Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Win Maui Invitational 3rd Place Game 69-60 Against Tennessee Volunteers

Starting point is 00:00:00 On this episode of Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas finishes strong. Third place is theirs in the Maui Invitational Tournament. They take down Tennessee 69-60. We recap the action. You are Locked on Jayhawks. Your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network. Your team every day.

Starting point is 00:00:29 Eric Johnson. You can hear me as well. Monday through Friday from three to 6 PM on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are 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. This is basically going to be our Thanksgiving episode. It's coming out Wednesday. You can listen to us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. This is basically going to be our Thanksgiving episode.

Starting point is 00:00:46 It's coming out Wednesday. You can listen to it on Thursday. We won't have an official Thanksgiving one. We'll be back at it Friday for KU Cincinnati preview. But happy Thanksgiving to everyone. KU finishes strong third place in the Maui Invitational with a bounce back win over seventh ranked Tennessee and a nine point win 69 to 60. The final score for the Jayhawks over the Volunteers. So we're going to get into the recap of this game.

Starting point is 00:01:08 We're going to get into the recap of overall takeaways from the Maui Invitational, and we're also going to finish up with what's next for KU basketball from here. It was a game that was tied at halftime, 35-35, one that you get down a little bit early. There was two fouls for Tennessee through the first 12 minutes after they were in a foul fest yesterday. Bill Self gets the technical foul. You're down 24-17, but that was one of those technical fouls where it was, you know, we're going to use this as motivation for the team because, you know, they were kind of lethargic a little bit there after getting to the 17-point mark and unhappy with the refs to send a message

Starting point is 00:01:43 there. Well, the message worked. They ended up finishing strong in the half and then had a good second half where the defense was pretty stellar. I mean, think about that. You hold them to 25 points in the second half and you did a good job of feeding the post really in the final, I don't know, 25, 30 minutes of game time, something like that. You did a good job passing the ball. You had some bench production for really the first time in a big game,

Starting point is 00:02:05 and the two-point offense continued to roll for KU. So, you know, big picture, now that you finish third place here in the Maui Invitational, you feel a lot better getting this win after the Marquette thing. That's the one positive about playing back-to-back days is that, you know, it's worse if you lose the game. And then it's like, okay, this keeps going. But you get that taste quickly out of your mouth against Marquette.

Starting point is 00:02:29 And I think the way they looked in this game, you know, it makes you feel a lot better about the game the night before because it's like, okay, maybe Marquette's just really good. And going back to that, it's just, it was a stylistic matchup problem for KU. They didn't play well. There are a lot of factors as to why what happened on a Tuesday night happened. And to get back with this one against a good Tennessee team that, you know, you look at some metric sites, top 10. play well. There are a lot of factors as to why what happened on a Tuesday night happened. And to get back with this one against a good Tennessee team that, you know, you look at some metric sites,

Starting point is 00:02:49 top 10, you look at AP poll, their top 10 to get that win by nine points where you didn't really have to sweat it out the last couple of minutes, other than, are you just going to make your free throws? And they know, are they going to bomb you from three from deep was a good sign to have. So a good defensive game, a good interior game, and one that last year you lost big in the battle for Atlantis to Tennessee. You got out-toughed, out-physicaled in the game. You had some weird things happen, like DeJuan Harris fouling out. You didn't play a good game. Honestly, last year's game at Tennessee, or not at Tennessee,

Starting point is 00:03:16 but against Tennessee in Atlantis was kind of similar to KU's Marquette game. And KU ended up being a one seed last year, so they were just fine. It's just funny how things get reversed. Now that you finish on a win, you feel a lot better headed into next week or headed into Thanksgiving than you would have if it would have been, you know, the last game of the tournament

Starting point is 00:03:36 like it was last season. But after the Marquette game, where it did feel like you got kind of, you had trouble dealing with the physicality of their game and of their defense. Marquette was so fast and got to the ball quickly. And the way Marquette plays defense, it's going to test your physical skill. It's going to test your speed. It's going to test your mental skill and your mental toughness with how fast they are in getting to the ball. Tennessee is very similar in a lot of ways. They're going to test your mental and physical

Starting point is 00:04:03 toughness on your offensive side of the ball when they're on defense. But whereas Marquette's more of like a speed defense, I would describe Tennessee more as a physical defense. But it's a similar type of challenge, and KU responded to it, I think, a lot better today against Marquette, which you like to see because early in the season, as much as you're trying to get these big wins, and this will be a nice resume win for them, and now you've got two wins over the teams who are expected to be at the top of the SEC like these are going to be nice

Starting point is 00:04:28 quad one wins these are going to be nice resume building wins you're looking for growth each and every game as the season goes on and I think this game you saw the most growth you've seen in any game like sure we can point to the early season games against Manhattan and NC Central and be like oh Marco Jackson had like nine points ten 10 assists in one of those games. Like that was good to see. But against real competition, this was the first time you saw some life from the bench, I would say, right? Again, your three kind of real games against Kentucky, Tennessee now and Marquette. This was the first time you kind of saw that. This was the first time some of those freshmen maybe started to break out of their shell a little bit. This was good to see for KU. And when you look at the

Starting point is 00:05:04 over math of Maui, two and1, obviously, like I said, feels good to finish on a high note. Feels good to finish with some bench production. Feels good to see Jamari McDowell play like that to make you think, okay, maybe he's starting to get a hold on one of those rotation spots that you're looking for somebody to get to. Feels good to see Johnny Furphy make a three. There are some things you like to see in this game.

Starting point is 00:05:25 Marco Jackson had that nice pass to Hunter Dickinson in the second half. Overall, Kevin, I think, was KU's most consistent Maui performer all along. He did have turnover issues, but outside of that, I thought he defended Dalton Connect pretty well, made him really work for his points. He was KU's most consistent scorer when you go back to the Marquette game, scoring 24, scored in this one, was a good rebounder. Hunter Dickinson was KU's most consistent scorer when you go back to the Marquette game, scoring 24, scored in this one, was a good rebounder. Hunter

Starting point is 00:05:47 Dickinson was probably the other most consistent performer. You needed him to kind of dominate the Maui in the Marquette game, and he only had 13 points, but still, if you're down game, I guess, so to speak, is having 13 because the defense is really good, and they're making it tough. You're getting three passes in. You're one of the more consistent guys. Those two were

Starting point is 00:06:03 kind of the pillars for you all throughout of Maui. You still have questions about how are you going to defend teams that can space you out? How are you going to defend teams who have stretch fives or mobile versatile fives? How are you going to defend teams that shoot a lot of threes? How are you going to figure out your bench? How are you going to figure out your rotation?

Starting point is 00:06:21 How are you going to figure out your fifth starter? Those questions still are there, but I think a lot of those at least make you feel better in this last game specifically because Tennessee did shoot a lot of threes, right? Viscovi really got hot in the first half and hit a bunch of threes for them. You felt like El Marco Jackson at least had some good moments. You felt like Jamari McDowell and Johnny Furphy gave you some good moments there. Timberlake ended up getting hurt, but he hit that one reverse layup, which was nice to see kind of a flash from him.

Starting point is 00:06:46 So you feel like you at least, you know, you didn't fully answer anything. It's not certainties that everything's fixed now for KU, but you saw the positives in areas you were wanting to see positives in that final game, even though for the overall, you know, you're still looking to kind of have that. And overall, there's no shame in going two and one here. With as low as a field this is, two and one is not bad at all. Right. And obviously, as I said in yesterday's show or this morning's whatever, if you go one and two with Kansas specific past,

Starting point is 00:07:14 like, like it would have been one thing if you're one and two, like Tennessee's one and two, where you beat Syracuse, it's like, okay, beat Syracuse lost to two top five teams. Like, you know, it is what it is. If you're Purdue, if Purdue hypothetically, obviously it can't happen, but if Purdue went one and two with the one win being Gonzaga, it's like, okay, well, we still came away with the top 15 win. One and two for Kansas with their one win being Chaminade would have looked a lot worse than one and twos for anyone else, right? UCLA or Gonzaga, one of those is going to be one and two, right? But one of them is going to be able to walk away with, well, I guess maybe

Starting point is 00:07:45 not UCLA because there's a Chaminade too, but Gonzaga hypothetically, right? You get the Syracuse win. So, you know, there's no shame now in going two and one. You pick up a top 10 win. You have a top 10 loss out of this and who knows, maybe Marquette ends up beating Purdue and we just start thinking of Marquette as the best team in the country. But either way, I think you feel a lot better based on how this one finished with KU's win over Tennessee. Let's get to our good goats of the game, our bad goats of the game, and all of Maui. We're going to hand out some award medals for the best things and the worst things that happened over the three games for the Maui Invitational in Honolulu for KU basketball. We are going to be back on Friday for another edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Thank you to every dayers tuning in to all the episodes for KU Cincinnati previews.

Starting point is 00:08:28 Make sure to catch up on that before their game on Saturday night. So KU wins 69-60, our good and bad goats of the game. This is crazy. I don't know if you can see this. If you're watching on YouTube, we have a stat page up from the game. And KU did not hit a field goal the last 420. Now, the last two minutes of the game, you're only shooting free throws. So you're not really shooting field goals that would hurt

Starting point is 00:08:48 that, but KU still won the game by nine. And again, you held Tennessee to 25 points. So I do want to start there. Good goat, I think is the defense. You held Tennessee to 22 of 71 from the floor, 31%. They were just 27% from three point range, 9 of 33, and that makes them just 13 of 38 on two-point shots. So that means they were just above 33%, about 34% on two-point shots. Your two-point dominance continues to carry over. That's another good goat here. Two-point dominance both ends. Defensively, you did a good job with it.

Starting point is 00:09:20 You had three blocks in the game, but you affected a lot of shots inside against a strong physical team who, if you're weak inside, will take advantage of that. And KU was strong on their offensive end inside, too. They shot a good percentage on two-point shots. They were 23 of 40 on two-point shots in this game. That'll get it done. They had a big points in the paint edge here in this one, 40 to 26. They got back to what they are, and that's their identity,

Starting point is 00:09:45 being a really good two-point team on both ends of the floor. To that notion, Hunter Dickinson gets a good go here. 17 points on 7 of 13 from the floor. He had 20 rebounds. His second 20-plus rebound game at Kansas already pretty incredible for him. Two assists as well. He showed the mid-range jump shot. He showed a three-point jump shot.

Starting point is 00:10:04 He showed the hook shot. He showed being mid-range jump shot. He showed a three-point jump shot. He showed the hook shot. He showed being able to bury guys in the post. He showed being able to get the angle. Really impressive performance by Hunter Dickinson. Kevin McCuller, minus the turnovers, gets a good goat here. 14 points. Had to grind his way a little bit to the scoring. Tennessee's got a good defense. He had six rebounds, too. He had three three assists, continues to fill it up all over. Too many turnovers, seven turnovers in this game. But outside of that, Kevin was really good. I thought he had to exert a lot of energy on the defensive end. They actually had KJ Adams on Dalton Connect for a lot of the game,

Starting point is 00:10:37 but there were a lot of times that Kevin guarded him too, or he got switched on to him, right? And, you know, Connect ended up with 13 points, but he went four of 17. He came in shooting or averaging 18 and a half points per game. So again, not all of that Kevin, other guys for switching, KJ on him a lot, but Kevin McCullough, I thought played a really good game. He deserves a good go. Hey, KJ Adams, he deserves a good go too. Like I said, he was on Dalton Connect a good amount of time too, and Connect really struggled their best offensive player. Adams also had 13 points on six of nine from the floor. He had four rebounds

Starting point is 00:11:05 and two assists in 33 minutes of action. Now, elephant in the room is the free throw shooting, just one of six on free throws for KJ. He's kind of struggled early in the year on free throws, but I would imagine, you know, free throws sometimes can be a mental thing. It's not like he's been missing these bad. They're just like going two inches long and hitting the back part of the rim and bouncing out, you know? And I wonder if, you know, for KJ, obviously he's dealing with a lot of stuff off the court right now. I wonder if the free throw shooting being more of a mental thing, like maybe something more with a clear mind, you start to hit them. And let's not forget last year, KJ through the first, I don't remember what the percentage was, but it was like around this point,

Starting point is 00:11:42 it was after the battle for Atlantis, his free throw shooting was like, it was in like the 30% or something like that. He ended up finishing the rest of the season being like a 60, 70% free throw shooter. I'd expect him to get that fixed and be okay. So KJ was, was really good overall for the game. Just outside of that free throw shooting, which again, I expect to get kind of fixed some bench contributions and production, get a good go here. So if I'm singling out players, Jamari McDowell, he went two of seven from the floor, so that doesn't look anything incredible, but seven points, two of six from three. He showed a confidence to shoot the ball. You need that from your bench guys. He also had four rebounds and assist. I thought he played good

Starting point is 00:12:17 defense. He got 27 minutes in the game. That was really good to see from Jamari McDowell, who it really looks like he's starting to earn that trust from Bill Self. And I think Johnny Furphy played some good minutes off the bench too. 11 minutes off the bench, five points. He hit a three for you. It wasn't the most perfect thing, but you're just looking for any sort of production off the bench. It was good to see Nick Timberlake kind of hit that reverse layup and transition.

Starting point is 00:12:38 Parker Brown had a block, a couple rebounds in nine minutes. So KU got some good bench production in this game. You're not asking the bench to be the best bench in the country. You're just asking for one or two guys to play well for you off the bench each game. You're just asking for solid bench production. That's all you need. And look what happens because they got just a little bit of it today. Again, like, you know, you get what, 16 points from the bench from Furphy, McDowell, Brown,

Starting point is 00:13:02 and Timberlake. Like that's not a huge number. Tennessee had 14. So like you beat them by two. If KU's bench outscores the other bench, you're going to feel great about winning that game, if they even are even with them. If they're even outscored by two or four in a game on the bench against some of the better teams, I think you're going to feel good about that.

Starting point is 00:13:19 Passing minus the turnovers gets a good bench or a good goat here. KU continues to be a big assist team. They are having too many turnovers. We'll get into that here. And then, as I mentioned, the defense gets a good bench or a good goat here. KU continues to be a big assist team. Now they are having too many turnovers. We'll get into that here. And then as I mentioned, the defense gets a good goat. As far as the bad goats here, the turnovers. KU, too many of them in this game once more. 15 turnovers.

Starting point is 00:13:35 I mentioned with Kevin, 13 turnovers over the last two. They need to get that cleaned up. They're having too many right now from some of the key players. DeJuan even had three in this game, though he did have eight assists. The free throw shooting gets a bad goat here, 11 of 22. You really could have buried him in this game and then not even stuck around if you would have been even 14 of 22 or you're 16 of 22 or something like that. And that was something that kind of carried over from the game before. They got to get that figured out. And like I said, in the case of

Starting point is 00:14:03 KJ, I think that will happen and that'll obviously be a big help because he will shoot a lot of free throws with his physical play. Now, as far as all of the Maui Invitational, I have the best things. I have the worst things that happened here. So let's start with the good. The best things, I'm going to give medals here. The bronze medal goes to bench contributors in the final game. That was nice to see because the biggest questions we've had in some of the big games, are you going to have enough bench contributors? And this is really not just the bench. It's the fifth starter plus the bench.

Starting point is 00:14:31 How are you going to figure out your rotation? Are you going to get one or two guys that can at least do well for you off the bench or in that other role for you? And you saw some of that in this game. And so when you look at this bench, a lot of it is made up of freshmen. Jamari McDowell, Johnny Furphy, prime candidates to where you're hoping they're going to get more comfortable as the non-conference, as the season's going to go on here for KU. So for them to finish out the tournament making some big contributions in a win over a top 10 team makes you feel like you're at least headed in the right direction, headed into the rest of the non-conference. Silver medal here goes to two-point offense. Pass passing and the star power of top guys continuing to shine all of those things

Starting point is 00:15:11 were strengths coming into this tournament all of those things i think left this tournament in that case yes you would have liked to see hunter digginson and dewan harris have better games against marquette um yes you would have liked to see less turnovers from kevin mcculler yes kj adams didn't have his best game against Marquette. But overall, those guys shined for the most part over the course of this tournament. The averages were good for all four of those guys. The passing, the assist numbers were good in those games. The two-point shooting, KU over the three games, was 71 of 118 from two-point range.

Starting point is 00:15:40 That's good for 60%, 60.2% to be exact. That's a really good mark, especially when you're playing Tennessee and Marquette among some of those games. And the gold medal here is just grabbing a top 10 win against a tough-minded team to finish, especially after how the Marquette game finished. You had some of your toughness and some of that kind of questioned a little bit, and you bounced back with a big win over Tennessee, who was going to kind of impose their will and try to out-tough you as we saw in the battle for Atlantis.

Starting point is 00:16:07 Worst things, though, that came out of the Maui Invitational, the anti-bronze medal, as I will call it, is figuring out the 5 through 8 slash 9 in the rotation. Obviously, again, you finish strong, but over the aftermath, you did leave with a lot of questions, at least in the first two games. The anti-silver medal goes to shooting. This is all kinds of shooting. Free throw shooting over the three games for KU and Manhattan,

Starting point is 00:16:50 they're below 30%, even if you include the exhibitions from three-point shooting. But those two games have boosted them so much. So we'll see where this team ends up landing in a couple weeks on their three-point shooting. The high they made was six threes. The anti-gold medal of the Maui Invitational was the turnover battle. This wasn't just KU turning over too much, which did happen. They weren't forcing a lot of turnovers, which is kind of a weird thing early inational was the turnover battle. This wasn't just KU turning it over too much, which did happen. They weren't forcing a lot of turnovers, which is kind of a weird thing early in the season for KU.

Starting point is 00:17:10 You have DeJuan Harris and Kevin McCuller. You know, Hunter Dickinson is an alert defender. KJ Adams, super athletic. Elmarco Jackson, super athletic. You have lengthy guys like Johnny Furphy and active guys like Jamari McDowell coming off the bench. Theoretically, this should be at least a decent team that's forcing turnovers, if not good at it. And they were good at it last year, but right now they're struggling at both ends of the turnover battle. So against Tennessee, they had 15 turnovers offensively. They forced just six on five steals and they lost the points off turnover

Starting point is 00:17:40 battle 17 to five. They had 18 turnovers against Marquette. They forced just 12 on 7 steals. They lost the points off turnover 20 to 9. They had 15 turnovers against Chaminade. They forced 13 on 9 steals. They did win points off turnovers there 19 to 10. So total it up over the three games in Maui. KU averaged 16 turnovers per game. You'd like to see that closer to 11 or 12. You forced 10.3 turnovers per game. Again, you'd like to see that number go up on seven steals per game. You'd like to see that around nine or 10 or 11. And over the three games, KU was outscored 47 to 33 in points off turnovers. But again, in your last two games against more real opponents, you were outscored 37 to 14 in

Starting point is 00:18:20 points off turnovers. That's about 11 and a half per game, 12 per game in games that you ended up winning by 9. So maybe you win by 20 against Tennessee in a game that you lost by 14. Otherwise, maybe it's a close loss to Marquette, right? So they've got to figure out the turnovers both in terms of stop doing them themselves and getting more from the other end because they certainly have the personnel to do it. All right, we're going to finish up with Locked on Jayhawks. Early look at what's next for KU coming up next week after the Maui Invitational. Finishing up with Locked on Jayhawks with what's next for KU basketball.

Starting point is 00:18:55 Well, they're going to be against Eastern Illinois back at home on Tuesday night. So that'll be an opportunity to kind of get another, you know, easy win, get deeper into the bench, similar to what you would think the first two games with uh the Manhattan game in NC Central now maybe it won't be as easy I remember last year you had the Southern Utah game which ended up being a lot closer than you thought sometimes those games that are wedged between a big game and after a big game um can end up being kind of you know lethargic games so we'll see how that one goes but uh you have the big one on Friday against UConn. That'll be in Allen Fieldhouse defending national champs. UConn has just slaughtered like all the recent non-conference teams they've played. They rolled through the

Starting point is 00:19:32 tournament. They were undefeated through the non-con last year. They rolled through Texas earlier this year. So UConn's really good. That'll be a real opportunity for KU to kind of get back what they lost in the Marquette game. And if they win that game, it'll be back to like, okay, yeah, this team is a for sure top three or top five team kind of in the country at that point. So those ones upcoming, we'll talk plenty about it with locked on Jayhawks previewing the games, recapping the games next week.

Starting point is 00:19:54 Don't forget later this week, we're going to get to our KU preview against Cincinnati on the football field. So make sure you're subscribed to the show with locked on Jayhawks. You can find our podcast anywhere you get your podcast and And we'll see you next time with LOJ. Have a good rest of your week and happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy all the stuffing.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Win Maui Invitational 3rd Place Game 69-60 Against Tennessee Volunteers

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