Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Recap: Kansas Jayhawks Season Ends without Bill Self in Second Round Loss to Arkansas

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Recap of the top seeded Kansas Jayhawks losing in the second round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament to the Arkansas Razorbacks in Des Moines, IA. No Bill Self for KU loomed large, as did foul trouble for KJ Adams and company. GOATs of the game from Dajuan Harris to Jalen Wilson and more.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, hello darkness, my old friend, who loses in the second round to Arkansas. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts.

You can also find us on YouTube. And on today's edition of the show, a little bit of a sad version. KU Falls, their season is officially over. They lose in the second round of the show a little bit of a sad version KU Falls their season is officially over they lose in the second round of the NCAA tournament to Arkansas by one point a game that they led by 12 in the second half a game that they looked good going into the break a game that they didn't have Bill Self and for a while it looked like they were going to be okay and that maybe Bill Self could be back next week or I guess this week now in Las Vegas in the West region, but certainly not the ending that you would have hoped for.

And it's impossible to look in the crystal ball. Certainly you would think, hey, if you lost Arkansas, you know, UConn looks pretty good. Are we just delaying the inevitable here? But no, I mean, in ncaa tournament it really is survive in advance you worry about the next thing later and you would have a full week of prep with bill self when he's done so well if he would come back for the possible yukon game but that's neither here nor there because that is not a possibility anymore um kind of eerily similar to me to the 2009 tournament run and obviously a lot of people will sprinkle in some of the 2013 too,

because of the 10 second call, which was just an unnecessary error on your own part that really gave the momentum and the chance that, that maybe it was that one extra play that one extra possession that lost you the game. So there is the similarity there. I thought it was similar to 2009 though, because so just like 2009 KU was defending champs they were trying to

win back-to-back titles and in 2009 it was in the sweet 16 but that was a game that KU was in control over Michigan State and then they kind of let it get away from Michigan State starts you know mounting the comeback and then Michigan State ends up winning that's what happened in this one KU was in control for the first 25 minutes of that game. And then Arkansas slowly works their way back. All of a sudden you got a tie game for the final five minutes or so. And then you kind of fall apart at the end. It was very similar there as you were trying to kind of defend your title. And you know what else is kind of similar there? That 2009 team, it was really like two guys, right? Like I know you had a freshman marcus and marquise morris who ended up being great players at ku but they weren't great that first year as freshmen it was mostly the sharon collins show mostly the jaylen wilson show this year and he had a lot of cole aldridge

sprinkled in doing a ton for you that season too well this team had a lot of you know it kind of depend which the second guy was game to game uh maybe you'd take Grady Dick or DeJuan Harris, whoever. So I thought there were a lot of similarities there. But as far as the game itself, the first half, you looked really good. Your defense was awesome. You held them to 27 points. You basically sagged off shooters and said, hit shots. We're going to stop you in the lane.

And they couldn't because they're not a good three-point shooting team. And it was a really good plan on the defensive end in that first half. Then in the second half, you gave up way too many offensive rebounds you could not stop them driving to the rim even without their their kind of lack of shooting they hit a couple threes but you know it wasn't a great game for them shooting it was a bad game for them shooting even for a bad three point shooting team and then um on top of it all, just late game execution, kind of going out the door. You have the mistake of the 10 second call. You have not playing guys who maybe you should have risked it with foul trouble. You also had to deal with the foul trouble. You had not going for the

three at the end. I don't know. All sorts of stuff went wrong for you in that second half to lose that game, as a lot of times things do when you lose a game like that in the NCAA tournament and I think in the end this team's flaws were probably too big to overcome like you look back over the flaws of the season there weren't enough offensive creators there were not enough guys who could get you a bucket consistently especially in those half-court tough situations and could score for you that remained a problem all year long late game execution right missing out on stuff we saw that a lot in the k-state game and a few other games um struggles against physical athletic teams you think back to the tennessee game you think back to both games that you lost against texas the one loss you had at home against tcu it's not that you lost every game against athletic and physical teams you still

beat texas you still beat Texas. You still beat TCU. But overall, the majority of your struggles came against teams that were like that. They were athletic, physical teams, right? You can even chalk K-State up in that as well with Keontae Johnson. He's physical. Marquise Noel is really athletic and quick. Tomlin is really athletic for kind of a big man. So you look down the road, that was what gave KU troubles,

and a lot of their issues came back to haunt them. The one thing that you didn't expect to come back to haunt them was the defense. The defense has been KU's calling card this year. Coming into the game, it was a top-10 defense. I think now they're ranked 11th on Ken Palm. That's kind of what's let you down in the second half. Yes, there was that lull in the middle of the second half

where you had a drought without points, but you gave up 45 points in the second half to an Arkansas offense that could not shoot from three and wasn't shooting well from three either. You could not stop them. You could not get the rebounds. The defense kind of lets you down in that game, which is unfortunate for KU. Obviously, though, no Bill Self, and that had a gigantic impact on this game. First of all, we know Bill Self's record in one-score games and one-possession games and single-digit games is remarkable. It is absolutely remarkable. So it's tough to say, hey, if you don't have Bill Self, that doesn't give you the edge in what ended up being a one-point

game. And a big reason why is all the little things he does over the course of a game. It's not just the late-game execution. It's over the course of a game where he's going to get you a big advantage in the out-of-timeout plays, in the sideline out-of-bounds plays, the baseline out-of-bounds plays. He is known as the best in college basketball at those things. So maybe you get one extra bucket out of those. Maybe you get two extra buckets,

and that is enough for you to win the game. And it's not a slight on Norm Roberts. Norm Roberts did an excellent job this season filling in for Bill Self. He went 4-0 in the regular season, 2-1 in the Big 12 tournament, goes 1-1 in the NCAA tournament, 7-2 overall, including wins over Iowa State

and West Virginia, who are tournament teams and Duke who's a tournament team right with only losses to two teams are in the sweet 16 in Texas and Arkansas he did an admirable job for Bill South but there you have to acknowledge it's like the difference of when I don't know I'm trying to think like if you put into the chiefs offense, right. You took out Patrick Holmes and you gave them Derek Carr. Like Derek Carr is probably still what a league average quarterback above league average. I don't know wherever you want to put him, right? So he's the 12th best quarterback in the NFL.

That's still pretty good, but guess what? There's still a big difference of Patrick Holmes in there. And that's the thing. Norm Roberts, hypothetically, even if you said Norm Roberts is the 25th best coach in college basketball still have to acknowledge well there's still a big drop off to number one because that's Bill Self and it's hard not to think that wouldn't have changed the game and obviously I'm not saying that Bill Self should have coached like get better get your personal health okay like that

was the right call for him to sit out the game it was i'm just saying it is unfortunate because ku probably wins that game if the and i know if if there's an arkansas fan listening to this they're probably mad because you know guess what you don't have to be mad about this it's a hypothetical scenario you won in real life go take your win be happy with it right we play based on what is in front of you and in real life you got the win you're moving on you're the team that keeps playing right but i think it's hard not to say for if you're kansas yeah it'd be different without bill self whether it was those just little things he does over the course of game or maybe drawing up a three-point play at the end of the

game instead of them going for two and then never really getting a shot to take a three to try to tie the game or whether it's adjusting in the second half because Eric Musselman did a great job adjusting at halftime and changing up what Arkansas was doing to really attack KU in the ball screen defense does Bill Self find the better adjustment on the defensive end and then on top of it all like the KJ Adams conundrum he gets in foul trouble he doesn't come back into like the seven or eight minute mark of the game. Does Bill Self have a little more confidence and say, no, look, they're going on a run. And a big reason why is because we don't have KJ Adams in there

because none of our other centers are providing any offensive threat. KJ at least is providing some. Let's put him in with 10 or 11 minutes. And those three or four extra minutes that he could have been in with a coach who's more seasoned and could have had more confidence making a risky play like that, maybe that's an extra one or two-point difference as well. Because KJ was arguably the most important player for KU in that game,

and I think it's worth noting, even after he got put in with seven or eight minutes left, he didn't end up fouling out. So he could have played an extra 15 seconds and maybe fouled out. He could have played maybe an extra five minutes and not fouled out. We don't totally know, but those are some of the little things that you think they probably would have won the game with Bill Self but again they didn't and you had what's in front of you and uh you kind of blew it you probably even without Bill Self should have won the game if not for some things that went against you Arkansas played really really well

in the second half that's a really talented team with Arkansas. We knew it was kind of a tough matchup coming in, and certainly it ended up happening. So you add it all up. March is a very fickle time of year, right? Even despite all of that stuff, they could have won this game. But March is very fickle. It is a tight line. No defending champ has made it past the first weekend since 2016.

It's tough. No defending champ has made the Elite Eight since 2007. It's very, very difficult to repeat because you need things to happen for you in addition to playing well. And there were a lot of times this season where KU wasn't playing well and showed some flaws, and then some weird stuff in March happened, and you combine it together, and this is what ended up happening a little bit too early of an exit for this team.

And certainly, I think one of the biggest differences between you know college sports and professional sports i think a lot for fans is almost the it's the emotional sad sort of attachment part whereas in the pros you lose a playoff game if you're a fan you're mad about it you're sad you're angry whatever it is but you're looking back and you're like all right this is how we're going to improve next year this guy's back this guy whatever in college everything has a finite capsule to it and that almost makes it more emotionally charged it almost makes it a little bit more meaningful each run you have because it's always with different players and these guys might mean so much to you or the program or whoever so to see jalen wil Wilson have to go out like that,

he's going to be one of the more decorated players in Bill South history. We'll talk about that later this week. It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate they didn't get to make a real run trying to defend the title with Bill Self and Jalen Wilson kind of together. Let's get to our goats of the game here with Locked on Jayhawks, but first this episode is brought to you by Built Bar. The Built March Madness brackets

are here, and we know you have a favorite bar or puff. Now's your time to make it count. Go to BuiltMarchMadness.com to vote for your favorites, and when you vote for your favorite bar or puff, you'll be entered into a drawing where 50 lucky Locked on listeners will get a free box of Built Bars. into a drawing where 50 lucky Locked On listeners

will get a free box of Bilt Bars. Not only that, but one Locked On fan will win a 12-month subscription to Bilt to have Bilt's best bars or puffs delivered monthly straight to your door. You gotta try Bilt Bar, the best protein bar ever. They are so amazing. You won't think they're good for you because they're covered in 100% real chocolate. They taste amazing, but they're high in protein, low in sugar, taste great. So run to

builtmarchmadness.com. You can vote for your favorite bar or puff. Pick up a box while you're there. You can vote every day in March. So hop in, support your pick, get it done, and win some free stuff with Built Bar. On our goats of the game, we'll Hop in, support your pick, get it done, and win some free stuff with Bill Parr. On our goats of the game, we'll get to our good first. KJ Adams, 14 points, three rebounds. Now, certainly as kind of all season long, you're left a little bit more to be desired with in terms of the defensive rebounding, KJ,

which that hurts you in this game. Arkansas had 14 of them. But KJ was so important in this game. He had to deal with foul troubles. He had 14 points. It was just so different how Arkansas defended you when he was and wasn't on the floor. When he wasn't on the floor, all Arkansas had to be worried about was, are they going to throw a lob to Ernest Uday or Zuby Ejifer?

When it was KJ, they did have to worry a little bit about him catching in the short roll and maybe popping it from there or catching it up high and driving into the defender. And a lot of times, because of how much emphasis they were putting on defending Jalen Wilson and some of the other KU players, KU's best offense was just giving it to KJ and letting him drive one-on-one because they were leaving him one-on-one and he's able to score there. He played really well. He had 14 points.

I thought he was the most important player for KU in the game game you saw when he was off the floor at the foul trouble how arkansas started to mount their comeback versus when he was on the floor they were either even or winning like every stint that he was out there um he was really good for ku and i think that was nice seeing a tournament setting just unfortunate he did have the foul trouble dewan harris i think gets a good goat call um i know that i don't know for some people that the 10 second call might be enough that you're willing to kind of you know toss it aside here but it's one mistake he made and i will say uh the turnover numbers were higher than i would have expected them to be in the tournament i think he had seven turnovers between the two games after he was in a zone for a bit heading toward the end of the regular season where it'd be like zero one turnovers per game.

And that 10 second call certainly is part of the story here. So it's not a perfect game for sure. But I kind of thought if KJ was the most important player, I thought for stretches of the game, DeJuan was your best player. Now, maybe down the last four or five minutes of the game, that wasn't as prevalent, but certainly for the first 25 minutes of the game, when you got up 12 and after the first half, he was your best player for the first 25 minutes of the game.

He finished with 12 points, five assists, four rebounds. He had two steals. He was five of nine from the floor. He was efficient. He got you in good situations. He did a really good job defensively early in the game. He kind of just X'd out Nick Smith and made him become like a bench player because Arkansas was mad with him. He was really

impressive for you, I thought. Just kind of stinks that it got spoiled a bit by that 10-second call, but I thought overall he had a very good game. Jalen Wilson gets a good go. 20 points, four rebounds. I thought it was funny because I i thought arkansas did a really good job defending him um they had the uh the well i i guess they're kind of a combo of things like they really did a good job of hedging when he would get to the the rim they would have another defender there so that he couldn't keep driving it and he kept getting cut off by the the welch kid who did a really good job defensively on him um so i thought they did really good but also at the end of the day you look at jalen's stats he had like 20 points on like was it 9 10 11 shots i mean he was super efficient um and yes he he messed up this is kind of the same thing with one like yes he messed up

the free throw at the end of the game that you needed to hit but he still overall over the course of the game he he had a good, even though he was supposed to miss that free throw and ended up making it. So, efficient, and even though they did a great job against him, he still had a very efficient game. The other thing you would have wished more for, only four rebounds. Again, you give up all those offensive rebounds. He was your one guy who typically

was getting eight or nine rebounds a game. You'll wonder if that was a big difference there. Kevin McCuller gets a good goad here. 13 points, five rebounds, two blocks. he was 5'8 from the floor, and he was hitting tough shots for you. I mean, he's... With Jalen, I think you feel bad that he didn't get a chance to defend his title and that he goes out like this, but realistically, no matter what,

if KU lost at any point in the tournament, it was going to be sad for Jalen and everything that he had done. Kevin, I almost feel the worst for that KU wasn't able to make a deeper run because Jalen and DeJuan and even though KJ wasn't you know a primary player for that team last year like they've all won a title they were on last year's team they've made that run with Kevin he hasn't really had a chance to do that he was he was on the team with Tech that went to the title game. I think he redshirted. He joined it like semester. But he hasn't played for a team that has made, I believe,

an Elite Eight or further. And for him, you wanted to see them go far so that he got kind of a taste of that. He was doing everything in his power to do so. That big three he hit on the wing, that could have been the shot of the game for KU kind of contested. He had a couple nice drives himself. I thought he played really well. Unfortunate for him to go out like that.

He certainly will be one of my all-time favorites of one-year players at KU. He would go on that short list of a really fun guy to cover, super easy guy to talk to, really fun player to watch, so good defensively. So unfortunate that his KU career ends like that. And then the last good goat, just Joe's deep three. If you're saying the most fun moment of the game for KU career ends like that. And then the last good goat, just Joe's deep three. If you're saying the most fun moment of the game for KU, I guess DeJuan's runner to put them up 12 might be up there, but it's got to be Joe's deep three from the logo, right?

That was the most fun moment for KU, but yeah, that'll do it for a good goat. So let's get to our bad goats here. I can, but first this episode of locked on Jayhawks brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. The tournament is heating up and now is the perfect time to download fanduel america's number one rated sportsbook because new customers get a no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars that's bonus bets back if your first bet doesn't win just download the fanduel sportsbook app it's

safe secure super easy to use then you can bet on everything from the money line to point scores and threes drained um you can bet on some of the tournament action at fanduel i just placed some uh futures for the different regions this morning i'll say this it's weird when whenever michigan state makes deep runs in tournaments kansas flames out early so i looked back every single final four that tom iso has made at michigan state which is like i think there's eight of them or something kansas has lost by the sweet 16 and i think of the eight six of the eight kansas lost in the first weekend kansas lost the first weekend michigan state upset their two seed i don't know you can get them and i think it was like plus 280 on fanduel plus fanduel even lets

you combine your bets for a chance of bigger payout with same game parlays. So don't miss your chance to get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000 in bonus bets. When you go to FanDuel.com slash locked on that's FanDuel.com slash locked on to learn more, make every moment more FanDuel official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, Bouts here to finish things up the free throw shooting.

Arkansas came in not good at shooting free throws this season. So the fact that they shot over 80% from the line was certainly not something that you expected and certainly could have been, I guess, the difference in the game. Like even after that game on the season, they're shooting 69.6% from the line. That is 268th in the country. In SEC-only play, they shot 66.9%, which was 13th of 14 teams in the SEC. They were on a heater from the free throw line. They shot over 80%.

That was a huge difference. But for KU, it could have been okay if you just hit your free throws. They were only 72%. And that was something that we talk about flaws that KU had this season, that they showed throughout the season, especially early in the year.

They finished this season 72% on free throws. That's 173rd in the country. So you're just about average there. You would like to be, you know, at least I guess in the top 100, but certainly hurt them there. And more than anything, it was the two missed front ends.

The two missed front ends were what killed you because it's not just the points, but it's the fact that you're getting another free throw attempt on top of it. So realistically, if you make both front ends were what killed you because it's not just the points but it's the fact that you're getting another free throw attempt on top of it um so realistically if you make both front ends then you get two more free throws you might just split the next two that's a three point swing right there um even if you make one of the front ends maybe you hit the second front end maybe it's a two point swing those are huge plays and huge momentum turns in the arkansas rebounding you gave up 14 offensive rebounds.

We've seen that at times, the issues for KU. They didn't get enough on the defensive glass in this game. Part of that was because of the center foul trouble. Part of that was because Arkansas is really athletic and physical and does well at those things. And another part of that, KU just didn't kind of crash them hard enough. And certainly the one at the end of the game where Ricky Council misses the free throw and you would have had the ball down too that completely changed the game it really did that

they got the the rebound there or the uh free throw there or what i don't know was it a one point game whatever it was um it completely changed the game and uh hurt ku certainly uh the bench gets a bad goat here joe hit that big three that i mentioned bobby had like a uh scoop on kind of a drop ball steal and then went and scored. But the bench centers did not provide near the impact that KJ did. And overall, the bench was two for seven. It was an opportunity for the bench to give you real minutes and give you real plays because of the foul trouble to both Ernest and KJ. And you didn't really get enough there.

And that ended up being, you know, when you had minutes with Zuby out there and Zach Clemens, like, it just wasn't enough, and that's when Arkansas started mounting their comeback and switching the momentum. To be clear, I did not put Grady Dick in here. He only had seven points. He only went three for eight, so, you know, not a good game for Grady, but he was also solid on the glass in a game that you didn't do great on the glass overall.

He didn't really get picked on defensively as much as, honestly, the Howard game. Maybe I'm just misremembering, but I don't think he had a good game. I don't think he had a bad game either, so I didn't put him here. But yeah, that's a bad GOATs, and the worst GOAT of them all. The season is now over. We all go into hibernation in Lawrence. But hey, the football team's pretty good, so we're going to have a lot more to talk about over the off season.

We're going to have more off season talk with KU basketball though, because I know people are going to be chopping ahead. You know, what's the roster going to look like? Who's coming back? All this stuff. We'll get to that later in the week. We'll have some Jalen Wilson stuff. Nick Schwartz is going to join us tomorrow for a little KU basketball too.

This has been Locked on Jayhawks. Have a good rest of your day. You can catch me on Rockport Stock later today. Don't forget you can get locked on whereverhawks. Have a good rest of your day. You can catch me on report stock later today. Don't forget. You can get locked on wherever you get any of your podcasts and on YouTube till next time.