Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - REVENGE TOUR? Kansas to Face Tiller & Missouri, Bidunga & Louisville, UConn & More in Non-Conference

Starting point is 00:00:00 The KU non-con schedule is out, and it feels like KU is an opportunity to exact a lot of revenge. 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. This is Locked-on Jayhawks. On today's episode, we're going to get to KU baseball, a little of the latest news from them, including their super regional schedule. We'll also start right here with KU basketball in their non-con schedule. What would be a good record for them? Top games and superlatives from the games. Because the non-con schedule is out, and I thought one of the biggest themes of this,

Starting point is 00:00:44 I don't know if this is intentional or not, but it feels like there is a real opportunity here for KU to inflict a lot of different type of revenge. So here is what the non-con looks like. November 2nd against Fordham in Allen Fieldhouse. That's a Monday for the season opener. Then that Friday, they'll be taken on Middle Tennessee. see at home the following Tuesday, Champions Classic against Kentucky.

Starting point is 00:01:06 After that, you get a week off before you go to the Players Era tournament where you'll be playing UNOV in the first game, then you'll be playing the winner of West Virginia Auburn, and then you'll get somebody from the other side of the Players Era 8. Denver back at home on Monday, November 23rd, followed by Villanova on Black Friday, the 27th. First day of December is a Tuesday. Northern Iowa will be coming to Allen Fieldhouse for the third straight game in Allen Fieldhouse for KU. Then they'll go on a neutral site that's Sunday to take on Missouri in the T-Mobile Center before going on the road the following Saturday on December 12th to take on Connecticut.

Starting point is 00:01:43 The following Saturday, they're going to be on a neutral court in Madison Square Garden taking on Ohio State, and then they'll round out the non-con on Tuesday, December 22nd against Indiana State, followed by the following Tuesday, December 29th against New Orleans. So overall for KU, this is a list of 14 non-con games. of the 14 you get what seven of them at home um six of them on neutral and one on the road here for Kansas so you know we're not going to know a ton about the road stuff really until big 12 play because even the one road games against what probably going to be like a top 10 maybe top five team in the country in Yukon but here's what I mean when I when I say is is Kansas trying to

Starting point is 00:02:25 enact revenge with this schedule right obviously everybody knows the beef between Kansas and Fordham, right? So I don't need to go in. No, I'm just joking. Okay. So from the Kentucky aspect, let's look to that one first, right? I don't know if there's beef there necessarily, but it is two blue bloods going at it. And I guess you could say the 2012, you know, national title revenge for that. That's whatever. Like, you could spin that one if you really wanted to. But then you go to the Missouri game and it becomes a revenge game against Bryson Tiller, right? One of the games not mentioned here is one of your exhibition games, which is the exhibition game that you're hosting Louisville. That becomes a revenge game against Flory Budunga. Northern Iowa is a team you play in

Starting point is 00:03:09 December at home, revenge game for 2010, right? So I don't know, just filled with, you know, Yukon trying to get revenge for them beating you and Allen Fieldhouse last year, right? Like, revenge across the board here for KU, I guess, kind of becomes the theme. Now, if I'm to list some of the different superlatives from the schedule, I think the toughest game, has to be the game at Yukon. Now, it's hard to say because like theoretically, if you told me Kansas is playing Florida in the players era, which would be your third game,

Starting point is 00:03:41 that probably becomes the toughest game because I think Florida is, for my money, the best team in the country going into the season. So that would become the toughest game there. But without knowing for sure who you're playing, I can't pick that one. So it would be the at Yukon game. I think Yukon will be a really good team and it's going to be on the road.

Starting point is 00:03:58 So I think that becomes the toughest game there. I think maybe one of the most underrated games on the schedule is Fordham, who is 132nd on Torvick. This isn't going into your season playing one of these teams that Cayus played the last couple years where they're like, you know, in that 300 range on Ken Palm and they just beat them by 40 points. Fordham's not bad. So maybe a little bit underrated there for a first game. The easiest game for KU on the schedule probably goes to Denver. You could probably honorable mention New Orleans for this one, which makes sense because that's your kind of final tune up before Big 12 play, but the Denver game as well, which that also makes sense, right?

Starting point is 00:04:33 It's right after the players era, and it's right before you host Villanova and have some those games in Northern Iowa, Missouri and Yukon. So you want to try to get that win in there, right, as easy as possible. But Denver's 244th on Torvik right now coming into the season. If you are going to go on a road trip somewhere to one of these games to attend, I think the number one destination for me of the non-con would be going to Vegas for the players era. The beauty of it this year is it's the week before Thanksgiving, which honestly should probably help a little bit with the attendance. But we also know with how little it was

Starting point is 00:05:07 attended last year, you can probably get tickets pretty cheap. And you don't have to worry about missing Thanksgiving this year, like you would have if you had to go to it last year. You're going to have the most fun there, probably the Vegas one. Number two on the list would probably be, if you're looking for a road trip, go to Chicago for the Champions Classic against Kentucky. I think that'll be a lot of fun. You get to see two good games there. Chicago, if you're living in the Lawrence area is not like overly far away. There's obviously a lot of KU fans in Chicago. So you probably have a lot of brethren out there. Right. And then the last one would be stores for Yukon. That's a bit further of travel. I don't know that that's like a destination location that people are necessary looking to go to. Um, you con should be a good team and, you know, cool to go see different teams like home arenas and stuff like that. Um, if you are going to one home game on this schedule, you're just like, you know what, I just want to buy one ticket to one home game. Which one should I go to? I think Villanova would probably be the one to go to. But, But that is Black Friday. So maybe you're out of town.

Starting point is 00:05:59 Maybe you're celebrating Thanksgiving. Maybe you can't do that. What would be the next best pick for a home game? It probably would be the Northern Iowa game on Tuesday, December 1st. But that could be a stressful game, right? That's the difficulty if you're playing one of these better teams in the noncon from like low majors. If it's a closer game than you expect, it starts to become stressful. So kind of interesting there.

Starting point is 00:06:20 If I were to rank the top five games without knowing who KU is going to play in the players era tournament, I would go number one at Yukon. Number two would be the neutral site versus Missouri. It is your biggest rival, so it still becomes important, even though I don't know. I don't know, I guess, you know, Missouri actually could be pretty good this year. They've got a very talented roster, so I feel good about that one being at number two. Maybe it should be number one because of the rivalry aspect, right? Number three is the Tyrant Stokes Bowl, which will be against Kentucky and the Champions Classic,

Starting point is 00:06:50 which big news for them adding Milan-Mom Chilovich to make their roster better. Number four is the Louisville exhibition. It's only an exhibition, but because of the Florida Bedunga element, I think it's really up there. And number five is Ohio State, that went on neutral floor. I was actually surprised when I saw this, knowing that Ohio State was pretty good this year. They made the NCAA tournament, but they lost like Bruce Thornton and stuff. I was surprised when I looked up and saw them at 16th on Bart Torvik for coming into the seasons. That becomes a very interesting game there.

Starting point is 00:07:16 What would be a good record for KU through this non-con to set them up for always difficult Big 12 play? Plus we go to the KU Baseball Super regionals, all that and more. next this is locked on jhawks thanks to joining us today on locked on jhawks and today's episode of the show is brought to you by fanduel sports book the NBA finals are officially here and every possession matters if you're looking to get even closer to the action fan dual has a great offer just to get you started right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get 150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins that's right turn five bucks and 150 in bonus bets for just getting started, whether you know, you're looking at player props, you're just following along with your

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Starting point is 00:08:45 Okay, what would be a good record for KU through the non-con? So I think when you pile together the home games, you should be able to go undefeated there, right, Fordham, Middle Tennessee, Denver, Villanova, Northern Iowa, Indiana State, New Orleans. I think Northern Iowa probably plays you tough. Villanova probably can play you tough, but you should win all of those games. You'll be favored in all of those games, and you'll probably be favored by,

Starting point is 00:09:07 I mean, I guess we'll see just how good Villanova winds up being and how good Kansas ends up being, but you're at least two possession favorites in that game, probably eight point favorites. You're probably double-digit favorites and the rest. So, again, go win all those games, and that gets you to 7 and O in the non-con, right? Then when we look at the three,

Starting point is 00:09:25 just like single game, neutral-site games you have, right Kentucky who um I don't know they're going to be a really interesting team because there is some talent on the roster like I like some of the pieces but I don't necessarily love all the fit um so I don't know that that won't be very interesting Missouri again very talented team how is it going to fit for them neutral site in Ohio state sounds like they're a pretty good team two and one is that unreasoned I mean I do think Kansas could go three and oh in that stretch but if we want to be conservative with it we can say two and one scenario sitting at nine and one through the noncon the at Yukon game, you're probably underdogs in.

Starting point is 00:10:00 Maybe you can go on the road and win like they did in Allen Fieldhouse, but let's say you lose that game. So now you're nine and two. And then you look at the players era. You should be able to beat UNLV that gets you to 10 and two. And then you have a game against either Auburn or West Virginia. You should be favored in that game, even though you just keep losing to West Virginia.

Starting point is 00:10:18 But, you know, you should be able to win that game. And then let's say in the third game, you are playing Florida and you lose that game. That gets you to 11 and 3, right? So we're talking about a three loss non-con that I think would be okay for Kansas, right? If you go 11 and 3 with that stretch, that's going to put you in a position where, you know, Kentucky on neutral, Missouri on neutral, Ohio State on neutral, one to two of your players era games, the Yukon game. Like that's going to be six quad one opportunities to grab at least three or four of those wins if you're

Starting point is 00:10:47 11 and 3 there, right? So that would put you in an okay position. I think if you want to feel really good going into conference play, can you find a way to have two losses or less, right? Because that means basically you could theoretically only be losing to, what if you only lost to like Florida and the players era, or Houston and the players era and Yukon. You know, and those were your only two losses.

Starting point is 00:11:10 That would mean you'd have really good wins. Again, quad one wins probably against Ohio State, Missouri and Kentucky, because on neutral, I think it only has to be, oh gosh, what is it, like top 45, top 60 or something like that. So those should all qualify for that. So that would be, I think, a really good spot. If you get out of the non-con with one loss, that means we're talking about this team looking pretty special

Starting point is 00:11:34 because at that point, you're either winning the player's era or you're winning at Yukon. So one to two losses, I think you're feeling really good going into Big 12 play. Three losses, I think you're fine with it. Anything more than that, not a good sign for KU is kind of where I'm out with this, right? But I think the biggest swing games there is just probably the neutral site with Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio State because there is a little bit of unknown, especially with Kentucky and Missouri, a little bit of unknown with those rosters, right? There is some talent. But how is it going to come together with some questions and some questions about just how good each coach is?

Starting point is 00:12:11 Those will be kind of interesting swing games for KU. Let's finish up. KU baseball knows their super regional schedule. We'll get to that next. Thanks to joining us again on Locked on Jayhawks. Don't forget and check out the ad-free version of the show at locked on Jayhawks.com. So KU Baseball, we knew after Oklahoma upended Georgia Tech

Starting point is 00:12:32 the other night that KU was going to be hosting in a super regional, just fantastic. And now it's a best of three series. Who can get to two wins to make it to Omaha, right? And there's two schedules. Some teams will play Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Sunday if necessary. Other teams will play.

Starting point is 00:12:50 Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Monday, if necessary. Kansas was announced that they'll be one of these Saturday, Sunday, Monday three game series. So Saturday, Sunday guaranteed Monday would be the if necessary winner take all game three. Both Saturday and Sunday games to prime time basically, right? 5 p.m. game, 5 p.m. Central time, 6 p.m. Eastern time for both those games Saturday, Sunday, which really tells me that, you know, ESPN is like super interested in this whole Kansas story. Obviously, it probably helps from their perspective that they're viewing this is like, it's a regional game too, right? Kansas, Oklahoma, you have former Big 12, former big eight foes going at it against each other. So should get some good eyeballs. But that really shows you that like it's not just local. Like now the national media is starting to buy into, you know, the interest of the Kansas baseball hype as well.

Starting point is 00:13:39 So that's pretty cool to be at five o'clock for both days as well. A little bit of news there is Kate Baldridge wasn't able to play in that final game against Arkansas and the Lawrence Regional with an injury. he should be good to go against Oklahoma. They said they're going to take it easy on him this week, but they think he'll be good to go. Obviously, though, with I guess the Ball Brothers there, Baldridge and Ballinger,

Starting point is 00:13:59 sounds like they won't be 100% for it, but are going to try to gut it out. So need the other players in the lineup to kind of step it up and see what you can get from those guys for KU. One other quick note, don't forget, we have Jayhawk trivia coming up on Wednesday night at Johnny's Tavern and West Lawrence. It's going to be at 6.30.

Starting point is 00:14:17 You can get in as soon as 530 to the room, but if you show up at 6.15, that's totally fine as well. You can have a team of up to six people. Your entry fee goes either all to the prize fund or to the rock truck roundball classic donation here. I take zero sense of it. We have other prizes that were given away to like some prizes from Johnny's, some prizes from the rock truck round ball classic, obviously the cash prize.

Starting point is 00:14:37 So come out, test your trivia knowledge. At the very least, you know you're going to have a night of fun and you're going to be giving money to a really good cause. So we still have, you know, some tables open if you want to join Jayhawk trivia at gmail.com. that is Jayhawk trivia at gmail.com. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page

Starting point is 00:14:59 where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time on L.O.J.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - REVENGE TOUR? Kansas to Face Tiller & Missouri, Bidunga & Louisville, UConn & More in Non-Conference

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