Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - TURNING POINT: Kansas Jayhawks DOMINATE Iowa State | Did Players Only Meeting SAVE KU???

Starting point is 00:00:00 A player's only meeting might have saved the season for KU basketball, and they carried it over into a crushing victory over Iowa State. 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 Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. On today's episode of the show, we recap KU's dominant victory over Iowa State, what it means for the season,

Starting point is 00:00:38 how a player's only meeting might have saved the season for KU, the biggest positives and negatives from the game, game awards, moments and plays of the game, all that, and more on today's episode of the show, which is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. College Football Playoff Championship game is here, and Fandual is the best place to get into the action as we wrap up the playoffs. So visit Fandualt.com to get your college football playoff profit boosts every game day. So Kansas dominates Iowa State. I mean, this was from start to finish KU's best game of the season. And it came against, for my money, KU's best opponent of the season.

Starting point is 00:01:13 If you want to argue Duke, you know, you can have a real argument, especially after how this game win. But I think Iowa State's as good as anybody KU has played. And they showed what the ceiling could be, right? They showed that they can, because we've seen them be like, you see him beat Tennessee, who's a good team. You see him beat, you know, win at NC State who's a decent team on the road. And, you know, Missouri's a decent team. but now they showed they can beat one of the elite teams.

Starting point is 00:01:34 And not only that they show they can beat them, they crushed them. And this was almost a season defining win to a certain standpoint. And a season saving win, right? This puts Kansas at 12 and 5 on the season 2 and 2 in Big 12 play. At 1 and 3 hole would have been tough to overcome. Sitting at 11 and 6 when you still play a handful more of top 15 opponents, tough to overcome. And so much so that after the West Virginia game,

Starting point is 00:01:58 we were talking about how, yeah, I still thought Kansas would be a tournament team, but it was no longer a foregone conclusion. Well, you win this game, and it feels like you're back on that track, and now it feels like you can get back into more of the conversations you want to be having of what is this team ceiling. How good can they possibly be? Where can they go from here?

Starting point is 00:02:15 And this was the type of performance that has you dreaming of big things that could possibly come for this team if they can just do more of this. It was a really, really impressive win against a really impressive team who came into this one undefeated on the season. And so we found out in the pregame, this was tweeted out by Gary Bador. Trey White said on radio pregame, the players held a players only meeting in the wake of the loss at West Virginia. He said what was needed to be said was said. And so, you know, sometimes players only meetings only go so far, right?

Starting point is 00:02:50 Like sometimes it's just, it's too much of a mess. But sometimes it can be the turning point. And for a team that does seem to, everything we've heard is this team seems to like each other and they get along with each other. And so having that kind of moment could be the defining and it's easy to look back and now say with the result here that, yeah, it seemed to work in a good way for KU. Now, the question's going to be, is that just going to lead to a one game momentum boost or a one game where everybody ramped up the intensity because of what happened? Or can that have a lasting impact the rest of the season? But regardless of what it was, leading to this result

Starting point is 00:03:27 does have a lasting impact on the rest of the season. It does boost KU's resume. It does boost their confidence. It does show them what they could possibly be, right? It does potentially lead to a bit of momentum. You're playing a good Baylor team at home up coming on the weekend, but you're playing back at home where clearly the Allen Field High, I know you lost the close game to Yukon this year at home,

Starting point is 00:03:46 but like the Allen Fieldhouse magic is there and in full force right now. You look at the comeback against TCU. You look at, you know, the crowd pops we had in the KU, Iowa State game. it potentially could be the moment we look at and say, okay, that was the turning point. Like I remember back in the 2015-16 season, and that Kansas team wound up being one of the best teams. I mean,

Starting point is 00:04:07 they were the number one overall seed in the NCAA tournament, but they had lost like three straight road games. I think it was three of five games overall. And I think they had a players-only meaning. I can't remember, but the story I remember is that they couldn't really figure out who the starting center was or who should play the most minutes. And I think some of the players went to Bill South and was like, we like playing with Land and Lucas.

Starting point is 00:04:28 And Landon Lucas ended up taking over the start and sending role, got more of the minutes. And from there, Kansas won like, I forget what it was, like 16 straight games until they ran into Villanova in the elite eight there. But that ended up being one of the best teams in the country, right? You hit that moment in January. And ideally this would lead to something, you know, even relatively similar there, right? And speaking of Trey White, who brought up the players-only meeting thing, there's something so awesome about, a guy like Trey White who like, I get it. Like I'm not a fan of the, you know, hey, you can wind up at four schools in four years,

Starting point is 00:05:03 which is what has happened with Trey White at the same point in time, you know, like the coaches can move so the players can move and stuff too. But sometimes you get worried that every player who has been in a bunch of different schools is going to be an AJ store situation. And maybe sometimes it's not about that. Like maybe sometimes, like maybe we can look back on Trey White's situation and be like, yeah, he's been at four schools in four years, but that's different than what AJ Store is doing with Trey. Oh, he was at Louisville. Their coach got fired. You know, oh, he was at Illinois and they decided they just wanted to bring in a bunch of like European players, right?

Starting point is 00:05:39 Clearly, you know, Brad Underwood and Bill Salf are friends. Like, he wouldn't have ended up at Kansas if there wasn't a good word put in on him, right? But he's just been so consistently awesome for this team. And it's just funny looking back on all the high profile transfer portal editions that KU has made over the last whatever three, four, five years. And that one of the best ones, KU has been one of the more low-key ones. Like people figured Trey White would come in and be a starter for this team. It's not that they were, you know, oh, who is this guy? Like, people knew who he was.

Starting point is 00:06:12 But I don't think people had any idea that it could be this good because this dude is looking like an all-American level player right now for what he's doing for Kansas. that would have to come with Kansas continuing to win games like this, but the consistency that he is putting up points and the consistency that he is providing for this team has been pretty incredible. And I think Melvin Counsel, to the same extent, has been an under-the-radar transfer edition that has been awesome for KU. I feel like he's gotten his flowers a little bit more,

Starting point is 00:06:40 and deservedly so, but because of especially the big game he had against NC State, that kind of caught people on notice. And I don't know because Trey White's just been so consistent if he's gotten the same flowers nationally, and he absolutely deserves them. We also got to see in this one that I found was very interesting, the true Bill self-rotation.

Starting point is 00:06:57 Obviously, at the end of the game, we'll see a bunch of guys just check in, and we end up with a bunch of guys who end up playing in the game. But there were seven guys who were playing for KU through the first, whatever it was, 37, 38, 39 minutes of the game. It was the starters, Trey White, Melvin, Counsel, Bryson, Tiller, Darren Peterson, Florida, Benuga,

Starting point is 00:07:16 and your two bench guys, it was El Marco Jackson and Jemari McGill. Now, obviously, part of that had to depend on, right? If Badunga or Tiller get in foul trouble, then maybe you have to throw Paul and Bia in a certain situation. But no Jaden Dawson, no Colrosario. And I think this serves two ways. One, this serves as a message to both of those guys that, like, hey, the train has departed. Are you going to find another route to meet me at the next stop and then hopper? on the train or are you going to be sitting back here by the time we loop back around,

Starting point is 00:07:51 you know? And I do think there will be other games. Those guys play. It's not like they're never going to play again, but it clearly was an indication for Bill Self in the bigger games, which becomes important because once you get to the end of the regular season, once you get to the Big 12th tournament, once you get to the NCAA tournament, when Bill Self is really going to go with the guys he trusts, that was an indication right there. As of this time right now, if you were in an NCAA tournament game, it'd be a seven-man rotation and those would be your seven. So we got a little bit of peek into that. Other than that, biggest positives of this one, I mean, obviously beat an undefeated team by

Starting point is 00:08:27 21 points. Like that is a positive in its own. I mentioned Trey White, how good he was. We got to see Darren Peter. Do we count this as Darren Peterson finishing the game? Technically, he still didn't get to, you know, be out there when the clock hit zero. But I count this as Darren Peterson finishing the game. So that's good to see there.

Starting point is 00:08:42 The three-point shooting was electric for KU. That was good to see. And they even did it without, you know, it wasn't like, okay, you would think if KU was 12 of 24 from three, which they were, you would think Darren Peterson, oh, he must have went like six of eight from three or something. It was two of seven. The rest of the team was 10 of 17. So that's encouraging that like, hey, in some other games or some other guys aren't going to be making three,

Starting point is 00:09:05 straightway, it's not going to go five of seven every game. Well, Darren Peterson's going to go better than two of seven in a lot of games. But I thought Bryson Tiller was a big positive. positive in this game because he had been struggling of late. And I think the biggest switch we saw from him, and I think we saw this a little bit from a Marco too, just super aggressive for both of those guys. And then, I mean, you have to talk about the defense, right? Iowa State has had a good offense so for this season. And can you hold them to 37% from the field? KU held them to just 63 points. A lot of turnovers for Iowa State, some of them enforced, some of them forced by KU.

Starting point is 00:09:40 those are big differences in this one. And then the other biggest positive, I would say, in this one, I don't really have any big negatives from this one. I may be another defeated team by 21. Like, we don't need to nitpick. So the final big positive I kind of have here, the ball movement, it felt like for the first time all season, it wasn't, okay, here's the Darren Peterson offense.

Starting point is 00:10:00 Here's the offense without Darren Peterson. It felt like there was synergy and those two things lined up together for, to me, what felt like the first time all season. And all of those are huge positives, not just for this game, but potentially moving forward if you can repeat some of those, but on its own, the victory is gigantic for this Kansas team. All right, let's get on to our moments and plays of the game, stat of the game, awards, game balls, all that and more.

Starting point is 00:10:29 What's next for KU? This is Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. The college football playoff is here. It's on to its championship game. Fanduel is given all customers even more ways to get in on the action during the championship. Because right now, every college football playoff game day, Fanduel users get a profit boost waiting for them in the app.

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Starting point is 00:12:10 Are moments of the game for KU taking out Iowa State 84 to 63, just kind of an all-around performance for KU. They outshot Iowa State 51% to 37% 50% from 3 on 12 of 24. KU had three less turnovers. Anyway, first moment of the game, I think, would have to be the El Marco diving on the loose ball. And then it leads to a Trey White three for an Allen Fieldhouse pop to go up 17 to 9. I think Trey White hit a three moments later, two. to make it 20 to 9. That would be a really good moment in the game.

Starting point is 00:12:44 I thought there's a really fun moment when, so Iowa State, Killian Touré like falls down and is a little slow to get up and the ref inadvertently stops it dead. He should have let the play continue on. And I think Trey White was the one who like hit three off it, right, as they're like whistling it dead.

Starting point is 00:13:04 And it was just kind of like a, I don't know, ball don't lie, a, oh yeah, well, whatever. We'll just, we'll make it anyway. Darren Peterson hits a three to make $7.27. And that was kind of just a, okay, screw you moment. Like, you know, so that was fun. And then it starts getting a little scary there.

Starting point is 00:13:26 Like Peterson goes down with the potential injury. Obviously, he came back, so that was good to go. But on top of that, Iowa State starts coming back a little. They've got it down to 11 points. The Flory play where he kind of, of splits two and takes a dribble or two and then dungs it. That was huge. And then moments later, Trey White hits a three to push it back to 14. And I think that's what kickstarted the 13-0 run for KU that really put this one to bed. The McDonough, like the Trey White one was the one

Starting point is 00:13:57 that kind of kickstarted the run. The McDowell, Corner 3 is the one that enhanced the run, right? Trey White started the car. McDowell got it into fourth gear. He hit that Corner 3. shortly after to put KU up 17. So I think you could kind of look to any of those. I mean, there were some other good moments in buckets after that for KU. The Melvin Council like and one was kind of the exclamation mark with, you know, at the under four timeout, Florey had another kind of drive to the lane. So those are all good to see.

Starting point is 00:14:25 But I think if I was picking one specifically, it'd have to be the early moment with the L. Marco dive, which actually, let's skip ahead to awards here. I'm going to give an award on that to we're all trying to figure out the guy who did this award. You know, the meme, you know, from, oh, gosh, I'm blanking on the name of the TV show. Anyway, it's a guy in the hot talk suit, right? Funny TV show, sketch TV show. Anyway, I think you should leave. So El Marco gets credit for this.

Starting point is 00:14:54 It was a great play. He dives on the loose ball. He passes it ahead. Trey White hits a three. But it's just funny because it's like, you're the one who lost the ball. And then, I mean, credit to him is great play. He made the most out, you know, make lemonade out of lemons. But it was just funny because it was like, you didn't even have to be in that situation to begin with.

Starting point is 00:15:16 But that was just kind of funny there. The other award I want to give away is the aggressive equals better award, which that's going to go to Tiller and O'Marco. Right off the jump in this game, Price and Tiller was aggressive. He scores four early points for KU. He had the early bucket where he's driving to the rim. He had some other aggressive takes in the second half. He had one in the second half where. he missed the shot.

Starting point is 00:15:39 It was a really powerful take, though. He missed the shot, but the process on it was really good. And then actually at the other end, I'm pretty sure he blocked Josh Jefferson at the other end right on defense. So like if Bryson Tiller is playing that way and playing that aggressively, he looks like a future pro. He looks like a future KU star. And he is super impactful.

Starting point is 00:15:59 And that's just what you want to see each and every game for KU. But it's the same with El Marco. Like the difference for El Marco, the difference for El Because here's the thing, El Marco is faster than most of the other people on the floor. He is a good athlete, but sometimes he doesn't play that way. When he is playing aggressive, when he is like, like he's getting to the free throw line in the first half, he's driving, he's getting paint touches. He's using his speed to his advantage to cause mismatches. That is when he is at his best.

Starting point is 00:16:30 And I think you saw a little bit of that in the Iowa State game. Again, can you see that more consistently? We haven't seen either of those things consistently this season. but maybe you're getting there. Can you start to see a little bit more in some way? That'll be an interesting question. Our stat of the game here, so again, you could point to holding Iowa State to 37%. You can point to KU shooting 50% from 3, 12 of 24.

Starting point is 00:16:54 I think that's a big reason why KU blew out Iowa State is how well they shot from 3, but also give KU credit because they, I thought they moved the ball really well. And a lot of those threes were really good looks for KU. And at the end of that, even if you shoot 8 of 24, which would have been 33%, nothing to jump out on, you know, you still win by 9. So it's more than just that. But I think that was the difference of you winning by a comfortable margin and winning by over 20 points. The turnovers being plus three for KU, when that's usually a big advantage for Iowa State is huge. But here's where the bigger area of that comes into play.

Starting point is 00:17:30 KU led 17 to 4 in points off turnovers. 13 point swing is gigantic. We didn't do negatives from this game, but I would say if you were saying one, the offensive rebounds for Iowa State, they had 17 of them. KU had 26 defensive rebounds. That was more of an issue in the first half.

Starting point is 00:17:47 I want to say Iowa State had more offensive rebounds in the first half than KU had defensive rebounds. That could be an issue moving forward. We've seen that come up multiple times throughout the season for KU. So you want to get that tightened up. But beyond that, the points in the paint, KU led 32 to 30.

Starting point is 00:18:04 blocks was eight to four, steals was eight to seven in favor of KU, assist was 1711 for KU. They led 39 minutes and 35 seconds, but yeah, that's the stat to me. It's points off turnovers. 17 to four. Iowa State is really good at getting points off turnovers.

Starting point is 00:18:19 He held them only four. And on top of it, KU, a team that has not been forcing a lot of steals or getting a lot of points off turnovers this year, did just that against one of the better teams in the country. So that's our stat of the game. All right, who wins game balls?

Starting point is 00:18:31 What's next for KU? Thanks for joining us on. this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks, don't forget to check out all of our commitment episodes on all the transfer portal editions that Lance Leipold and his staff have made so far via the transfer portal for KU. And we'll have more KU football and KU basketball content coming at you throughout the week here on Locked on Jayhawks. So make sure you subscribe to the show anywhere that you get your podcast. By the way, this was KU's second most efficient offensive game of the season. The only one was more efficient was the Green Bay game. And in terms of defensive efficient,

Starting point is 00:19:07 Let's see. This was about middle of the pack for KU. It was similar to the Yukon game, actually. It's actually technically on the lower half, but right kind of in the middle. And given Iowa State's offense, still a very impressive number where KU was at. So good stuff there. All right. Our game balls for this one. Let's start with the KU offensive game ball. I mean, we could we can talk this up with one. Melvin Council has 15 points. Darren Peterson had 16 points. Floyd Bedunga had a couple nice takes. He had 10.

Starting point is 00:19:43 Jamar McDowell and O'Marco gave you eight off the bench each, which in general, you could say the bench scoring because KU doesn't always get that. How about this one? Jamari not only had eight points, he had six assists to zero turnovers. I think he might actually have a case in terms of like impact that you don't always get off the bench. But let's not get too crazy. It's Trey White. Trey White gets the offensive game ball, right?

Starting point is 00:20:04 19.6 of 13, 5 of 7 from 3. he had six offensive rebounds. He had more than half of KU's offensive rebounds. KU had 11 offensive rebounds. He had six of them. He also had three assists to one turnover. Trey White was your offensive game ball. He was awesome in this game with the double double.

Starting point is 00:20:21 Our defensive game ball for KU. So if you're just looking at the stat stuff, Trey White had a block, Bryson Tiller had a block, Peterson had a block and two steals, Flory had four blocks and two steals. Jemarie McDowell had a block. And then, Omar Jackson,

Starting point is 00:20:36 with another game with a bunch of steals. He had four steals for KU. So you would have a lot of good options to go with if you're just talking the stats. Now, if we look at Iowa State, Taman Lipsy was just four of 15. That was kind of, it's weird because it felt like KU left him too open to drive to the lane too often, but he still just went four of 15. It felt like KU was just kind of been like, hey, we're going to leave you open.

Starting point is 00:20:58 We're going to sag off you. We're going to sag off Killing and Torre and see who beats you. But here's interesting. So Joshua Jefferson came in one of the best players in the country. You held him to four of 14. That was a combination. I noticed Flory on him a lot. I know it was a few other guys at different times,

Starting point is 00:21:13 but Florey gets credit for that. And then on Milan-Momchilovich, just three of nine for the game. That was kind of combination. Like I think at one point, Melvin Council was on him. I think Trey White drew him a lot. I'm going to go Flory for defensive MVP, though, because he had some reps on Jefferson. He had the four blocks.

Starting point is 00:21:29 He had the two steals. He had a big impact on defense. Also had five defensive rebounds for KU. So he's going to get that one. there. And by the way, speaking of defensive rebounding, Melvin counsel at seven of them. So that's big when you can get your guard involved in that way. And then our overall game ball is going to go to Trey White. Like I said, he did well when he was on Milan-Mam Chilovich for different stretches defensively. And he had the 10 rebounds. And he had the three assists. And he had the block. He was a plus 18 through 35 minutes. The only player's better. Jamari was a plus 30. Melvin Council was a plus 24. So Trey White, our offensive and overall game ball. Florida gets our defensive game ball for KU. What is next for the Jayhawks? So they're back at it on Saturday hosting the Baylor Bears.

Starting point is 00:22:15 And KU was not one back-to-back big 12 games. And gosh, it's probably been a while, right, if we think back to last year. So obviously two and two through four games this year. Let's see. Okay, the last one back-to-back big 12 games. They won the regular season finale last year and then won in the first round of the Big 12 conference tournament against UCF. The last time they won back-to-back regular season, Big 12 games, February 26. second against Oklahoma State and then at Colorado.

Starting point is 00:22:39 Let's see, the last time they won back-to-back Big 12 games against top 50 opponents. You would have to go back to at least 20-24. You'd have to be up. 2024, they beat Oklahoma, who was 46th on Ken Palm, Texas, who was 25th. So it's been a while since they've beaten back-to-back top 50 opponents in Big 12 play. They've got a chance to end that against the Baylor Bears. So Baylor just won tonight. They just took down Oklahoma State by 15,

Starting point is 00:23:09 which has been actually a pretty decent Oklahoma State team so far the season. But that's after they started 0 and 3 in Big 12 play. Now, they did that on the road. So they're going to be coming in hot. Obviously, they made that, you know, a very raucous decision to bring on James Naji. He only played six minutes in their most recent game. So this will be an interesting Baylor game in terms of this is,

Starting point is 00:23:31 it's kind of like how Baylor's. been in the last, whatever, three, four, five years, it feels like ever since their title team, it's been like heavily weighted to offense with defenses that have struggled. And that's another one of how this team kind of is, which is interesting because the two teams, KU just struggled with over the last week, UCF and TCU were higher ranked defenses with lower ranked offenses, but KU struggled defensively. So maybe they'll be more locked in knowing they're facing higher offense or something, but can you now start to build momentum? Can you build off of this game? and know what you're capable of and start a run,

Starting point is 00:24:06 start a winning streak here with the upcoming game against the Baylor Bears and Scott True. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Lockdown, Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Check out all our other videos. Check out Lockdown on College Football, Locked on College Basketball, and we'll see you next time for another edition of LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - TURNING POINT: Kansas Jayhawks DOMINATE Iowa State | Did Players Only Meeting SAVE KU???

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