Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Updated Starting Five and Minutes Projection for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Post Shak Moore Injury

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, updated starting five minutes projections for KU basketball. 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 find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at D Johnson radio. This is locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:00:30 The everydayers tune in to each and every show. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of locked on Jayhawks, we're talking Kansas basketball starting five update. We're giving a updated minutes projection, talking about some of the latest stuff that has gone into that and maybe caused some changing in thinking.

Starting point is 00:00:52 And we'll finish up. What would be a good record for KU? It's a difficult non-con slate with some good opponents. So what would be a good record for KU through the non-con on basketball? This episode of the show is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase with GameTime. So we're going to start right here.

Starting point is 00:01:14 We'll get to our updated starting five and minute projections in a second, but I wanted to talk about why some of these would be different than what we projected last time we did this maybe a month or two ago thank you every dayers if you already caught that one uh well there's a couple reasons because obviously we haven't had any games we haven't had any exhibitions we haven't had even late night in the fog we haven't had um i don't know a bunch of scuttlebutt about practice and stuff here and there but you know there's not a lot of tangible stuff we can point to that would change things. But there is some other stuff that would change things since we last did this.

Starting point is 00:01:51 One of them is Shaquille Moore's injury. Shaquille Moore, the transfer guard from Mississippi State, got injured, I think broken foot, and having surgery. Basically, the timeline puts him right around the beginning of the regular season. So it could have no effect on what the projected rotation is, but there are a couple ways it could. What if he comes back and it takes him a few months to get back in the full swing of things in terms of just the athlete and the player he is, right? Like sometimes you can come off an injury and you're not the same guy or it takes more time to become that same guy. That could be the case.

Starting point is 00:02:26 And if Shaquille Moore is not a 100% version of what you brought in coming in, like that could impact his place on the totem pole. It could also impact all the time he misses, even though it's not missing in season and a bunch of games. You probably are missing the exhibition stuff. You probably are missing a lot of practices, a lot of practices where you're installing offense and defense, a lot of important practices leading up to the start of the season.

Starting point is 00:02:49 And so somebody else might have that first crack in the rotation. And if they take advantage of that, maybe it becomes harder for you to crack into the rotation when you come back. Or, you know, again, like if you're not the same guy, now it could have no effect. And that would be the ideal situation for KU that he comes back and it's like nothing happened eight weeks later but it is entirely possible those other things happen too you also made the addition of Diggy Coit Diggy Coit David Coit the transfer from Northern Illinois who averaged over 20 points per game he is a scorer he is a shooter he can

Starting point is 00:03:20 really fill it up and if Shaquille Moore's injury does lead to a lessening of playing time, well, boom, all of a sudden, Diggie Coit could be somebody who jumps on some of those minutes and becomes a bigger player in the rotation. So all of a sudden, that gets added to what could be changed as part of the rotation from now, from where it was a couple of months ago. And, you know, you look at it with Diggie Coit, and it could be something where, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:03:46 what if he's just such a good offensive player, you have to get him on the court. Now, I think this addition was made after we made our last updated minute projection anyway, so this would already have to kind of factor in into where he would be playing. So we'll add that part of it. And then the last big one that changed this is the Bill Self appearance on the Seth Davis Bleacher Report podcast, where he mentioned a couple different things that have an impact on the rotation. One of them, I think, of the Hunter Dickinson stuff. He talked about he needs to be more of a 28-minute-per-game guy. Well, I think we actually had him projected at 28 minutes, but that solidifies that we feel better about, you know, him being at 28 minutes there in that rotation. Right. So

Starting point is 00:04:26 something like that, or even having, you know, the comments about Zeke Mayo, where he's been one of the best players. And we've kind of talked about this throughout the show of like, what exactly was the full context there? Was he just talking about the newcomers they added in? Could that be while AJ store was, was playing with the bohemian national team over the summer so he hasn't had a chance to fully show that it'll end up being store but even if it is store and he's second best i would certainly be telling because you brought in some other key transfers right that could have a big

Starting point is 00:04:57 impact on things especially because we had zeke mayo coming off the bench playing around the same amount of minutes that shaquille moore was. And so then you tie this back together with the Shaquille Moore stuff and boom, that could lead to a big impact, a difference in what the rotation or the starting five could look like, especially if that ends up being true as Eek Mayo. Now, could there be ulterior motives to saying stuff like that? Of course there is. That's what we talked about on the show last week with Nick. So check that out if you hadn't already.

Starting point is 00:05:22 And thank you if you already did, if you're an everydayer. But those comments and some of the other stuff that he kind of said all go into just trying to pick up context clues, trying to read between the lines. As you are trying to put this puzzle together of what you think the rotation is going to look like at this point in time, in the middle of September, it's probably not the best way to do it, but it's the only way we have because we can't be in live watching the practices trying to figure out this stuff. So let's get into that projection. Let's get into the minutes. Before we get into the minutes specifically, here is the starting five projection for me. Shocking change at the point guard position. I have, no, I'm just kidding. DeJuan Harris starting at the point guard position.

Starting point is 00:06:08 AJ Storr starting at the three. KJ Adams starting at the four. Hunter Dickinson starting at the five. Really, the only question of the starting five at this point to me is who's going to start at the two. And I guess if you really want to, I don't know. No, I don't even want to entertain that idea of playing like big basketball where you have Flory starting next to Hunter and KJ's at the

Starting point is 00:06:30 three's wait no we're not entertaining that regardless who starts at the two is it Zeke Mayo is it Ryland Griffin is it David Coit you know is it Shaquille Moore coming back from injury? What about Keith Passmore? Could he start on the wing for KU? Jamari McDowell, right? A lot of options you could go to. And for a while, I've been steadfast that Rylan Griffin would be the guy. Based on those comments Bill Self gave about Zeke Mayo,

Starting point is 00:07:03 if he's saying he's been the best player, at least of the transfer additions, who else is a transfer addition is rylan griffin if he's saying zeke mayo has been better than rylan griffin as part of those quotes how could i not take that as okay well then zeke becomes the starter and there are certain things you could do like maybe it's it's easy to have a guy be your sixth man um we've seen k you use a sixth man who's been more so at the beginning years of bill self like i think of sharon collins being really one of KU's five best players on the 08 title team, but he was coming off the bench, right? It could be something like that for sure.

Starting point is 00:07:33 But I have him starting at the two at this point in time. And I think also the fact that Shaquille Moore is injured right now, maybe that makes it a little bit easier to have that second ball handler on the floor. Whereas with Griffin, it is more of another wing shooter type. So after being steadfast on having Griffin as the fifth starter for a while, that was enough for me to change. I now have Zeke Mayo in the starting five projected for KU. Let's get into the minutes specifically, though,

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Starting point is 00:10:00 to get you ready for that football game later this week. We'll have more football content coming at you throughout the week here on Locked on Jayhawks. So we gave our starting five projection. Juan Harris, Zeke Mayo, AJ Storr, KJ Adams, Hunter Dickinson. What about the minutes? How do the minutes divvy up for KU? Well, we've got a fun little graphic here if you're watching on YouTube.

Starting point is 00:10:19 And thank you if you are subscribed on our YouTube side. Thank you as well if you're listening on the audio side. But so at the point guard spot, we have DeJuan Harris playing 32 minutes. I believe that's the exact same we had on the last minute rotation projection, whatever you want to call it, that we had last time. We have him playing all 32 minutes at the point guard spot at the one. And then I've got Shaquille Moore, even coming off the injury,

Starting point is 00:10:43 still getting a handful of backup point guard minutes I would have given him all eight of the backup point guard minutes if the injury wouldn't happen but because the injury did happen I'm hedging my bet a little bit so I have that down to four point guard minutes at the backup and then Zeke Mayo grabbing the other four backup point guard minutes something that he can do for four minutes a game I mean he was the point guard at South Dakota State so I think he'll be fine for four minutes a game as your backup point guard. Then I have Zeke Mayo starting at the two,

Starting point is 00:11:08 as we talked about. I have him getting 20 minutes per game at the two. So with the four backup point guard minutes, got Zeke Mayo up to 24 minutes per game. And if we're to fully believe the Bill Self stuff about best player or best transfer edition, however you want to frame that, that still might be too low it might

Starting point is 00:11:25 need to be closer to 28 30 32 minutes per game right um what if he ends up being like KU's leading scorer because he's such a dynamic scorer and shot creator and three-point shooter that he ends up averaging or at least scoring perimeter play I feel like it's gonna be hard to outdo Hunter Dickinson but you know what if he does average 16, 17 points per game, right? Like changes things a little bit here. As far as the backup two and the backup three, that now belongs to Ryland Griffin because he can play minutes at both spots kind of on the wing. You got AJ Stor starting at the three.

Starting point is 00:11:57 And then more minutes for Shaquille Moore as a backup two man. With Shaquille Moore, I have him going for about eight minutes as the backup two man um with Shaquille Moore I have him going for about eight minutes as the backup two but it doesn't really matter where you put those minutes whether it's the one or the two total him up I have him at about 12 that is down a little bit from the previous projection I think it was somewhere between like 14 to 18 and what I had Shaquille Moore so I did give him a little bit of a ding for the injury and how that could impact the beginning of his season that maybe he has to fight a little bit harder at the beginning of the year to earn a role.

Starting point is 00:12:29 And you hope he doesn't fall too far behind. Although if he does fall too far behind because a guy like David Coit or something like that is just going off, that's a good problem to have. But I still think Shaquille Moore plays a role because of the defense that he brings, which is a little bit different than some of the other transfer additions KU has.

Starting point is 00:12:44 So him playing that many minutes. With Griffin, I have him playing 10 minutes as the backup two and playing like 14 minutes as the backup three. So even though I have Zeke Mayer starting, I have Rylan Griffin playing the same amount of minutes, both playing 24 minutes per game between the two of them. Again, you can kind of mess with that a little bit, push and pull here and there, tug of war here and there. Maybe Griffin does end up starting, but it does feel like to me, maybe based on those comments, that at the very least, those would be kind of close to each other right now. So Stora, I have him playing 30 minutes. I have him getting most of his minutes at the three, though not when I say most, it's not like way more. 18 minutes at the three, 12 minutes per game at the two, at the four, excuse me.

Starting point is 00:13:29 So playing as kind of a three-four hybrid. The rest of the minutes at the four, 28 minutes per game, I have going to KJ Adams. He is still to me and trying to figure out the minutes. I've just kind of stuck in that range around 28. But like that's the one where, with most most of these again Zeke Mayo you can make the argument it's 28 you can make the argument it's 20 like Shaquille Moore you can say 12 it's going to be 18 you can right you can you can adjust here there Rylan Griffin 24 could be 28 whatever um KJ Adams is is the ultimate wild card here like what if you do

Starting point is 00:13:59 decide that AJ Storr starting at the four later in the season and Griffin started at three or not necessarily starting but playing a majority of the minutes more at the four than he is the three so you can get more guards on the floor and when you look at KJ Adams minutes per game the last two seasons he played over 30 minutes per game last year at this position but KU was way less deep and clearly that led to some spacing issues. The year before, he played 27 minutes per game, which you might say, oh, it'll probably be around that, but that was playing the five, which is a different position

Starting point is 00:14:31 that he's going to be playing this season. So you could convince me later in the year KU is going to decide, hey, from a spacing perspective, offensive perspective, whatever, it behooves us more to play more of these guards, and KJ ends up playing 22 minutes per game. Or you could convince me he's just so trustworthy and does all these guards, and KJ ends up playing 22 minutes per game. Or you can convince me he's just so trustworthy and does all these little things and that KU doesn't have a lot of players who can realistically play the four in a way that Bill Self probably wants them to,

Starting point is 00:14:54 that he plays 30, 32 minutes per game as a senior, right? So that's one where I feel kind of lost about it. So just kind of hedging the bet around 28 minutes. So yeah, all the four minutes between KJ and AJ Storr. And then the five minutes, we've got Hunter Dickinson mentioned the Bill Self-Common about 28 minutes per game. Boom, 28 minutes per game. We're good to go there. We have 10 backup center minutes going to Flory Badunga. That could easily go to Zach Clements if he beats him out and Zach Clements becomes your backup center. I guess it's possible both of them kind of split those minutes, go five and five each. But what I did, and I did this as well in our previous one, is give out spot minutes.

Starting point is 00:15:28 You might be wondering, hey, I'm doing the math here, and there's still minutes left over at the two. There's still minutes left over at the three. There's still minutes left over at the five. That's because I left a few minutes here and there for spot minutes. So what you end up with is a rotation where the starting five is Harris, Mayo, Storr, Adams, Dickinson. You have off the bench Griffin, Moore, and Budunga. And the bench, so basically Harris 32 minutes a game, Mayo 24, Storr 30, Adams and Dickinson 28,

Starting point is 00:15:54 Griffin 24, Shaquille Moore 12, and Floyd Budunga 10. That leaves you with 12 spot minutes per game. And I went back and looked. The 2023 team played a little over 300 spot minutes, what I would declare spot minutes per game. And I went back and looked, the 2023 team played a little over 300 spot minutes, what I would declare spot minutes. Basically guys who weren't playing every game, weren't fully part of the rotation, but were coming in here or there,

Starting point is 00:16:12 weren't coming in every game. Maybe it would come two out of every three games or something like that, or three out of every four games. Or if it was three out of every four games, it was only a handful of minutes per game. Just spot minutes here or there that you wouldn't totally project in this exercise,

Starting point is 00:16:26 but you know based on foul trouble, injuries, matchup, just a game where a guy gets an opportunity and plays well. Those are going to happen over the course of a season. So you look at basically a little over 300 spot minutes last year for KU. That would have been a little less than 10 spot minutes per game, around eight or nine spot minutes per game for last year's KU team. And that was with a team that wasn't very deep, right? So with a deeper team or a bench that is more trustworthy or better,

Starting point is 00:16:53 you would think more spot minutes. You go back to the year before in 2022, they were sitting around 450 spot minutes on the season, which that is closer to about 11 spot minutes per game. And that team, I think on paper, looks a little bit more like this team where you had guys like Jalen Coleman-Lanz who were part of that spot minute bunch.

Starting point is 00:17:15 And that could be the case for a guy like David Coit or a guy like Ricky's Passmore or Zach Clements or something like that to where you have more options to feel good about, let's play this extra guy, let's give some spot minutes here or there. So I left 12 minutes for spot minutes left over To where you have more options to feel good about, you know, let's play this extra guy. Let's give some spot minutes here or there. So I left 12 minutes for spot minutes left over.

Starting point is 00:17:30 That could go one game where 12 of them go to Diggie Coit, all of them. Or 12 of them go to Rikki's Passmore. Maybe it's 7 to David Coit and 5 to Rikki's Passmore. Maybe it's, you know, 8 to Zach Clements and 4 to David Coit in a given game. Some games the spot minutes might be six minutes. Some games, they might be 15, right? It just kind of depends. But I think over the long haul of a season, that's a more realistic way to go about building

Starting point is 00:17:53 kind of the rotation for whoever you're projecting. All right. So that is our minutes projection. It'll probably get thrown out the window after late night in the fog in some of these exhibition games, but fun exercise for right now to kind of take a look at where things are. KU has a tough non-con. Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State, Creighton, Missouri,

Starting point is 00:18:09 a lot of teams on the ledger. I felt weird including Missouri in that group of teams. It's on the road, rivalry game, whatever. Tough non-con for KU. Let's discuss what a good record would be for KU. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by you might not have heard of roy before but what it stands for is return on you it's a new platform that lets the fans get involved in nil like never before by making contributions directly to your favorite athletes by supporting players directly

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Starting point is 00:19:46 I have these sorted out into different buckets. These are games you should win, games that I would imagine you're going to be favored by double digits. Or in the case of one of these games, probably close to double digits. I don't know. We'll wait and see. So you should be 6-0 in these games. Howard is one of them.

Starting point is 00:20:02 That'll be a game that obviously you're going to be, you would think, double-digit favorites for KU. Oakland, even though they beat Kentucky in the NCAA tournament, you'll be double-digit favorites at home. UNC Wilmington, they're actually a pretty decent team, and that conference usually produces some good opponents. But again, double-digit favorite. Furman won a tournament game a couple years ago.

Starting point is 00:20:21 Same thing, though, double-digit favorite. You play Brown, who actually could be a sleeper to win the Ivyy league this year they almost won it this past season and so uh i guess you would say from that standpoint like that one before christmas right can be a little bit scary but still ku is going to be a double digit favorite in that game so those are easy the last one that i had on here is nc state so nc state right now in Bartorvik is ranked 58th in the country. And you look at KU, they're ranked fourth on Bartorvik at the moment. If you look at the early projection of this game on Bartorvik, it has KU winning by 11 points. So right around the double digit favorite you're playing at home. NC State lost a lot from last year. So that's one you should win.

Starting point is 00:21:04 That puts you at 6-0. You'll likely be favored, I would imagine, by a handful of points in the games against Michigan State and at Missouri. The thing about the Missouri one, if that was at home, I would include it in that first bucket. The fact it's on the road, right, Kansas almost lost it in Indiana last year. It's tough to win on the road in college basketball, so I included that one with the Michigan State one that I'd imagine Kansas will be favored by a handful, you know, four, five, six, seven points in both of those games, probably less for the Michigan State game than the at Missouri game, but trippy spots where you could go one in one, or I think two and oh, then you have three coin flip games versus North

Starting point is 00:21:39 Carolina at home and outfield house. You have a neutral site game in Vegas against Duke. And then you have the game on the road against Creighton. Now, you could easily be one and two in those three games, right? It'd be very easy to lose on the road against Creighton. That's a tough environment to play in. They've got a good team. You could easily lose on neutral site to Duke, and I think that's going to be a tough matchup for KU when you look at Cooper Flagg playing the five against Hunter Dickinson or playing the four and, I don't know, that Kaman Malik guy or whatever either way you have like a versatile five which could make things interesting you'll probably be

Starting point is 00:22:09 favored to beat North Carolina because you're playing an Allen Fieldhouse and you have the Allen Fieldhouse magic but I do think North Carolina is going to be excellent this season and and I think is definitely a team that could win the title as kind of I feel the same way would do so if we're talking about a good non-con where you're going to come out of the non-con feeling good about where the team is at, I think like nine and two would signify as good. I think there's a reasonable way you could say, hey, they can go eight and three in the non-con and I feel fine about it, right? You lose against Duke on neutral in a close game, you lose at Creighton in a close game, and then let's say you get, you know, one loss to

Starting point is 00:22:45 Michigan State or Missouri you're not going to be happy especially if it's the Missouri game but like eight and three you'd still have a win over say North Carolina and one of Michigan State or Missouri and NC State and some decent like you know non-power teams but you probably wouldn't feel like they're going to be one of the five best teams in the country if that's the case if you do go nine and two, which is what I'm talking about here, I think that's why that would signify as good because then you can talk about yourself being like,

Starting point is 00:23:11 Oh, we're nine and two. We've played this really tough schedule. I think we're one of the top five teams in the country or whatever, at least top 10. If you go 10 and one or 11 and oh, obviously we're going to be talking about this team has the inside track to being the number one overall seed in the NCAA tournament.

Starting point is 00:23:24 As long as you win the Big 12. Because think about it. If you play this non-con with some of these opponents and you go 10-1 and then you win the Big 12, the best conference in the country, I mean, you can make the argument even if you go 8-3, I guess, and win the Big 12 just because that's how loaded the Big 12 is. But if you go 10-1 and win the Big 12, you're getting the number one overall seed. I don't even know what happens around the country. I just feel confident that that would be the case.

Starting point is 00:23:46 So I think nine and two would make you feel good. Ten and one, you feel absolutely great or better, obviously, 11 and 0 about where you'd be at for KU. Eight and three would kind of be in that holding zone, and then anything worse than that would be kind of like, oh, what's going on here? All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere

Starting point is 00:24:01 you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. We'll see you next time with LOJ, more KU football talk for the West Virginia game to start to bench what to do with Jalen Daniels and KU West Virginia preview as well.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Updated Starting Five and Minutes Projection for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Post Shak Moore Injury

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