempt, gives it to Hunter, dunks it. And that was cool too, because it was Hunter's first playback after having the ejection. So I'm sure it was cool for him to get back in the swing things.

Starting point is 00:12:42 I thought that was fun. The end of the first half play was nice. I think DeJuan was the one who missed the layup. Flory gets the offensive rebound. And we've seen Flory mostly get either layups or dunks at the rim. This was one of the few hook shots we've seen him both attempt and make. And so that was cool to see a little bit of touch from the big guy as well. I thought the KJ Adams lob dunk that ended up tying his career high for points.

Starting point is 00:13:04 That was a really cool play too for KU. That'll, I guess, be a candidate for dunk of the KJ Adams lob dunk that ended up tying his career high for points that was a really cool play too for uh KU that'll I guess be a candidate for dunk of the game we're gonna go with a different one though um we'll keep that one out of this but then uh also I I like this one too and this also I guess candidate for dunk of the game DeJuan Harris had that one steal where he just ripped him kind of in the middle of the lane and then he he dribbles up and he throws kind of like a I don't know a side lob so to speak to rickies pass more who throws down an alley-oop dunk and that was really cool now as far as the dunk of the game though it's not the keys pass more it's not the kj adams lob it's not

Starting point is 00:13:34 one of these other ones the hundred whatever it's the rylan griffin spin move dunk it comes in garbage time in the game anyway but like i also i i didn't know rylan griffin could do that like i knew rylan griffin could dunk ball. He's six foot six wing. It was pretty athletic. Like, of course he could. But there's a different level of like, oh, he's going to attempt to spin and off the spin, jump up and throw down and dunk. Like that was really impressive.

Starting point is 00:13:55 And I think shows that level of athlete that Ryland Griffin really was. And I think that was certainly the dunk of the game. What is the worst moment of the game? Well, it's a little harder in a game. KU wins by 35. I guess you could say the barrage of threes that Furman hit earlier on in the game. I think that would be totally fair. I'm going to go with this one, though. When KJ Adams had, there was one dunk. This wasn't the lob dunk I'm referring to. There was a different dunk that KJ Adams had, but we didn't see it because on the broadcast, they were showing Greg Gurley.

Starting point is 00:14:30 Love Greg Gurley, but I want to watch the game. And we missed a dunk from KJ Adams because they were showing it. What's up with that? That's the worst moment of the game in this one. Okay. What about our offensive MVP? KJ Adams, 22 points, 10 of 12 from the floor, three assists, one turnover. It's hard not to pick KJ in this game. Now, again, I would hear out DeJuan Harris, you know, eight points. Had a couple like runners and floaters and stuff that were really impressive. A couple of the floaters he had, especially in the first half, were high-degree difficulty, and those were impressive.

Starting point is 00:14:59 Eight assists, one turnover. That's super impressive as well. I am going to go KJ Adams. It is crazy. In a game that Kansas won by 35, they only had three players score double digits and two of those who scored double digits were exactly at 10 you know so I guess that tells you two things like one KJ was so good scoring he had you know if you combine KU's second and third scorers with Wilder Evers who hit a three-pointer as a walk-on.

Starting point is 00:15:26 Those three guys had one more point than KJ, but it also shows how balanced the scoring was for Kansas, which was certainly impressive for KU. Yeah, I'll go with KJ here. As far as our bench impact of the game, we're going to give that award out in this one. Some good candidates. Like I said, I liked where Rakeesh Passmore did.

Starting point is 00:15:43 I liked what David Coyke did. I guess Wilder Evers hitting that three as a candidate. Floyd Badunga was really good off the bench. Eight points, six rebounds. He had three on both offense and defense, plus 17 in the game. And Rylan Griffin had those 10 points. Four rebounds as well for Rylan Griffin. And I think what's most impressive about the Rylan Griffin one

Starting point is 00:16:04 is that he he made that impact without making a three which is like the main part of his game you know he showed a lot of other stuff so i'd be tempted there but i am you actually go flory badunga 8.6 rebounds and i so okay we we go back to the first half like i said they made six threes in the first half all of them with hunter on the floor not with flory on on the court now is some of that fortune that maybe they missed some some decent looks that they made with hunter on there and there was a little bit of coincidence yeah probably a little bit but i do think there's something to the idea of ku's defense is more versatile and the center is able to get out on shots a little bit better and other players are

Starting point is 00:16:42 able to get out and be more switchable uh when hunter is out there or when floor is out there defensively now obviously you get a big offensive boost when hunter is out there as opposed to flory but uh that's why i'm going to give flory the bench player of the game in this one now i could give him the defensive mvp as well but for defensive mvp i'm gonna actually go to rylan griffin um do we give to zach clements to get him on the award stage this year blocking steel he was plus 10 in three minutes i don't know this guy uh no but rylan griffin like that's what i was saying earlier like he did a lot of things that the best part of rylan griffin the biggest reason brought him in knock down three-point shooter and you need three-point shooting and you know in the long term you need him to not go for three from three but in a game where he was

Starting point is 00:17:24 it was nice to see him go five five on twos ten points have that dunk like get four rebounds for you he had two steals and a block and i've been pretty impressed with riley griffin's defense now there have been times where yeah maybe there's been a breakdown here or there but i think activity level has actually been pretty good um you know sometimes guys get lost off the ball or this and that but like overall I'll give it to him. Like I thought DeJuan did a really good job defensively too. Um, you look at Furman and PJ Smith, who was their stud point guard had six points. He was two of 10 from the floor.

Starting point is 00:17:55 Um, and he came in averaging 19 a game. So like, I feel kind of dumb, not giving it to DeJuan, but I just want to throw a different name in there. Cause I feel like I picked DeJuan a lot this year. So realistically, maybe it's DeJuan, maybe it's Flory for the impact of the three-point defense, but I'm going to give it to Rylan Griffin here for being active on the defensive end.

Starting point is 00:18:11 With that activity on the defensive end and with the overall game and with AJ Storr struggling, do we see Bill Self go back to Rylan Griffin and have AJ Storr come off the bench again? I don't know. That'll be an interesting conversation coming into the next game. Let's talk about the next game on the other side. This is Locked on Jayhawks.

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Starting point is 00:19:13 Game time. Thank you for joining us on Locked on Jayhawks. Again, check out our KU Baylor recap as well if you want to wallow in pity a little bit. But we also talked a little bit about some off-season stuff in that one. What's next, meanwhile, for KU Baylor recap as well, if you want to wallow in pity a little bit. But we also talked a little bit about some offseason stuff in that one. What's next, meanwhile, for KU basketball? That would be on the road against the Creighton Blue Jays. And then after that, they'll be on the road against the Missouri Tigers.

Starting point is 00:19:35 And it'll be a Wednesday game at Creighton, then Sunday against Missouri. So two-game week. These are both going to be projected to be close games. I mean, both teams are top 60, top 50 ish on ken palm right now but it's tough to play on the road in college basketball and both these environments are going to be you know pretty uh coming at you and i'll be interested to see what the ku attendance is for the uh creighton game for sure but you look at creighton specifically this is a team that was expected to be really good they lost three straight games nebraska san diego state texas a&M then they just beat Notre Dame by four points which Notre Dame's looked pretty good in the early going but best player

Starting point is 00:20:10 for Creighton Ryan Kalkbrenner their big seven foot center who you know in the past couple years has been known for being like one of the best defensive centers in the country earlier this year had that like 50 point game um he was out of the Notre Dame game so what does that mean for this one against kansas did they keep him out precautionarily and they wanted to make sure he was good for when they have to play hunter digginson and whatnot uh but that'll be very interesting for that matchup and and uh certainly there's been some you know some fun battles between the two whether it's been the regular season i think like the covet year where uh that was kind of a crazy finish you think of

Starting point is 00:20:42 the second round of the NCAA tournament in 2022 when Kansas went on to win the title. And that one, Ryan Kalkbrenner didn't go either. So that would be interesting if he can't go or he can. But either way, it'll be a tough game the next two for KU because, again, playing on the road in college basketball is very hard. And KU's had to play in a couple of neutral court environments. They haven't had to play on the road yet this year,

Starting point is 00:21:02 and that's something that you have to be able to do if you want to be a successful team and have a successful season is win a good amount of these road games. That's what the best Bill Self teams have done. So good opportunity to do some of that this week against Creighton and Missouri. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can

Starting point is 00:21:20 find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. We'll be back for you early next week. Might have a takeaway episode. Might get to some of the big decisions to come for the KU football team in the offseason ahead and also a KU Creighton preview. So make sure you're subscribed and getting us anywhere you get your podcasts right here with Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Demolish Furman with Strong 2nd Half: Is KJ Adams KU's Most Valuable Player?

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