Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Top 10 Available Options for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball at the Wing/Forward Positions in Recruiting

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Who are the best options for Kansas Jayhawks basketball at the wing and forward positions that are available at the high school level in recruiting and in the transfer portal as Bill Self tries to rebuild his roster for 2023-24 season at KU. From Harrison Ingram to Jaylon Tyson, Matthew Cleveland, Jalen Hill and more!Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, top 10 wing or forward transfer options for KU in the portal right now. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Eric Johnson, you can hear me as well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us, like, subscribe on YouTube. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks,

we're going to be going over my top 10 wing slash forward options for KU available in the transfer portal. Once again, a reminder of how we did this with the point guards, combo guard types. You know, if it's someone who has already picked a different school or has maybe narrowed their list down and KU hasn't been a part of it, at least that I've seen, maybe some of these guys have. Or maybe if it's guys that haven't shown a ton of interest in Kansas,

like maybe they'll still be on this list because this is my list, but that might make them further down for some reason. So we'll get into that over the course of this. We have four different tiers, technically a fifth in this one. We'll get to that here. Let's start with Tier 4. Actually, before we do that quick update on some uh visit stuff for ku the harrison ingram visit was delayed don't view much into that they said it was just a

class thing i don't know um if there's something else like maybe there's you know something going on with okay you're just figuring out a schedules thing i i don't look much into it i think okay you're still very much interested in harrison ingram harrison ingram still very much interested in ku arterio morris might visiting. That one kind of is interesting for a lot of different reasons. We'll get into a deep dive with him later in the week. Hunter Dickinson is supposed to be this week also, and then Primo Spears is next week. So there's your updates on some visits, at least for now, for Kansas. Obviously, it's a very fluid situation and a lot of those visits, as we just saw with Harrison Ingram, can get pushed to another date.

Still waiting on the Nicholas Timberlake decision, too, at least as of now when I'm recording. All right, Tier 4. This is our top 10 wing forward transfer options. I tier them out. Tier 4 is Cario Oquindo. Don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but he is a transfer from Georgia. He is a kind of power guard.

He's kind of power guard he's kind of a two guard type but he'll be playing maybe the two or three positions the reasons why he would fit ku he's had real power conference production 14 points per game in two seasons for his career at georgia he's excellent in transition he's a power guard he's physical he's strong he works well in handoffs he works works well cutting off the ball. He's a good offensive rebounder for his size. But the reason that he's only tier four and not higher on this list, he's only 27% from three over the past two seasons at Georgia. He's not good at spot-up shooting, only in the 18th percentile on synergy,

below average in isolation. He's more of a two-guard at six-foot-four. You could play him at the three. I mean, that's kind of similar enough in size to when Wayne Seldon was playing the three. If you have DeJuan at the one and El Marco at the two or one of these combo guards that they're recruiting at the two. But, you know, ideally he is more of that two type, but he doesn't shoot it super well. And as we're going through a list of these, there will be other guys that maybe aren't the most elite shooters, but they do certain things well. And I think with this wing position,

with this forward position, what you've seen is there's not that Hunter Dickinson. There's not that Max A. Smith or Tyler Perry or L.J. Cryer that comes in and you feel like a lot would have to go right for, I think, any of these wing options for that to be the case. And so there's just not as much maybe star power in the transfer portal for that notion of it um so there are some guys on this list but ideally you want a player here who at least is decent at shooting threes doesn't have to be grady dick but can you at least be above 30 on decent enough volume again that's not everybody

that's going to be on this list including oquindo because the list isn't super deep at the wing position i think right now uh in the transfer portal but um that is something that would be very nice for ku because we know they're losing a lot of wing minutes and they're losing a lot of shooting let's move on to tier three three features jaylen hill from oklahoma and oliver in kamwa from Tennessee. For Hill, he would fit because he's an experienced player in the Big 12 play. This will be year five for him. His previous four all have come in the Big 12. Knows how to operate in the league.

Experience is always a good thing in college basketball. He averaged over nine points per game his last two seasons at Oklahoma. He's a good rebounder, and he is a really, really good defender as a wing. Those things would fit KU, would help you fit some of what you lost with Kevin McCuller. But the problem is, you know, he's just not a shooter, right? I mean, if he was even Kevin McCuller shooting, he'd probably be Tier 2 on this thing. But the problem is, so he shot similar percentages to Kevin McCuller, 29% from three last year 27

from three in his career like that's not that different than what kevin mcculler brings to the table from three-point shooting but here's the difference kevin mcculler might be taken two three three pointers four in a game and jaylen hill is only taking one try per game so the volume's not there when the volume's not there that does matter volume's not there, that does matter. KU, like, think about it. KU averaged 23s per game last season. How are they getting up to that number this year? Jalen and Grady combined for like half of those on their own. You're not going to get that with Jalen Hill. And that's why he is only tier three, but he is a really, really good defender. If you happen to land a couple of big time shooting prospects around him, maybe you could make it work, but I don't know. The shooting does make it a big hurdle um also he's in tier three i've heard that there's

um a very big nil sum that he wants to go his way i don't know if that's true or not might just be a rumor but um ku obviously needs as much nil money to i don't know funnel toward hunter dickens in as possible uh oliver and kamwa is on this list as well. I really thought about putting Kamwa on tier two because he does have good size, six foot nine, 236 pounds. He's a good athlete. You can play him a little at the three. You would mostly play him at the four. Really strong defender.

Emphasis on the word strong. He was an above average player in post-ups, cuts, and spot-up shooting. He was excellent in transition, all per synergy. Those are all great reasons to have him. But why he's not in a lower tier or better tier, however you want to describe it, he had some good shooting games late. Like, the most notable one that everybody will bring up

is the Duke game. He had 27 points against Duke, and he really went off from three. Overall in the season, though, he shot just 33% from three on low volume, 2.3 attempts per game. If it was 33% on four to five attempts per game, I think that would be more doable.

But again, that low volume worries you. And overall, you worry about the offense. Now, is he that much different as a player profiling, just say a Harrison Ingram, who we'll talk about later? Maybe not. Not nearly a passer. A little less feel around the hoop um but you know you're looking at both really strong guys who can play the four for you maybe some three can

defend pretty well for you but i just think there's a little less there with the offense and the potential of the offense and i also think there's been some you know talk about uh him possibly going pro and because he is from finland it makes it a little more difficult in the recruiting process with how you're going to work the nil money uh with needing certain loopholes to get that together so this is kind of just a feasible like there are some hurdles there that you have to overcome which is why he is tier three and you do worry about some of the offense but you know i don't know maybe maybe he should have been tier two the more that i'm talking about because he is a really good player he is a really good player all right we're going

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sign up FanDuel, an official partner of Major League Baseball. On to Tier 2. I actually just split this up into two Tier 2s. Should I have just gone Tier 5, Tier 4, Tier 3, Tier 2, Tier 1? Probably. But I thought that

there were, like, the guys in Tier 2B, the reason I did this is because I like the guys in tier two B. The reason I did this is because I thought the guys in tier two B are so close to the guys in tier two A that I did want to have kind of a separation of it. So we're going to start with Dalton Connect. I don't know if the K is supposed to be silent and it's Nectar Connect, but I like to think it's Connect because think about the puns you could have is, you know, the you can just envision Brian haney now like he connects on a three right just works out um so anyway so dalton connects is a six foot six swing man who he can maybe play some undersized four i mean he did a lot at northern colorado but that was also northern colorado um is a bit of a tweener because you worry about the foot speed of playing the three.

You worry about if he's too small playing the four, but he's six foot six. He does rebound well, again, albeit in a much smaller conference, over seven rebounds per game at Northern Colorado, elite shooting and scoring. Those are things that jump off the page for what KU needs right now. 20 points per game at Northern Colorado last year. He shot 48% from the field, 38% from three on high volume. He ranked 95th percentile on synergy and spot up shooting. That's great. 88th percentile off screens. And he was really good cutting without the ball too. He ranked 95th percentile there. So you make up for a lot of what you lost with Grady Dick. If you

bring in Dalton connect, at least on the offensive side of the ball. But here's why he's not in a better tier and why he's 2B for me instead of 2A. One is the jump up in competition. Northern Colorado ranked 222nd in Ken Palm, and they were in the Big Sky. I was actually surprised to see how well the Big Sky ranked among conferences last year. They were 17th in the country. So it's better than you'd expect and better than some other conferences, but that still is a clear jump up in competition. In the games he played against Houston and Baylor, which were probably the two best schools they played, he scored a total of 19 points. Albeit, he did have 24 against Colorado, but that was a non-NCAA tournament team.

So you do have to worry about the competition. But beyond that, here's the big one. And I was originally coming into this figuring connect would be 2A just because of the scoring and how impactful that would be. He is not super fleet of foot. So like I said, you worry about if you play him at the three, is he going to be getting torched defensively by other three men? If you play him at the four, is he going to be too small and undersized?

He only ranked in the 22nd percentile on defense, according to Synergy, and that was at a lower much lower athletic conference like when you think of the big sky there's some good like you think back i don't know like the groves brothers for instance there's a lot of skill there's a lot of touch there's not like the athleticism that's the biggest part of the jump to go from the big sky to say the big 12 or one of these power conferences and so for him to rank 22nd percentile on defense in the big sky good luck moving up to the big 12 so that's why he is only to be for me this would be all about the offense and i've said this before i've said it with in regards like nicholas timberlake

who wasn't a good defender either that if you're kansas like you figure you have the defensive insulation you figure you have bill self you need the offense you need the scoring you have the defensive insulation. You figure you have Bill Self. You need the offense. You need the scoring. You need the shooting that it's a take. And you absolutely do take Dalton Connect. And I think that's very clear because you need those things and you figure out the rest later. But that's why he's 2B and not 2A or Tier 1, even though how I classified Tier 2s are guys that you absolutely take

as part of this. Now, maybe you take one over the other, and that's part of diagnosing the different tiers and who you would take out part of this. Now, maybe you take one over the other, and that's part of diagnosing the different tiers and who you would take out of that tier. But it is somebody that hypothetically, if all the other guys in the tier were away and he was your last option, you gladly take. Okay, Matthew Cleveland from Florida State.

Again, this is a guy I thought was going to be in tier 2A possibly from Florida State, but I did some more deep dive on it. He is 6'7". He can play the three or the four for you. A little skinnier for being a four maybe, but he can play either one. He had real power level production for two seasons. He averaged over 11 points per game both seasons at Florida State.

And last season, he put up almost 14 points, seven and a half rebounds per game. The numbers are awesome at a power level. Shot fairly well from three, 35%. Those all sound like great things. Well, here's why. Florida State was not good each of his two seasons. There's always the worry when you bring on a player, and I'm not saying this is necessarily the case for Cleveland,

but it is a risk you have to take. Was he putting up good numbers because he's a really good player, or was he putting up good numbers on he's a really good player or was he putting up good numbers on a bad team because somebody had to put up numbers where he's still a good player but maybe not as good as the numbers would show florida state i don't know if people know this because we we're used to florida state being this really good team up until the last two years they weren't just bad last year they were really bad they ranked this for a power conference team they ranked 205th in the country last season did Florida State and he struggled on defense he ranked in just the 30th

percentile in man-to-man defense on synergy 36th percentile overall on defense I'm also not sure he's a true 35 three-point shooter it was only two tries per game that's low volume he shot in the high 60s at the foul line which usually free throws can be an indicator of how good or bad you can be in terms of touch for your three-point shooting and he only ranked in the 51st percentile in spot-up shooting one year after ranking in the eighth percentile now maybe you could say well that just shows improvement he went from the eighth percentile to 51st i feel like if you get him there is a it's it's not the guy where it's like hey maybe there's linear improvement to me

there's a chance he comes in and he only shoots 30 or something from three plus the defense's worry plus the the worry about him being on a bad team that's why he's to be instead of two way again guy you gladly take you would help in a lot of ways for ku but we're picking nits here about why you know not higher up on the list. The last one I have on tier two B is Caleb Boone. And I'll be honest, I don't know if he would be a four or five man for, for KU. Um, so I'm actually probably going to have him in the center list when we have that come out at some point later this week or next week, whenever that we get around to it. Uh, but why he'd fit, he can at least space to the mid range, not really a big three point shooter,

but he can at least hit in the mid range. He can score on the block. We saw that against KU when he played really well. He can maybe give you some four minutes, maybe some five. I don't know. Maybe he could play the three. I don't know, but he's six foot nine.

He's done it in the big 12. So you don't have to worry about the translation. 10.6 points per game, almost five rebounds per game. Last season shot 59% from the floor for Oklahoma state. And he'll also be a fifth year guy uh so experienced guy played well in defense 75th percentile last season in man now he was playing a lot of five man for oklahoma state at the end of the season originally a four

and then they kind of moved him to five um so if you're guarding up as a three or four does some of the man get worse because you're having to worry about foot speed i don't know but why he's not in a better tier um there is that part of me that wonders if he has to play the five because of the lack of three-point shooting he has gone two for nine his whole career so he's only attempted nine threes in four seasons eight of them came last year he was two for eight and also of those defensive possessions a lot are in post-ups for why he ranked in the 75th percentile uh he did struggle defending off of screens he was above average 61st percentile in isolation defense but a lot of that was against other big men so if you're playing him more on the wing do those become issues but

mostly for me it is about the lack of three-point shooting for why he is all right we'll get to uh tier 2a and then tier one to finish things up after we take a quick break with Locked on Jayhawks. On to Tier 2A and then we'll finish up with Tier 1 with Locked on Jayhawks. By the way, coming up on tomorrow's show, I want to do an Arterio Morris deep dive because there's

a lot there, both in terms of the on-the-court stuff and the off-the-court stuff that I want to get into on tomorrow's show. Then we'll get to Hunter Dickinson deep dive on Thursday when he's supposed to at least as of now have visit okay tier 2a Jalen Tyson from Texas Tech Hakeem Hart from Maryland and Harrison Ingram from Stanford as you notice there's a little asterisk on Jalen Tyson get to why in a second so if you guarantee me that Jalen Tyson will be eligible he's tier 2a the reason there's the asterisk is because there's not a guarantee he will be eligible jaylen tyson started

his career texas transferred to texas tech and is now leaving texas tech he's not a graduate the ncaa said they're going to crack down on two-time transfers. They also have, as part of the stipulations, the guys can get a waiver for like mental or physical, I don't know, reasoning of if there was like abuse or something like that, or if he has, you know, mental health issues, then he needs to maybe like be closer to home or something like that. And there is also, you know, some stuff about there

if they were like mistreated by the coach now i if you remember mark adams ended up getting fired from texas tech because there was a racial um comment made um from mark adams we don't know which player that was about necessarily if it was about and this is just me speculating if it was about Jalen Tyson you would think he would be able to get an immediate waiver right even if it's not about Jalen Tyson I would still kind of think you'd be able to get an immediate waiver though because you're talking about a like I don't know that's a sticky situation for the NCAA if they're like well I know you're saying that your coach made a racist comment but we don't think that's reason enough to transfer like that's probably not a position you want to be in if you're the NCAA so if you're saying that your coach made a racist comment, but we don't think that's reason enough to transfer.

Like, that's probably not a position you want to be in if you're the NCAA. So if you're asking me, I feel like he would be immediately eligible if he's not. I don't even know if he's on this list because I don't know if you can afford taking on a guy who would have to sit out a year when they're already down the scholarship. Unless there's the extra kicker. What if you was like, hey, just come in as a walk on. We'll pay you enough NIL money. It'll pay for it. And the next year we'll get you your scholarship or something like that.

That could possibly work, and then maybe he'd be like Tier 3. But I expect him to be eligible because of some of those things, and if that's the case, Tier 2A. Here's why he'd fit. He's got good size on the wing, 6'6 or 6'7. He can play the 2 for you. He can play the 3. Maybe you could get away with some minutes of him at the 4

because he is a good rebounder, though I think he he is pretty slight of frame you'd be better off having him at the two or three but he averaged almost 11 points per game in the big 12 at Texas Tech like I said good rebounder six rebounds per game and best of all he shot over 40 percent from three on three and a half attempts per game while being good on spot ups and excellent off screens on synergy and here's the kicker he was 80th percentile in defense on synergy so good defensive wing who shoots threes basically a three indie wing who will still crash the glass and be active on rebounds honestly you could convince me he should be tier one for what this kansas team needs specifically with the shooting oh and he'd still be fine on the defensive end maybe he should be tier one but again there's still a little bit of that hold up with the eligibility thing um and why he's not in a better

tier that is really the biggest reason why um he's also not really someone who you know is gonna like maybe create his own shot a ton off the dribble um but i don't know that many of these wings on this list are going to be that guy consistently like maybe he can attack on a straight line drive or you know hit a three off a jab step or if somebody goes under a screen or something but i'm saying like you know are they going to be able to do what jaylen wilson does no but that's why jaylen wilson is the first team all-american you're not finding that the transfer portal right now um so this would be absolutely take for ko hakeem hart uh on this list why he would fit he would be a fifth year player experienced guy he's played

every year at a power five level playing at maryland on a solid team like maryland's just been solid whether they've been 11 and a half points per game over four rebounds per game two and a half assists per game over steel per game just does a little bit of everything over 48 shooting from the floor he's been a really good free throw shooter over 80 on free throws the last two seasons he's also a good physical build six foot seven maybe six foot eight i think he came into college at six foot six and he grew you'll see some places have enlisted six seven others at six eight either good size, good physicality. He can play on the wing at the three, or he can play at the four.

And he ranked in the 84th percentile in defense per synergy. So really good defender. He also was in the 86th percentile in man-to-man defense, so good in man defense, and also did well defending cuts handoffs and was offensively in the 95th percentile in transition play which KU loves to get out and go so I mean all those things perfect fit for KU now why he's not tier one the shooting is fine but it's not

elite he shot 33 percent from three for three straight seasons. Consistency there. But the volume is higher than some of the others on this list. Like we talked about in Comwatt, basically 2.3 per game. Hill at like one per game. He was at about three and a half per game. So the volume is a little bit more there. Also, the free throw shooting being over 80% the last two years

shows he has good touch. Maybe there is more potential there for him to get up to 34, 35, 36%. And he was 70th percentile in spot-up shooting. But that being only, you know, in terms of the three-point shooting overall, like just average coming in, that would be the knock here for a team that does need more shooting. But again, there is reason to expect it to be better and he does a lot of other things well now if you're playing him at the four do you worry at all him only averaging four rebounds per game

maybe maybe that should go in here as well um but i think he would be a great fit for ku now if you take the last guy on this list harrison ingram who we already did a deep dive on so i don't need to go like super into that check that episode out if you missed it um i don't think hart and ingram work together on the same team but let's say you did miss on ingram hart would be somebody you'd go with whereas with jaylen tyson you could bring him on with either of these guys because of his shooting ability and it would work um just fine but yeah ingram smart player good passer good size can play through four good rebounder high potential to improve uh but not in tier one because of the speed and quickness and the uh shooting a little bit inconsistently again check out the harrison ingram deep dive if you missed that one from uh yesterday's podcast

i finished your one we have one guy uh mckenzie imbaco i don't know if that's how you pronounce it he is a top 10 recruit i think number seven in the 24-7 composite uh he was duke's highest rated recruit coming in on on what was the number one class. He is a five star. He's like six foot eight, 210 pounds. I'd imagine you could play him at the three, but mostly at the four. And you're talking about a guy who has possibly lottery pick potential. That's not really the case of a lot of these other guys.

Now, what's interesting here is those guys I mentioned in tier two A and maybe even tier 2b heck maybe even some of the guys in tier 3 have a much higher floor than what you could get out of a freshman coming in where who knows maybe he's not ready right so the floor is higher on those other guys but the ceiling is what's different because the ceiling of all those other guys you mentioned is like maybe they could work into being a second round pick the ceiling on imbocco and i get itU is not just basing it off of NBA status but just to show you the potential what they could be is a lottery pick right so like you're just looking at that and he fits some things well he could play the three or the four 41 and a half percent from three at the high school level so he's a kind of a stretch for one thing though that's interesting is his 2022 Nike EYBL numbers were not good shooting threes.

He only shot 26% from three, but he did take seven attempts per game. I would just, it is an AU ball, so I guess there is that possibility. But normally the guys that take seven threes per game, it's because they shoot them really well. Like maybe he just had like an inconsistent, however that event is i don't know a couple weeks um maybe just had inconsistencies because clearly they kept drawing him up plays the shoot threes because he probably is a good shooter and when you look at the scouting reports it talks about him being a really good shooter with a really good feathery touch so uh maybe that shows inconsistencies and worries as a freshman his high school numbers are good but also that's against

lesser competition i'm'm going to trust the scouting report. I guess you don't know how good totally, but that is what the scouting report expects him to be, and he's clearly a very high-level prospect, so that is why he is in Tier 1. I don't know how in KU is. I'm sure they very much have interest, but seems like

there's some rumblings about him maybe going elsewhere, but yeah, if you could get in, that'd be certainly great for KU. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jocks. We'll be back to do an Artaria Morris and Hunter Dickinson deep dives on coming episodes of the show. You can hear me as well, 3 to 6, Monday through Friday on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk.

And we're going to have RCST trivia starting up shortly. You can also find us wherever you find any of your podcasts here with Locked on Jayhawks as well as on YouTube. Have a good rest of your day. We'll see you next time. Hello, Jay.