Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - The Kansas Jayhawks Overcome Duke in the Champions Classic: RECAP

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

The Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team defeated the Duke Blue Devils 69-64 in Indianapolis for the Champions Classic to move to 3-0 with Norm Roberts. Jalen Wilson led the way for KU along with help from DaJuan Harris, Kevin McCullar, Gradey Dick's late spurt and more. Who stood out and who struggled without Bill Self? Plus, a quick note about Jalon Daniels for the Kansas Jayhawks Football team.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Underdog FantasySign up on underdogfantasy.com with the promo code LOCKED ON and get your first deposit doubled up to $100!SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnCollege to learn more.UpsideDownload the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/locked to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more.NugenixText now and get a complimentary bottle of Nugenix Thermo, their most powerful fat incinerator ever, with key ingredients to help you get back into shape fast. Text COLLEGE to 231-231 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we recap the Kansas Duke game after a big victory in the Champions Classic. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, three to six, Monday through Friday on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Lockdown Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find us on YouTube. Make sure to subscribe wherever you're getting it. On today's edition of Lockdown Jayhawks, we're going to go over that KU win last night, kind of sprinting to the finish line at the end, a great finish to the game after they had a pretty good first half as well, but kind of lulled in that second half for the Kansas-Duke game. But first, this episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

LinkedIn helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash locked on college. That's linkedin.com slash locked on college to post your job for free terms and conditions apply. Kansas takes down Duke in the champions classic them to three and oh, on the season, all the games without Norm Roberts. And, you know, I think from what we saw in that game, because Duke is a really good defensive team. They just are. They have all sorts of length on the perimeter with Mark Mitchell and Tyrese Proctor is a good defender.

And then they have, obviously, all the length inside that you could want for Duke. So you look at their first two games, and yeah, they're not playing like great opponents, but you saw the defense there. So Duke does have a good defense. Keep that in mind. The Kansas offense at times labored in that game, especially in the second half and even at the end of the first half.

I mean, they only had, what, 33 points at halftime in that game. They did a lot of their work in transition, and it was obviously a slog shooting the ball and whatnot. And that's kind of a question we have for this Kansas team. Like, can they be a good enough offense in the half court? Clearly, Jalen Wilson is a great option in the half court. Unbelievable performance by him to kind of carry you to the win. Reminded you of the Champions Classic he had a couple years ago against Kentucky,

where he just kind of willed you to win at the end of that game. He kind of did that really all game long for you to kind of keep you around and then it allowed for like Grady Dick and DeJuan Harris and the defense to kind of step up at the end but 25 points 11 rebounds he kind of almost had a triple double in the game at one point he was phenomenal in the game but the questions with you had with the offense and then paired with the Duke defense was are you going to be able to score enough in the half court? And at times it looked like, no, the answer was not going to be good for Kansas. And really for Kansas right now, the questions for can they consistently score in the half court? It comes down to, well, what can Jalen Wilson and

Grady Dick bring for the team? Because those are the two guys that can kind of get their bucket for themselves in the half court. LikeJuan Harris very trustworthy point guard he's going to put you in the right sets that are going to allow you to score sometimes in the half court as well and throw good lobs and you know Kevin McCuller have a couple nice plays but consistently it'll be Jalen Wilson and Grady Dick the guys that can score for in the half court we saw what what Jalen was able to do but it was kind of a one-man show because nobody else was able to consistently step up on the offensive end when they were in the half court for Kansas to consistently score. And the problem, what we saw in that game was that with Grady Dick, he's going to have games where he's going to get maybe hunted a little bit defensively as Duke was

doing. They kept going after him. And if the scoring isn't elite and you're getting hunted defensively, then it's going to be tough to stay on the court for, you know, 30 plus minutes per game. And if it's tough to stay on the court for 30 plus minutes per game, and you're one of the team's best scorers and the best shooter on the team, and one of your best options in the half court, along with Jalen Wilson, you're going to labor a bit offensively. You just are. And so Grady Dick gets hunted defensively. He comes out game he's struggling in the early going shooting uh the basketball really through most of the game he only had I think four points five points something like that um and then the the end of stretch kind of comes for Grady Dick because the flip side to that is

that you know it's it's almost like a Remy Martin thing for Kansas. Like Remy Martin had times where maybe got lost a little bit defensively or whatnot, but he could make you tough shots at the end of games. And we saw how important that was for Kansas to win the title against North Carolina. Grady Dick is a really good scorer and can have a stretch where he wins you a game in a few minutes, as he did in the Duke game. He struggled a lot of the way. He obviously didn't

have the you know best defensive game getting kind of hunted on that end but he came through in the clutch for you which there's not much more you can say about a freshman's mentality than that of that hey you're struggling to shoot the ball I think at one point he had missed dating back to the game before like seven straight three pointers they're consistently going at you on the defensive side of the ball is this going to affect your your psyche and your mental side of it you get benched for a little bit of time he comes back in no problem at all transition three yeah let's do it okay you struggle to shoot threes all night nah don't care it goes in um some of the layup packages that he showed in that game unbelievable and he kind of wins you that game with that last minute burst that he had at the end there

along with dewan harris's play that kind of spearheaded those last few minutes for you. DeJuan really engineering things on the defense side, the offense side, throwing the lob to Grady Dick, throwing the other lob. I mean, it was masterclass by those two guys, and it was masterclass all game long by Jalen Wilson. Jalen Wilson, absolute stud. He looked every part of a true leader of an all-American in that game. And that's been something that he has looked like literally

every game so far, whether it's the exhibition or the two games before this, he continues to stack up performances of why you think this is going to be the case for him. But he's going to need help. He just is. And so Grady Dick can can be that but Kansas clearly will need some help in the half court so it's kind of funny because I think uh you saw some of the struggles Kansas could have this season against better competition which Duke is going to be a really good team I mean uh this is going to be a top 10 team probably all season long with with some of the talent that they have um Kansas showed some of their maybe, but I think what they also showed you is that they have more than enough strengths and they have more than enough guys that even through some of the

quote unquote faults, they're going to be able to grind out wins and find a way to win because in the end, the defense was electric for Kansas. There was a stretch maybe to begin the second half, maybe for the first 10 minutes or so where Duke was able to find some rhythm offensively. But overall, the Kansas defense was great in that game. Jalen Wilson was great. Grady Dick, fantastic finish for you. DeJuan Harris in command at all times for Kansas. And in the end, you get a big-time comeback win at the end. I mean, certainly one that, you know, in the first half, if you said Kansas was going to win, you felt like Kansas was the much better team, even though the score was only with them up four at the break.

But then once Duke got up and, you know, they're up a couple scores late in the game and Kansas laboring offensively, it became like a super fun kind of jolted finish to the end for what KU did there. You showed your resolve. You showed your championship heart, which that should not be discounted here. You showed Jalen can be that guy. You showed why you can be elite defensively, and you showed that you can be really feisty on that end, even if you are undersized at times. The amount of blocks and steals that KU created in that game, the havoc and the charge plays as well.

You're not perfect. And certainly you had some downfalls that almost did lead to a loss last night. But in the end, you scored a big time resume boosting victory. And you showed once again, you're one of the elite teams. You're one of the top tier teams in college basketball. All right. In just a second here, we're going to get on to our goats of the game for Kansas. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager for your small business. You want to be 100% certain that you have access to the best qualified candidates available. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs helps find the right people for your team faster and for free. It's super easy to go through. I know I have the LinkedIn app on my phone. You're scrolling through to see what other people are up to. If somebody had something go on at work, you see other jobs on there.

It's super easy to click on one of the jobs and apply right from your phone. And so it's going to get a lot more traffic just in general with that. It's super easy to look at. It's super easy to do. All you got to do, add your purple hashtag hiring frame to your LinkedIn profile to spread the word that you're hiring. Simple tools like screening questions make it easy to focus on candidates with just the right skills and experience so you can quickly prioritize who you'd like to interview and hire. You want to finish the year strong, whether it's sales upcoming for the holiday season, Black Friday coming up, or just to make yourself feel good and feel like you're on the positive trajectory headed into 2023, right? Kansas football feels like they're finishing

the year strong. They just got their bowl win, although they lost to Texas Tech, but they're trying to have a boost as they'll go into a bowl game to feel like they're on an even upward trajectory to win even more games in 2023. Kansas basketball looking to, you know, go strong here in the non-con to really get a boost headed into conference play. You want to do the same with your

business. It's why small businesses rate LinkedIn Jobs number one in delivering quality hires versus leading competitors. LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. It's linkedin.college

to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, go of the game for just in their win over the Duke Blue Devils. I think the first go that we definitely have to mention here is Norm Roberts. Norm Roberts filling in for Bill Self with the four-game self-imposed suspension for Kansas. And, you know, you kind of looked at it and went,

okay, well, maybe we go 3-1 in these first four games. You know, if we lose to Duke, it's not the end of the world. They're a good team. You don't have Bill Self. But guess what? They beat Duke, and Norm Roberts did a great job with some of the execution and stuff down the stretch. I did wonder if, because obviously in the second half,

you saw the big foul discrepancy between Duke and Kansas. Kansas had been called for eight or nine fouls. Duke had only been called for two or something in the second half. That made me wonder, is that a bill self changer in that second half like if bill self is out there in the second half um he's probably screaming at the officials i don't know maybe he gets a technical and it works the other way on you uh but you wonder if the foul calls maybe end up a little bit more even in that second half but nonetheless norm roberts great job filling in for bill self and gets kind of the mark you win last night i continue i i wish that the

wins counted for him because he really does deserve them. And who knows? Maybe some coach or some team is going to view this and say, yeah, he's had a lot of success as an assistant. He had the St. John's gig before. He's had even more time from them to learn from his past lessons. And we saw what he did with Kansas here. I wonder if he'll get a head coaching job off of this. Jalen Wilson, obviously good goat from the game. 25 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, played 38 minutes for you. He was a warrior on the floor. And this is what's crazy too. He went 0 of 7 from 3. And by the way, like I'm not viewing that as a bad sign.

I know we've talked a lot about how Jalen Wilson, and this is still true, he needs to shoot the ball well because Kansas is going to have questions about, well, how well are they going to shoot from three-point range? And obviously that reared its ugly head in that game. But honestly, I'm not really taking that game into too much account right now because everybody struggled on both ends of the court. Duke and Kansas combined went 6 of 40 from three. I kind of think, because we saw this a couple of years ago when this game was

played in Indianapolis, Kansas had a problematic game from downtown. I wonder if, if there are just such different sight lines or whatnot, that it takes a lot more time to adjust to shooting in that arena than maybe some other arenas. I get it. Like the Pacers play there, I believe.

And, you know, you would think that, oh, well, okay. NBA players are playing there and that's totally fine, but maybe it takes some time to adjust to it and you don't have enough time with the champions classic. So I'm not really viewing that as a negative. I'm almost more viewing it as a positive. Cause think about this. If Jalen Wilson goes two of seven from three, which is not like a great percentage over the long haul for Kansas, it's around 30%. If he goes two of seven from three in that game, he puts up over 30 points and has 11 rebounds and five assists.

He already had a great game to begin with, so that's even crazier that that was the case. DeJuan Harris, just a rock for you, continues to be wins you game like some of the things he does that don't necessarily show up in the stat sheet win you games whether it's cutting off somebody on the offensive side creating ball pressure knowing when to double uh sometimes it does show up in the stat sheet with like a steal or whatnot but it doesn't show up as flashy as like points he had six points in the game had a couple big time layups for you four rebounds 10 assists he became the first Jayhawk with 10 assists in a game since 2020 and he was just in control the way that he finished that game for you with some accurate passing and whatnot like again he just he just continues to kind of win you games in a lot of

different ways Kevin McCuller good goat 12 points he was 50 from the floor he had two big threes for you in the early going to get you going on offense, six rebounds. He had two assists played 29 minutes. Great defense. I mean, even like he is really going to unlock for him and kind of, kind of KJ Adams. Cause he has to play up in size, but Kevin McCuller is really the secret to me of how and why Kansas is going to be able to get away with playing small because of the fact that even though he's a wing kind of a guard type, he is 6'6", so that gives you good size, but he's even able to play up with a lot of crafty ways.

You see Kyle Filipowski, who quickly became the big Duke villain of this year's team in that game, driving at him in transition, and Kevin McCullers giving up 6 six, seven inches to Kyle Filipowski. And he just, he's so good at stripping the basketball and having quick hands. And that allows you to kind of play up in size that you can strip the ball down. And just like some of the plays that he made to like, there was the one he was called for a foul in the second half, but he recovered on basically a block from behind to almost block from behind. I believe it was Mark Mitchell, but he got called for a foul for it.

But maybe shouldn't have. I don't know. Either way, it is just unbelievable the versatility he provides you and allows you to guard bigger players even at his size. And he can just switch all over, quick hands, create steel. It's unbelievable on defense. Good at taking charge. Like maybe he brought over the Texas tech charge recipe because Kansas was

really good at that yesterday's game against Duke, which adds to the irony that, you know, 15 years ago, you would have said the team with all the size and the big men down low was Kansas. And you would have said the team with a white guy shooter, like Grady Dick and taking all the charges is Duke.

We've kind of reversed roles a little bit there in that regard. But yeah, Kevin McCullough, good goat. The beginning and the end of Grady Dick's game. So, you know, if you just read the first chapter and the last chapter, unbelievable game for Grady Dick. He started the game well. He had four early points and he had that crazy like windmill layup on the cut from the baseline.

Unbelievable finish. And then the middle part of the game was a struggle for him. Str on the cut from the baseline. Unbelievable finish. And then the middle part of the game was a struggle for him. Struggled to shoot the ball, struggled to make an impact offensively. Duke did a really good job taking him away. He started getting hunted defensively. KU had to take him out of the game. But then he closed the game really well.

So the beginning and the end of Grady Dick's game, fantastic for KU. I wanted to put KJ Adams on here for his grittiness for some of the defense important eight points for KU didn't miss a shot but KU did really struggle on the glass in this game give up a lot of offensive rebounds over 20 offensive rebounds he was part of that so I'll just give him honorable mention as far as the bad goats the middle part of Grady Dix, we just mentioned why the beginning and end, fantastic. And overall, you take it, helped you win that game. But the middle part shows you some of the things that, yeah, he is still a freshman and there are some parts of this game

that he has to work on and that will get better over the course of time. The KU centers, I know some people walked away kind of, I don't know, impressed that they did enough to get you the win, and they held their own to certain regards. But I feel like that is a little bit of winning goggles that you look at it and go, oh, yeah, we have some talent there. But, I mean, if KU loses that game, those guys become a lot bigger scapegoats. Ernest Uday played 13 minutes.

He had no points and one rebound. Zuby Adjafar played 10 minutes. He is unbelievable points and one rebound. Zuby Adjoufer played 10 minutes. He is unbelievable at rebounding. Two points and five rebounds. So you total it up in the 23 minutes that Kansas played a true center, basically. You notched two points on one of three shooting and six rebounds. That is not going to get it done consistently against elite competition. It's not even that you have to score consistently, but you got to be able to hold your own more

maybe on the glass. And yes, Duke is a bit of a unicorn in terms of the teams you're going to be playing because most teams won't have one big man as good as what Duke has with either Kyle Filipowski or Derek Lively or whatnot, or one of the transfer, like, you know, Ryan Young's fine from the transfer from Northwestern. Most teams won't definitely have two of them. So from that standpoint, it is a bit of a unicorn and KU won't have to face a lot of teams that are like that, but still you need to get a little bit more production there. Honestly, right now I'm kind of on team Zuby, but I understand if

you want to play Uday more, because I guess this goes back to what I've kind of felt like since the off season, that Zuby Ejifer might be more college ready right now. Like you saw some of the numbers you put up against high level competition in the L circuit or whatnot. And it'd make you think that, yeah, okay,

maybe he's going to be better right now, but Ernest Uday probably has the higher ceiling. Understand if you're like, Hey, we should play Ernest Uday more in the early going because if we get both to the same point of progression, Ernest Uday is going to be better at that point. And maybe that makes Ernest Uday better by conference play.

So I get either way they want to go with it. But Zuby did give you some pretty good minutes and important minutes down low for you in that game. Bad goat Joe Yesifu. KU needs him to make shots. He was 0 for 4. He just looked really off. He had that one stretch where he missed the three really badly,

and that was a theme for Kansas all night. I already talked about the threes, but then he got the ball immediately back off the tap out, another wide open three, and missed it badly again. And that was one thing for KU in the game. It's not just that they were missing threes. They were missing a lot of them badly, which makes you think there was something there. but for Joe Yassifu, he had

an opportunity with MJ Rice out. You continue to talk about the competition between those two guys for, um, I guess rotation spot in the lineup. And, um, he wasn't really able to take advantage of that and hit you some big shots, which again, that's going to kind of be his role on the team. And if he can master that, he'll play a good amount. If he can't, then it's, you know, kind of one of those things like office space. It's like, well, you know, what exactly do you do around here for, for Joe? Yes. When I know he does other things that help the team, but that is like the main role for

what they need him to do. All right. A quick note to finish on the KU ball front in just a second here, but first this this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by BetOnline. BetOnline.net is your number one source for sports betting information, stats, news, and analysis. Get the latest odds and trends for every professional and amateur league out there, from football to basketball to soccer and esports. They've got it all at BetOnline.net.

And if you love sports podcasts, you can find those at BetOnline as well. We're always the fastest and easiest way to get your betting fixed with BetOnline. Head to the website today. Use your mobile device to learn more. Line hasn't come out yet for the Southern Utah game, but that'll be out shortly, so you can bet on that. You can bet on Kansas against Texas, getting 9.5 points right now, over under in the mid-60s.

You know, just figure that kansas this i've played texas within a one score game four of the last five so you're given nine and a half that's two scores seems like uh maybe a pretty good bet there that you can get with bet online check them out at betonline.net quick uh finish here get to some KU football stuff. Quick note on Jalen Daniels here. Seems like Jalen Daniels is going to be the guy who starts against Texas. This isn't me reporting it or saying it's a for sure thing, but it just seems like all the arrows are pointing in that direction.

So we had earlier this week Lance Leipold at his press conference on the precipice of Jalen Daniels in the Texas Tech game suiting up and looking like he was getting close to ready to go. Lance Leipold had some good things to say about the progress that Jalen has kind of made. We had neither quarterback, Jalen or Jason Bean, at KU MediaVale this week, and that's been kind of a telltale sign for KU in the past few weeks. Like Jason Bean was made available the past few weeks at KU media availability.

Now, I don't know. It could have just been Jason Bean. Wasn't made available this week because he suffered kind of a, an injury at the end of the game against Texas tech that put Ethan Vasco in there, but neither quarterback was, was at media avail.

So I don't know, take it for what it's worth because that has actually told us in the past few weeks who is going to be the starter i know you had bryson stricker mentioned that uh you know he's going to be the guy on saturday and then a little bit after that you had jaylen daniels tweet out like pack the booth of the picture which that could you know that could be anything but add it all up, seems like things are trending in the direction that Jalen Daniels is going to be the quarterback this Saturday, and that could be really, really exciting. It would be senior day.

You get to see him one final time at home, and you obviously have the tie-ins last year of getting his first start against Texas of last season. He comes away with the victory. Could be the starter this time around. Would be a lot of high energy in the air for KU football if that is the case. And you just like to think, I don't know. I think they might win that Texas Tech game if Jalen is the starting quarterback,

assuming he's 100%. It just opens up so much more, which you can do on the offensive end. So excited to see if that's the case. We're going to preview that KU Texas game coming up on the Friday edition of Locked on Hawks. Tomorrow's episode, we are going to preview the Southern Utah game for basketball. Obviously the Southern Utah game is on Friday, but because I want to spend Friday's show previewing the Texas game,

we'll do the preview for Southern Utah on Thursday. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about or want to spend Friday's show previewing the Texas game. We'll do the preview for Southern Utah on Thursday. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along on the action, you can reach out at D Johnson radio on Twitter and don't forget to subscribe to the show. So you're getting all the latest with locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. Don't forget to check us out on YouTube as well.

I'll see some of you on RCST later today. Bye.