Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - REINFORCEMENT: Kansas ADDS Dennis Parker Jr. | Bill Self STRENGTHENS 3-and-D Presence, Rebounding

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks land ideal 3-and-D wing as Dennis Parker Jr. commits, adding scoring punch and defensive versatility to Bill Self’s roster. With experience at Radford and NC State, Parker averaged over 18 points and six rebounds per game, bringing elite rebounding for a guard and a strong perimeter shot. Is his improved three-point shooting the missing piece for KU’s rotation? Derek Johnson breaks down Parker’s fit in the Jayhawks lineup, compares him to Tre White, and explores his potential impact off the bench or as a starter. Key topics include Parker’s strengths—like elite free throw rates, defensive value, and shot-making from the wing—as well as the competition for minutes with Kohl Rosario. How will this addition affect Kansas’ depth, rebounding, and Big 12 outlook? Don’t miss this comprehensive analysis of KU’s latest roster move and what it means for their championship ambitions. Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast RugietGet 15% off your treatment → https://rugiet.com/lockedonnhlRugiet. Performance medicine for men. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get one-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started — Play Your Game.   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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

KU just got an ideal 3-and-D wing in Dennis Parker Jr. from Radford before that NC State. Let's break down his game and what he brings to the table to KU. You are Locked-on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up, Derek Johnson here with Lockdown Jayhawks, and on today's episode, breaking down Dennis Parker Jr. committing to KU will get to his potential role with the team. player comps, his quick scouting report, and more. And let's just start right here with the news,

which is Dennis Parker Jr. will be a Kansas Jhockey win on with Jeff Goodman and Rob Doster on the Field of 68 podcast, committed to KU as part of that and did an interview. And, you know, there was some cool insight during the interview into his game. You know, Jeff Goodman mentioned talking to several different coaches of his who like repeatedly would mention that he was an unbelievable kid. he was an unbelievable teammate, that he was a hard worker. Those on its own, if you're talking about somebody who potentially is going to be coming off the bench here for Kansas, make it, I think, even more appealing because that's the exact type of personality you want from guys in that situation.

And, you know, you want to have a good balance in your locker room of edge, which you probably have with like Tyron Stokes, and guys like that that can, you know, have kind of your good harmony in the locker room and have a little bit of both things. But, you know, also getting to know a little bit more about his game, I think, into play here with some of the things we're going to talk about in the quick scouting report, but seems like a really intuitive kid. And he's a 6-foot-6 guard slash wing. Like you can play him at the two, you can play him at the three. He even logged some minutes at NC State playing the four.

So realistically, he's a two through four wing who started his career as a top 100-ish recruit in the country. He goes to NC State for two years, plays about 12 minutes per game over the two years at NC State. Then he transfers off to Radford this past year and blows up over 18 points per game for him this past season. He averages good rebound totals like six rebounds per game. He's getting almost a steel and a half per game playing good defense there. Shoots really well from three point range, almost 38% from three point range and just has a really good season. He's an all conference pick over at Radford. The time he was at NC State, this isn't like the Christian Reeves situation where you're looking at it going, well, he wasn't playing at Clemson and Duke.

Like he wasn't really part of the rotation. How do we know for sure he can translate to Kansas? You don't have to worry about that here with this one because Parker was playing at NC State. It wasn't, you know, starting, but he was playing 12 minutes per game back-to-back seasons, freshman and sophomore season on a Power 5 school, right? Which if we're talking about Parker coming off the bench of Kansas, how many minutes is he playing? 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes per game. So, like, it's not that different of a role.

And, you know, one of those NC State teams was the final 14, right? So that's a team he's playing a role on as a back end rotation player where he is, you know, still making a positive impact there, right? And he obviously, even if he stays at NC State for his junior year and doesn't go to Radford, probably is, you know, maybe it's not 18 points per game, but he's probably averaging more than 12 minutes per game. And he's an awesome rebounder from the guard position. He's a good defender.

he gets the free throw line a lot. The three point shot is going to kind of be the swing skill. And it's one that he shot well of, but we'll get more on that kind of later in the scouting report. But he's going to be a senior in the 2026 to 2027 season. I guess theoretically with the upcoming five and five that could pass, he could potentially have two years left, but we'll kind of wait and see on this. But this is key for Kansas because you were looking to kind of round out your rotation. I think you needed another wing body on the roster.

We saw this past year. Okay, you only had one wing body. on the roster really with Trey White, at least that was in the rotation. And you're playing teams that have more wings, it becomes more difficult to kind of defend some of those teams. Well, now you have multiple wing bodies you can throw at people with both Tyrant Stokes and with Dennis Parker here, right? So that is helpful from that standpoint.

It's another player who can potentially bring three-point shooting. He fits into what KU has been looking for this offseason with the rebounding aspect and stuff. I just think this is a really good addition for KU, one that you know, can play a role or can potentially bring more to the table than that. So I really like this move for KU and I like the way that the roster is looking. If I'm being completely honest, I know that it's not the flashiest roster in the world. I don't think it's a top five team in the country, but like, I think there's enough here to be a

decent team, right? So let's get to some of the deep dive on his scouting report and player comps, potential role, all that next. This episode of the show is brought to you by Ruggiet. The NHL playoffs are here where every shift matters, every moment's intense and the pressure is at its highest. And just like performance matters on the ice, it matters off the ice too.

That's where Rougiet comes in. Ruggiet offers treatments designed to help you get ready and stay ready when it matters. Their top option, Ruggiet ready, combines clinically proven ingredients in a simple mint that dissolves under your tongue. It works fast, often in about 15 minutes,

and it can last up to 36 hours. They also offer go long designed to help with both performance and control. It's all about confidence and feeling like yourself again. Head to Ruggiat.com slash locked on NHL and get 15% off your ED treatment. That is Ruggiat.com slash locked on NHL for 15% off RUGIET.com slash locked on NHL, Ruggiat, Performance Medicine for men.

Thanks you for joining us here on Lockdown Jayhawks. Don't forget check out our deep dive on Dennis Parker Jr. We did that just a couple of days ago. It'll go in depth on a lot of different things in his game. I highly recommend checking that one out. If you're an everyday and you already did, thank you. You can obviously go back and rewatch, re-listen if you want to get, you know, re-re-acted. acclimated with what Parker's game brings to the table.

But we're going to go over some of those things and some new things here as we take a quick look at his scouting report here. Let's start here. What is his best skill? I struggled a little bit with this one from the standpoint of like, I think there's really three that you could point to here if you're Kansas. I think the first one that I would point to is that you could argue the getting to the free throw line. he had an 89th percentile free throw attempt rate. He was in the 98th percentile in free throw attempts per 40 minutes. If we go back to his time at NC State, he was above average in free throw attempt rate.

So it's just one of those things where it's like that could be, but because you don't know how that translates back up. And sometimes I've seen some studies that like free throw attempt rate doesn't translate as well up as some other stats. I went with rebounding as the best skill here. And again, I thought about defense, is choosing one here. He's a 6-6-6-wing who's engaged on that end. It gets about a steal and a half per game. So I do think he is a good defender. But I do think his best skill is the rebounding.

90th percentile or better in both offensive and defensive rebound rate among guards this past season, playing for Radford. And even if you want to say, okay, well, you know, you're doing that at Radford. What would that look like at a Power 5 school? Well, I'm glad you asked because even at NC State, both seasons, he was with the Wolfpack. He was in the 86th percentile or better in both offensive and defensive rebound rate among guards. This dude is about as an elite rebounder from the guard position, as you can imagine. Now, you know, if you profile him up to being more of a forward, then yeah, sure, some of those percentiles go down. But like, out of comparison, his offensive rebound rate is like a tick lower than Trey White's,

but his defensive rebound rate is over a tick more than Trey White. So like I actually speaking of the the tray white comp. We'll get more in that here in a second. I tweeted out some comps and you'll see like the rebound numbers are very similar here. Right. Obviously different conferences, but even if we go back to the NC state numbers, still really good rebound numbers. So there's a really good rebounder. He also mentioned on that interview on the field of 68.

He's a two way dog like he wants to get after on both end. That's going to be music to Bill Selfseers. Favorite stat for Parker here. I'm going to go with the on-off net rating. So this past season, at Radford, they were over 11 points better per 100 possessions when he was on the floor. That is a really good on-off rating. So when he was off the floor, they were 11 points worse, right?

And then even if you look at his last season at NC State, even though he's coming in as a role player, NC State was over nine points better per 100 possessions when he was out there. You look at this past season at Radford, the on-off team impact for him outside of just the points, you know, per 100 possessions and overall team impact. Where did he have the biggest impact? Well, he had 73rd percentile or better impacts being on the floor on the team's O rating, derating, effective field goal percentage, or effective field goal percentage defense, excuse me, turnover rate defense, turnover prevention on offense and free throw attempt rate.

All of those, he had impacts in the 73rd percentile or higher. So this is a very impactful player when he was on the floor for Radford, and that even stretches back to his final year at NC State. best game of the season. A lot of people pointed to this one, 53 points against Coppin State. And sure, Coppin State was not a good basketball team. But, you know, if it was so easy to drop 50 on bad opponents, why doesn't everybody drop 50 on bad opponents? Why doesn't everybody drop even 40 or 30 on bad opponents? It's still hard to do.

And what's crazy here is the efficiency. This dude shot 19 of 24 in route to 53 points. This was not a game where he shot 35 shot. He shot 24 shots and gets 53 points. He was 10 of 14 from 3. That is incredible. Now, if you do want what is his best game versus a good opponent, hey, they played at North Carolina this year,

and he had 23 points and six rebounds on 8 of 17 shooting against the Tar Heels. Now, biggest question, I think, what is the three-point shot going to be for Parker Jr? You look at his two years at NC State. He's closer to being a 30-percent three-point shooter. And then he breaks out at Radford, and he's close to 38%. But you look at the free throw shooting, and it's in the high 60s in terms of percentage. And sometimes that can be indicative how good your touch is and, you know, how real is some of the three-point shooting.

He did have good volume to get to around 37, 38% from three. So that would be a good thing. But yeah, like what if he goes back to his NC State days when he's playing against, you know, better competition here and ends up being a 30% three-point shooter for Kansas? Or if we're even to say, okay, well, he's improved from where he was at NC State, but he's not where he was at Radford. What if he's a 33% three-point shooter for Kansas? I mean, at the very least, like there still is a floor there. This isn't a non-shooter completely. There's two things I would argue against that.

One is the idea, again, going back to his interview. I guess you would look to his year at Radford and say, okay, what led to him shooting better from three, right? Was it just the competition? Was it just him having a hot streak? And those could be parts of it. But during that interview with Jeff Goodman and Rob Doster, he mentioned last offseason, he went and trained with, and I can't remember the name of the guy, and I didn't know who he was,

but people in basketball circles and stuff seem to know who this guy is, trained with some legendary shooting coach, and he fixed his form and worked on the mental side of things, and boom, he had his best three-point shooting year. So that to me feels like something that is a definitive change to make me think that, yes, he is more of that guy now than he was the guy earlier because there is a definitive change. It's not just he happened to have a hot year. It was something changed and he had a good year, right? There's reasoning to believe that it is there. So yeah, even if you want to say he doesn't shoot 37, 38%, what if it is 33, 34%. The other thing is part of this, I would say, is that this isn't

one of those situations where it's a Jaden Dawson or, I don't know, like name your KU player, Nick Timberlake that they've brought in to be a three-point shooter for you that didn't shoot well from threes. And then they had a quick hook onto the bench, Ryland Griffin, because when they're not making threes, they're not doing anything else on the floor, right? Well, you don't have to worry about that with Parker. Like, he's going to be able to shoot through if he has a shooting dry spell because he is such a great rebounder and he's a good defender. He's going to do other things on the floor to keep him on the floor, even when the shot's not falling, but if the shot is falling, then the potential raises a big amount. Best shot for Dennis Parker is the left wing three,

at least if you're looking at it from the offensive players perspective, he shot 43 percent on those shots, according to CBB shot charts. Best play style. He was in the 83rd percentile in points per possession as a perimeter sniper this past season. He also rated well at NC State and then followed it up even better at Radford. He was in the 94th percentile in points per possession on rebound and scramble opportunities. So if you get an offensive rebound, this dude knows how to relocate and knock down a three. As far as some of the player cops, CBB analytics worked through the statistic profile, compared it to a big 12 player.

I found this one interesting because it's a player that obviously a lot of KU fans would, you know, love for KU to find some money and be able to bring in. But Tunei Yesafu, that was the comp here for Dennis Parker Jr. Just from a stats perspective over at CBB Analytics. My comparison is actually going to be the same as the KU comparison, and that's Trey White. So I tweeted this out at D. Johnson Radio. You can see there's a nice little easy-to-read graph that shows some of the comparisons between just from a statistic profile,

Trey White's game compared to Dennis Parker Jr.'s game. Now, obviously, Trey White did it at the Big 12 level, and that was from, you know, Parker doing it, you know, at Radford in the Big South. So, like, I'm not saying that he's going to be as good as Trey White. I'm just saying from a playing style perspective, he is similar to what he wants to do.

Both players like to get to the free throw line. Both players can hit a set three-point shot, but aren't really creating a ton form. Both of them are very good rebounders from the, wing position for you. So I think there's some similarities just in terms of how they want to go about it. But if you're saying this is a worse version of Trey White, but this one's coming off the bench, whereas Trey White was asked to be your, I don't know, third best player or whatever, like,

that totally works for me. So I'm in on Dennis Parker. What is the projected role? We'll get to that next. Thanks again for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. And don't forget and check out the everyday or club to get the ad free version of the show at lockedonjahawks.

dot supercast.com. That is locked on Jayhawks. dot supercast. Dot com. Okay, what is the potential role here? I think in general, I view him as being somebody who's going to come off the bench. Now, the big competition for me comes between Col Rosario and Dennis Parker Jr. Who ends up being better in the off season and who wins that first guard slash wing off

the bench, right? Because Rosario is more of a like two guard who can play the three. Parker's more of a three wing who can play. the two or the four. So they're slightly different, but also they're similar enough that there's going to be crossover in competition there. I think you'll look at Paul M. B. and Christian Reeves and say, whoever loses out on the starting center job is the first big off

the bench. So then it's a conversation. To be clear, I think Parker and Rosario will both play. I think Parker and Rosario will both be coming off the bench and be players that are in your rotation and giving you double digit minutes per game. But the difference of whoever wins out. on that race, you're the first man off the bench. And if you're the sixth man, maybe you're playing 20 minutes per game versus if you're

the seventh slash eighth man, maybe it's closer to 12, you know? So there could be a little bit of a difference in how much you play there. And that'll be interesting. Obviously, the advantages that the Parker's going to have on Rosario, he's bigger. I think he's probably at this point a better defender. Parker has, I mean, both of them are going to have, you know, who's going to shoot better from three. Parker has shown it a little bit more in terms of college games, but maybe we view Rosario.

who's having higher potential there. Both are good athletes, both are good rebounders. So I think that'll be a good competition, but both end up playing. And the good teammate, the hard worker stuff, the fact he's done it at a Power 5 level before coming off the bench, it makes me feel even better about this for sure. And then in terms of like, what are you asking of him when he's on the floor? I think it's simple. Make shots and defend the other player.

And then find another way to impact the game. That can be rebounding the basketball. That can get to the free throw line, right? because then you're raising your floor of playing time if you're doing something else well in case the shots are not falling. And I brought it up before. Like that's why I feel better about him having a high floor and being in the rotation than some of these other guys they brought in to just be shooters.

Now, is there a world where Dennis Parker Jr. ends up starting? It's not something I would rule out because I do like his game. And there is a world out there where, and we're going to talk about this on a Friday episode. We'll talk about how this move affects the rest of the off season and stuff. We'll also get into something else that was brought up on the podcast by Jeff Goodman, where he talked about Christian Reeves is going to get like labrum surgery. So you're in a situation where what if KU does start Keanu Daz at the five and start small?

And if you do decide to start small, then you're looking at, okay, Kinney and Blighton is the one and two. Your three would be one of Rosario or Parker Jr. And your four would be Tyrant Stokes. So there is a world where one of Rosario or Parker does end up starting games this. season for KU if that were the preferred lineup or lineup you're going to for a specific matchup or because of injury or something. So, you know, I wouldn't completely rule it out. And like, what if he's that good that it's just like you want to fit him in the starting lineup? Could you even play big with Parker where you're saying, hey, we're going to play Parker at the

two. We'll have one of our point guards at the one. Stokes will be the three, Daws the four, and then your center at the five. Like, I wouldn't rule that out either. So I do think there is at least a little bit of upward trajectory or movement that could have. for Parker potentially if he plays that well. But I think if we just view it right now as saying, hey, you're coming off the bench and trying to make an impact there. I feel good about that for sure. All right.

That'll do it for this episode of Lockdown, Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time for another edition of LOJ.