Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Samis Calderon Out, Zoom Calls In, JP Estrella to Michigan | Latest Kansas Jayhawks Portal News

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks face uncertainty as transfer portal moves slow—will Bill Self adapt to a rapidly evolving roster? Samis Calderon enters the portal, while returnees like Paul Mbiya and Kohl Rosario remain question marks, leaving the team’s depth chart in flux. Derek Johnson breaks down KU’s struggle to attract top transfer options, including missing out on JP Estrella to Michigan. The episode features analysis on key targets such as Wes Enis, Desean Goode, and Jaylen Petty—each offering elite three-point shooting the Jayhawks desperately need. Johnson also explores rising NIL price tags, the team’s rotating portal strategy, and what the slow-moving college basketball market means for Kansas’ offseason rebuild. Is Kansas poised for a spending spree, or will they settle for less as competition heats up? Everydayer Club  If 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! Mazda Like our players, we’re driven by the details. Highlights make the reel. But the work behind them makes it count.
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Another KU departure into the transfer portal, and things are going slow and maybe not off to great start so far for KU trying to bring in players. We'll get to all of it on today's episode. 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 going on Derek Johnson here with another episode of Locked on Jayhawks on today's episode of the show. we're going to be breaking down some of the latest Kansas portal news. It seems like they're conducting a lot of Zoom calls right now. Also some players that maybe KU is targeting, picking other schools or making some news known. We get to all that and starting things off with another KU departure.

That would be Samis Calderon. Today's episode is brought to you by Mazda. Like our players, we're driven by the details. Highlights make the real, but the work behind them makes it count. Stay tuned for this week. Moving the game forward, the all-new Mazda CX-5, more to move every side. of you. So Samis Calderon, the latest Jayhawk to enter into the portal. And, you know, Calderon was not somebody who had a huge impact on the rotation this year for KU. 16 games played a little over

four minutes per game, 33% from the field. It's more of the continued absence of returning players for KU. And I don't even know that Samis Calderon would have been in the rotation this upcoming season either. But, you know, you look at having guys to fill out the roster. And Bill Self certainly had a lot of kind words about Samis Calderon. own's future that made me wonder if he was going to still potentially come back. So now we're looking at a situation where Corbin Allen is back. And that's the one that I feel most confident would come back because when you brought him in to begin with, the idea was to be a, you know, a player that would develop and come in and redshirt and all those things have kind of been

happening so far. Cole Rosario is the other one where it's like, okay, he could potentially be back as a sophomore. And Rosario is somebody that if he is back as a sophomore, I'll probably be projecting him in the rotation for Kansas. Obviously, we don't know how the rest of the portal season is going to go for KU, but feels like that would kind of be the case. But right now we're waiting to see what's going to happen there. Now, the other interesting one is with Paul Mbia, because there have been some reports that even though Mbia,

there was the messaging out that he was going to enter the transfer portal, that his name is not actually officially into the transfer portal yet, to where this feels a little bit like a Trey Lathen situation in football. If you remember Trey Lathen, back when the portal opened for KU football, it was announced he was going to enter the portal. I think he even posted something on social media, but he never actually officially entered the portal and ended up reworking out a contract or deal,

whatever you want to talk about it as to remain to KU. And that was obviously a big deal for Kansas. You wonder if something like that could be happening here with Paula Bia. You know, maybe the further we've gotten along, maybe the distance of Kansas feeling like they have a shot at bringing Flory back or Tiller back is dwindling. And so, and maybe they see the market prices of things are higher than their initial read was going to be. And, you know, there's maybe there's some sort of agreement they can come to that keeps Paul Mbia at Kansas. And again, like in the same vein of like Calderon leaving, it's not that I would view Mbia as being this like game changer starter for Kansas. Kansas next season. But in the case of Mbia specifically, and if you can retain Rosario and Mbia at this point, that would be nice because Kansas is in a position right now where while they're waiting to try to land, you know, transfer portal additions, there's just a lot of uncertainty all the way through not just the starting lineup, but the rotation right now. Like if we look at the incoming

freshman, right? So Tailen Kinney is somebody that I expect to be a part of the rotation. I expect him to be a starter on this team. Let's just view it from the rotation standpoint, though, right? We know Bill Self wants to play seven or eight guys as part of the rotation. Some portions of the non-con, it'll be nine-man rotations. I mean, when they're blowing teams out, they'll play 12 guys or whatever. But like, realistically, the every day in, every day out, who am I trusting rotation is going to be about eight guys. And if we look at it as, okay, your backups are a backup big man, a backup guard, and then the other one, probably a backup wing, but it could be whatever's the best of the rest, right? So if I view Taylin Kinney as being part of rotation,

that's one of the eight spots, right? Calderon no longer in the running, transferring away. If you can retain Paul Ambia, he to me would be your favorite to be your backup big man, to be your backup center. And I think if he can bottle up what he did at the end of the season this year and carry that into it with even more development next year, you would feel great about that. I certainly would, right? Then you, I view the same thing with Cole Rosario. Like, Rosario didn't have a great season, but I would expect him to get better. He has all the tools and traits to expect him to at least get a little bit better. And can he be a part of the rotation if he can just get into the low 30% from three and improve the defense and, you know, be more familiar with the

system a little more. I absolutely think those are the case. So if you, that becomes the importance here. If you can bring Rosario and be a back now, you feel like you have three of your eight rotation spots taken care of, which means theoretically you have more of a. spending spree for those five remaining spots than you would if mbia and rosario leave two and now you're looking at seven spots possibly being added and obviously there's there's the there's the possibility that a player like luke barnett because he's just that good of a shooter that he ends up being in the rotation or that trent perry is just that good of a defender and an impactful player that he ends up being in the rotation right like those things could happen for the freshman or if giovon bardwell you know reclassifies up like

could he be in the part of the rotation? Those are things that could definitely happen. But just in case you don't bank on them, that's kind of where we're at. So I don't think the Calderon move is one that like it changes the outlook for KU. It's more of just you lump everything on now. And right now KU has depending again, what's going to happen with Mbia Rosario, somewhere between one to three returners. And of those players, none of them are rotation players from last year's team.

So definitely different. And Bill Self has done so well with continuity more than having the new players. That's not going to be an option this year. Now, the counter to that would be when this new era, you're never going to have the continuity. The counter counter to that would be, well, Houston's been able to do it and Yukon's been able to do it. And some of these schools have been able to do it. But I do think in general, if you want to survive in this era, you're going to have to figure out, coaching teams with a bunch of new players.

Like even in the world where Houston and Yukon and some of these teams have developed this culture to bring back a lot of players, that's not going to be the case every year. Like you look at Houston, what they're going to potentially be this year. Like, Emmanuel Sharp graduates away. They're probably losing two players to the pros in the starting lineup, right? Like, sure, they'll have Joseph Tuggler back, but it's going to be a lot of new players for that. You look at Iowa State who's done a great job at retention and players returning.

Well, they're going to lose a lot of players this year. and they're going to have to have a lot of new guys this year too. So at some point, you're going to have to go with that overhaul, and you're going to have to figure out winning and finding a way to make it work in this new era of basketball with new players. So why not this year for Bill Self? That's going to certainly be the challenge. But certainly right now feels like things are a little slow to open up the portal season.

I wasn't sure if it was going to be like the KU football or just, I guess, college football portal season in general, where when that opened up, it was a flurry of commits, right away for like all the teams. Basketball, this has been a little slower, not just for KU, but I think college basketball as a whole. So let's discuss that a little more next. And some of the targets actually have committed and come off the board,

one notable big man that it seemed like KU was interested in. We'll get into all that as well as some players that KU's had Zoom calls with. Next, this is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Mazda, moving the game forward. For those who know the score never tells the whole story. There were a lot of fun moments in the KU basketball season. Obviously, it didn't end the way we wanted it to.

But you go back in the regular season, I think back to that players era game where you beat Tennessee, who wound up being an elite eight team on the backs of the second half of El Marco Jackson and Melvin Council. And it was really fun watching what they did. And just in general, that whole week felt like such a high point of the KU season. It is unfortunate that they couldn't kind of bottle that up and move it forward. But, you know, that Thanksgiving week felt awesome from a KU basketball perspective.

And there's more to these players than the highlights, the early mornings, the late night runs, the constantly showing up for their squad on and off the court. The all new Mazda CX5 moves the same way with more space to connect a bold new design and more intuitive technology so you can stay connected on the road. And every position you play, the all new Mazda CX5, more to move every side of you. Thanks to joining us on today's episode of Locked on Jayhawks. as we'll continue on with some latest transfer portal news for KU. By the way, you can check out the Everydayer Club where you can get the ad-free version of the show at locked on jahawks.supercast.com.

So it does feel like in general, the portal has moved slow a little bit here, not a ton of commits. Miles Bird, who was somebody that we did a deep dive episode on, just because we thought it would be a Bill Self type of player, turns out KU didn't really seem to kick the tires that much in terms of the interest there. So I do think that is an indication.

right there like bill self is clearly i think you see some of the names that ke you've shown interest in you see them not going after miles bird it is clear to me bill self is looking for shooting from the guard positions that is something that i feel very certain about based on what we we know i guess to this point in time how that all works out and how they piece it together that's another question but i do think that is a good sign in general right um but miles bird ends up going to providence so i i think all the the talk of providence you know hiring brine hodgson the head coach from South Florida and having, you know, this big NIL ability because they also got a commit from Dink Pate, who's like a former highly recruited guy who's been playing in the G League and he'll

probably average like 15, 20 a game in college. They certainly, you know, put their money where their mouth was and making that higher. So that one, I think just interesting from one standpoint. But in general, besides that and this other one, J.P. Estrella picking Michigan, which that one has repercussions potentially on KU. It has been a little bit slow for a lot of these teams. Like I said, you look back to the college football transfer portal that was back in January, right? That went fast, man.

But you think about it, there is a pretty big difference here. And the difference is all of those football teams were in the off season for, I mean, I get it. Like the teams who were in the college football playoff or teams who are playing their bowl game. But like, if you're playing in a bowl game, you have one. game that is essentially an exhibition game over a month span. These teams were basically working on this stuff for the football transfer portal for a month and a half, like from when the regular

season ended, right? Whereas in basketball, you're going in the NCAA tournament and then this is just happening. There's not as much like a lead up time where you're multitasking during that and leading up to this. And then the other thing is this, the football transfer portal led up to the start of the winter semester. So if you wanted to bring somebody on for spring football, you had a very tight timeline of being able to bring them in and get them enrolled for the start of the new semester. That's not really a timeline that is too pressing for the basketball season. I don't know the day that if they want to get them enrolled to be able to participate in summer classes and, you know, be with the team during summer and stuff is. I don't know if it's like

the first week of June or whatever. Let's say it's the first week of June. last week of May. That gives you almost two months to figure it out. So that's going to make it a little more drawn out. And then I think the other thing is this. It seems like the price tags of these players has gone up to a pretty high degree. And it feels like we are in a little bit of a who's going to blink first type of situation. Like are we going to see a situation where a couple teams get impatient and go, screw it, we'll just pay the money. And then all of a sudden, the dam breaks open and everybody's like, we have to overpay to bring these players. Are we going to see these teams kind of hold strong? And then the prices of the players go down. And then

we start seeing more commits, that'll be kind of a very fascinating and interesting development, especially for Kansas, a team who, you know, kind of the rumor going around has been, okay, Bill Self's coming back and maybe the delay in him announcing what was going to happen was trying to muster up a plan, trying to muster up more funds and donations to make sure that they had a lot of money to work with building the roster this year. But what happens if everybody's money is going up on what they're spending on the roster? What happens if the prices of all the players go up to where, sure, you're spending more money this year than last year, but when you factor in inflation and some of those different things,

it's basically like you have the same budget as you did this season before. Those are going to be very interesting questions for Kansas to kind of overcome. Now, I mentioned JP Estreya picking, I don't know if it's Estrella or Estrella, but picking Michigan. And that was one where really good big man, like one that I was super interested in. In fact, like, I guess peel the curtain back. This show that I'm doing right now for Friday was originally supposed to be a deep dive on J.P. Estrella. Like, I had that planned.

The rumor was that he was going to be visiting this weekend to Kansas or that it was a possibility. Obviously, he doesn't end up happening. He commits to Michigan. And that is unfortunate because, I mean, there's other options still out there. but Estrella was one of the better ones. The beauty of Estrella is you could play him at the four or the five. You want to play a too big lineup. You can play him at the four.

If you're losing Florey and you want a five, you can play him at the five. So there were options you could go with there. You look at the stats, solid, 10 points, five and a half rebounds for an elite eight Tennessee team in the SEC. But that I don't even know that does it justice because this was a player who was coming off the bench, limited playing time the first portion of the season. I think he played like, I don't know. It was like 10, 12 minutes in the Kansas. game when they played in the players era.

He was, so he had a season ending injury last year, and he was working back into that working in the rotation. And then by season's end, he was playing more minutes. I want to say in the Kansas game, he was like four for four for like 10 points or something like that in limited minutes. But 99th percentile offensive rebound, right,

for Kansas team that I want to do a lot more of that. Over 60 percent on twos has a little bit of a post-up game and a scoring ability, made a big impact when he was on the floor. Tennessee was like 11 points better on offense per one under possessions. when he was out there, like some of the metrics are good on him, just a good player. He'll be a really good addition for Michigan,

which, you know, Dusty May continues to kill it in the Frankfurt portal. He's also just a redshirt junior, so you can potentially get two more years out of him, right? So that is a big one that it sounded like Kansas and Indiana, we're in on it too, but he ends up going to Michigan before you can even get him on campus.

That is certainly unfortunate for KU and one less potential target at the center position if you are, Kansas. Now, other centers that are available, you know, can you bring back Flory? Aden Sherrill is somebody from Alabama that I'm very, very interested in. I like Somto Searle, but it seems like there was a no contact tag there and feels like the rumors are that he could be heading to like a Miami or an Arkansas or something like that. Kyle Evans is an interesting player from UC Irvine, but that would be a risk. Can he make the jump up?

I also think he has to figure out some eligibility stuff. Najee Hines is, I think, one of the more underrated players in the portal. That would be a road. I would go down the two big 12 guys that really hurt Kansas this year available, Masamba Jop and Mustafa Chom, both of them have certain warts about their game, but are huge dudes who can block shots. Now, with Chom, he has to come with, I believe, hiring his guy as like an assistant coach, and I don't know if Self wants to do that.

With Jop, there's been some interest from a lot of teams. I haven't seen anything reported with Kansas yet. There's some other players, too, but I think those are kind of the big ones to go to. So there are still options there. I do think in general when I'm looking at the transfer portal, the point guard and combo guard players is the deepest pool of players right now. I would say that there are some good options at center, but that could go quickly. And the thing about the center one is there's a good amount of decent options, but it's not to the depth of guard where once they start going off the board, it's going to be a little bit scary what's left. There was also something that came out.

Jeff Goodman interviewed, like, I think like 10 anonymous coaches getting like average prices for something. these positions and garden center were kind of the most expensive with wings being the least expensive on average which i'd just say you know just build a team of the good portal wings now there's not as many good portal wings and that's you know part of the thing um but just build a team with you know go back to the 2022 national championship team or the 2023 team that got a one seed there's a three starting wings on it that were legit dudes i don't know maybe just steer into that if that's the money ball play at this point so uh who are some names that have been connected to KU and that they've had Zoom calls with and where do we go from here for KU and the portal.

We'll get to that next. Today's episode of Lockdown Jayhawks is brought to you by TurboTax. We're less than a week away from Tax Day. And, you know, for a lot of us, the old way of doing taxes is a lot. Try to book an appointment that's not the most convenient sitting in a waiting room with a stack of papers, email and back and forth, wondering if they really get your situation. But this year, you're getting a major upgrade into a TurboTax has in-person locations nationwide. You can meet face to face with a real tax expert, and your documents get uploaded straight to your TurboTax on the spot.

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast now. Support our show by saying you heard about it on Locked on Jayhawks. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply need to hire. This is a job for Indeed, sponsored jobs. Thanks you. We're here on Lockheawks. it's going to be a big weekend from the KU baseball and KU softball, I guess, sides of things,

weather permitting. There's also supposed to be a KU football open practice. Again, though, weather permitting there. We'll see what kind of ends up happening there. Also, quick update. Gary Woodland goes into the end of day Thursday, moving around to at the Masters, tied 10th, one under over at Augusta. So cool to see there.

All right, so some KU basketball portal news. So it sounded like KU was trying to get a visit. from Estrella, that ain't happening. We just had an episode talking about Cameron Tucker that there's supposed to be a visit there. Well, sounds like that visit is now up in the air. Who knows if it happens or not? There were some murmurs and talk about Isaiah Johnson potentially visiting. That sounds like it's up in the air.

It could happen. It could not. So right now we are kind of, I don't know what's going on here. And that might not be a good thing that all these visits are potentially happening and canceling. I don't know what that means. Now, KU has been in on it on the Zoom calls with some different players. And news came out of a couple players on Thursday having Zoom calls with Kansas reports of West Ines, who I just released a deep dive episode on Thursday night about Wes Enis and his game.

He's a sharpshooter from South Florida. So check out that deep dive episode. If you haven't already and thank you that every day or so already did. Also a Zoom call with Deshawn Good. If you have been familiar with the show here, you know I am a gigantic Deshaun Good fan. he was one of our first transfer portal target deep dives again if you go to say our youtube page you can go to our locked on j hawks page make sure you're subscribed and just type in to shan good or one of the players that we've done and you can find that video and you know refresh yourself on

him or if you haven't seen it like check it out for the first time or you can probably find it pretty easily on you know Spotify or apple just kind of doing the same thing so um that would be another one that I'd be all aboard for if you could get good. And then this one I find very interesting too because this guy had a really good first half, maybe the start to the game against Kansas when they played. Texas Tech Guard Jalen Petty has completed a Zoom with the following schools. According to his agent Ryan Murphy, this comes from Joe Tipton, UCLA, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Xavier, and Kansas.

So he's an interesting player. He's a freshman guard, about 10 points, four rebounds per game, a little over two assists per game really good three point shooter and he was one of those guys I watched there were two guys I watched this season who were freshman guards who were not going to be one and done like obviously Darren Peterson and stuff like that right um you know how when you're watching like especially in the old days before we are where we are now where you never know who's going to be on whose team the next year and who's going to transfer obviously you know him being in the portal who's kind of proof here right but like we used to watch big 12 games.

for instance, you know, 10 years ago before all this stuff got crazy. And you would see another team, you'd play another team, and they'd have like a freshman on their team who would maybe come in off the bench or was maybe a fifth starter and would have a good game or have like a big moment. And you'd be like, wow, that's going to be a dude who's going to be, you know, a thorn in our side for the next four years or like in a year or two, that dude's going to be all big 12. Like you could just see it.

And there were two of those guys that I had that thought with this year, Jamarian Bateman, the guard for Iowa State off the bench, and then Petty, and then Petty, for Texas Tech. Like those guys are going to be dudes, whether it's next year or in two years from now, if they stick of their school. Now, with Bateman, he's coming back to Iowa State. With Petty, he's in the portal. I would be all aboard KU getting a player like Petty.

The only negative is he's a very small guard and does that work next to Kenny. Now, if you go jumbo with the three through five, you're probably just fine. You know, you could go back to the Baylor team that won a title five years ago. They were playing three little guards next to, you know, kind of two bigs. And even one of the bigs most of the time was Mark Vital, who was undersized, but played well above his height. So I'm open to it. Interesting name to say the least.

But yeah, the interesting thing about all those names, Zoom calls with going back to what I was talking about earlier, Enis, really good three-point shooter. Petty, excellent three-point shooter. Good, excellent three-point shooter. So certainly seems like we found a common denominator

with what KU is targeting in the portal here, probably for the best. I thought it'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find a show anywhere you get your podcast. Check out all our players. deep dives. See you next time.