Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - What Off-season Decisions Are Ahead for Bill Self and Kansas Jayhawks Basketball?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, season is over. A lot of decisions to be had. What are the biggest off-season decisions for KU? 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 give me a follow on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:32 We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page, wherever you get that for free. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we are breaking down the biggest off-season decisions for KU men's basketball now that the season is in the books, I guess you could say. So let's discuss some of the big things that are to be had for KU. First, this episode brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager

Starting point is 00:00:58 for your small business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for free. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockdown college terms and conditions. Apply. So we're going to start with, I guess, where KU is at in the scholarship situation. Player decisions to come for KU. I think some Bill Self decisions to come for KU.

Starting point is 00:01:19 And then we'll finish up with some KU women's basketball talk as they're getting ready to play their second round matchup with USC in the NCAA tournament there. Let's start with the scholarship talk. I think basically there are questions about how many scholarships does KU have. If you remember the NCAA sanctioned stuff, KU had to knock out three scholarships over the course of three seasons, right? So they could have knocked out one a year over three years. They could have knocked out two in one year, one in another, zero in another. They could have done three all in one year. It's a little murky, a little unclear what the case is here for Kansas.

Starting point is 00:01:55 Kansas had 10 scholarship players on their roster. They had the nine who we knew who were players, and then the 10th was Zach Clements, was redshirting this year which means you get 13 scholarships in basketball that's 10 scholarship players you would have burnt all three scholarships in one year meaning that you would be flush on the NCAA punishment and theoretically be able to have the next two years at full scholarship however the undetermined factor in all this is what does the arterialio Morris one count as? Did by bringing him on and enrolling him in school, did that count enough as the scholarship to where it counts as you had 11 scholarship players? And therefore you would have used up two of the three and that you still have to not utilize one of your scholarships.

Starting point is 00:02:41 Then at that point over the next two seasons, you could pick whether you would want to not use that scholarship this year or whether you'd want to not use that scholarship next year. But that's only if Morris does count to the scholarship count, which I don't think we've gotten clarity if that is the case or not. If he doesn't count to the scholarship numbers, then Kansas is good to go moving forward and they can bring in 13 scholarship guys moving forward each and every year. One thing is for sure, when you're looking at these decisions for KU basketball, there's basically one known commodity I feel like for next year's KU team, and that would be DeJuan Harris. He's already posted on social media back for next year.

Starting point is 00:03:15 That's been the expectation all the way through from the start of the year to the end of the year that DeJuan Harris will be back for one final ride at Kansas next year. And that, again, is going to be the thing. But outside of that, it's a lot of murky water. Now Kansas can return a lot of the other players. Theoretically among the scholarship players, the only players that you would be losing, Kevin McCuller has to go. He's exhausted his eligibility and Parker Brown has to go. He's exhausted his eligibility as well. Theoretically, you could bring everybody back.

Starting point is 00:03:51 As we know, in the transfer portal era, that's just unlikely to happen on any given team to begin with. But then there are also professional decisions for some KU players. Let's start with those. Johnny Furphy has a real decision to make here for Kansas because Furphy is being seen as a first-round draft pick he obviously had the the tough finish to the regular season over his final five games of the regular season plus the big 12 tournament played pretty well numbers went back up in the ncaa tournament and yeah there's a few things you can still critique here or there but he did enough to kind of bounce back up in the right way and in a very weak draft class which this absolutely is a team would very much be willing

Starting point is 00:04:24 to use a first round draft pick on Johnny Furphy. And this becomes the old, I guess, common debate of, well, what is the best time to enter the NBA draft? Is it when you are most ready? Is it when you're going to get your draft stock at the absolute highest? I think that's kind of the big one that I mostly go to. When is your draft stuck at the highest? I think theoretically you could convince me Furphy comes back and he is KU's best player next year and he's an All-American and he could be a top 10 pick, a lottery pick. This year, maybe he could still be a lottery pick though, just because of how bad the draft is. So you can make the argument that the stock's never going to be higher though.

Starting point is 00:05:03 I don't know, maybe he's supposed to go in the 20 twenties more this year and maybe with a good year, he comes back and he could be a lottery pick. Then again, if you come back and you're the same guy as you were next year as you are this year, but just adding a little bit more, then your draft stock starts to drop a little bit because it's like, Oh, you're not rapidly ascending. And that's what we're going to see because you're drafting a lot of times off potential in the NBA. So there is that kind of question of what's best for him. There's also the question of the adage of development question, right? Because you hear all the time, okay, he'll develop more in college.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Well, why can't he develop in the NBA? He's going to be a paid professional. That's going to be his job 24-7 to work on basketball. Theoretically, he's going to get better at basketball being a paid professional to do so in the NBA and college. I do think there are some certain things you maybe can develop better in college. Like you maybe can develop being the alpha in college, right? If you go into a situation where you're the 12th guy off the bench in an NBA team, it's going to be a little bit harder to develop being the guy, right?

Starting point is 00:05:58 Now, then again, in a guy like Johnny Furphy's case, is he more going to profile into being a role player anyway in the NBA? So there's all those discussions that they need to have happen but I do think this is very much a 50-50 coin flip because I do feel like from Furphy's perspective probably went into the season and probably through December into January the whole conversation for Furphy and probably his family was oh yeah we'll be at Kansas another year and then he has this blow up to where it is more of a late thing that has happened that it does feel like more of a coin flip, whether he is going to come back or go. Maybe if I was leaning one way or another, maybe I would lean just slightly that he goes pro just because, like I said, maximizing draft stock, it's a bad draft and everything.

Starting point is 00:06:36 But you could convince me either one of them certainly happens. Hunter Dickinson has the other big decision here for KU. He can come back another year because his first year in college was the first year back from the COVID year, and so it didn't really count. So next year would be his fifth year in college, but he does have that ability in terms of the COVID year. You heard his postgame after the game at the podium, and he was so thankful and appreciative of his time at Kansas this year and enjoyed everything he got to do.

Starting point is 00:07:04 From that standpoint, you would certainly think, okay, this guy really enjoyed it. It's not like he's unhappy to be here. Why not come back another year? There's also the NIL factor where Hunter Dickinson is making a lot of money off of NIL. And when you look at the draft prospects, 20 years ago, Hunter Dickinson might be a first-round draft pick.

Starting point is 00:07:23 But in today's day and age, when it has transitioned so much to versatility and mobile big men and, you know, big men who can dribble and drive and pass and initiate offense and all this stuff that you have all these freaky seven footers who are just doing unbelievable things, you know, Dickinson. Okay. We saw, we saw the, the pick and roll defense defense the spacing issue on on defense coming to play in the gonzaga game now try doing that in an nba game with even better athletes and even wider spacing on the court and no three seconds in the key um like you can you know do and get away with in college to where he's not going to be a drafted player and so from that standpoint if you're hunter dickinson he can probably make a killing overseas in europe he can probably have a long

Starting point is 00:08:03 career in the g league maybe have a cup of coffee in the nba or something like that but are you on are you in a rush to get there i guess basically is what i'm saying to where you can make you know seven figures playing at kansas next season if you're playing in the g league what are you going to make and you're making a hundred thousand dollars two hundred thousand dollars right like i mean that's still a good living to play basketball but wouldn't you rather bank the million dollars at Kansas so um I don't know maybe this one comes into play a little bit where Bill Self is like hey we don't want to play with two bigs anymore and that'll bring us to my next guy that we have the decision on here because I kind of want to lump these together a little bit KJ Adams I think this kind of becomes a bit of a Bill Self decision because from KJ's

Starting point is 00:08:40 perspective same thing as Hunter Dickinson like neither guy if they entered the NBA draft is getting drafted. Now, maybe there's an opportunity for one of the two that, yeah, they get a camp invite or maybe they can work their way into two ways as an undrafted player, but that's not even a guarantee either for either one of those guys. So from that standpoint, it becomes, okay, if you both have one more year left to play,

Starting point is 00:09:01 then you're clearly coming back. Or do you transfer to go to a better situation or maybe not better is the right word because you're at Kansas, but a different situation that is more suited to, you know, what you want to do because from Bill South's perspective, like do you tell both these guys, Hey, we can only have one of you back because two big basketball didn't really work for us this year.

Starting point is 00:09:18 It doesn't work in this day and age of college basketball where you have, you know, somebody who can be a non-shooter playing two bigs next to each other. And so we can only have one of you guys back. If it was up to me to choose, I'm taking KJ, and I'm rolling with a five-man spot of rotating KJ Adams and Flory Padunga. If you are in a matchup where you need a more traditional big, okay, Flory, go out there.

Starting point is 00:09:37 If you're in a matchup where you want to switch five and you're playing a team who's going to shoot really well from three and you can switch one through five and now be a good perimeter defense and you can throw lobs to KJ in the middle and you'll have that on offense with a bunch of guards around him on the offensive side. That makes it a lot of fun. Then yeah, you throw KJ in those matchups. That would be my preference because I think it gives you a higher ceiling and a higher floor on the defensive end, even though it lowers your floor on the offensive end, but it actually keeps your ceiling high enough because you can still supplant

Starting point is 00:10:05 around him on the offensive end of the court. But I do think the decision could come down to that, or it could come down to, you know, if both guys come back, hey, are you more comfortable coming off the bench? Are you more comfortable? We'll start you, but we're going to only play 10 minutes of KJ and Hunter next to each other. And then you'll get your another 10 minutes being the backup to Hunter. We'll play him, you know, 30 minutes a night and this and that but if you're one of those players if you're kj are you like well i'd rather just go here and play 30 35 minutes a night if you're hunter dickinson and bill self says hey i want to go to more of a defense system like um you should go fight somewhere else you know what if like uh transfer somewhere else so both those decisions are a

Starting point is 00:10:41 little bit on bill self but both those decisions are part of themselves as well, even though neither one is really a true NBA decision in the same way that Johnny Furphy is. And then, like I said, anybody else really does have a decision to make because we are in a day and age of college basketball where you don't know if any player is really coming back or not. And now with the unlimited transfer rule, you really don't know even as you get closer to the season. Hypothetically, player could stick around staying and then all of a sudden in camp in August or something when school starts, player could be like, yeah, it looks like I'm the third guard on the depth chart. I'm peacing.

Starting point is 00:11:21 I'm getting out of here. I'm transferring. And no NCAA rule could stop that. So in reality, every player has a decision, but those are kind of the main ones for KU for obvious reasons. All right, let's continue on. What decisions does Bill Self have to make on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks? This week's March Madness bracket highlight is brought to you by our friends at Nissan.

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Starting point is 00:13:13 Continue on with Locked on Jayhawks. Thank you to being every day or out there. Trust me, we will still continue on. The season has ended for KU. Season has not ended for us because as we know, the transfer portal is rampant, and we're going to have plenty of content to discuss in the off season. So make sure you subscribe to the show and tune in each and every day. We will have some transfer portal targets at different positions

Starting point is 00:13:31 coming for you later this week. So don't worry. Be on the lookout for that one. Okay. Build self decisions. The first one here becomes who to show the door to. And maybe the answer is no one. Honestly, like that would be my preference because, well, I guess first thing first, there are sometimes where players transfer on their own accord. There are sometimes players transfer because they want more playing time or they want more this and that. Obviously at a place like Kansas, it's kind of in a weird spot because you bring in a lot of really good players that are ranked really highly in high school or played really big minutes at their previous college stop and think they are good players.

Starting point is 00:14:07 And for the most part, they are good players, right? And so there's expectations from them of like, I want to play a lot. Then again, there's also the aspect where Kansas really takes care of their players, both in terms of facilities and place to live and NIL money and all that sort of stuff that it's not a bad life being an eighth man, being a ninth man, 10th man, 11th man, whatever it is on a Kansas roster and being content with that and having a nice NIL chunk of change and everything like that so it is kind of that that weird spot but um with showing the door we've seen this in the past where

Starting point is 00:14:33 it's more so been a thing by Kansas to be like hey I'm gonna have these exit meetings with these guys I gotta be honest like you're not gonna play next year we're bringing in this guy where we have this guy coming back and we're also adding this freshman and we like them all better than you so if you want to come back that's fine but you're not going to play next year and then the kid's like okay i'm going to transfer and i'm sure the coaching staff is like and we'll help you transfer like we'll give you good recommendations we'll help you find the next spot like i'm sure they're very classy about it and everything but that does happen and it's not just a kid's thing. That happens everywhere across the country in today's day and age. It's kind of the plus minus. Players have more freedom,

Starting point is 00:15:11 but also the coaches have more freedom to do what they want with the roster as well. It's kind of the plus minus for both things. So he has to decide who he wants to show the door to, if anybody. And this mostly applies to bench guys. I guess in theory, it applies to one of KJ or Hunter Dickinson. Do you feel comfortable playing both those guys as starters again, if both are willing to come back and saying, Hey, do we think we can build a roster that has enough shooting and enough defense, even if we're starting both of them next to each other? Or again, what do you have to do with that? I think off the bench, the big ones that you have questions on here is with Elmarco Jackson and Jamari McDowell. And I think I forgot earlier that Nick Timberlake also graduated as part of that portion.

Starting point is 00:15:50 But anyway, I think those would be the two big ones. And I think it's very easy to see Elmarco had a really bad year for Kansas. I mean, just in terms of like efficiency and lack of production for the amount of minutes he got, this is not hyperbole. It was one of the worst seasons per, you know, 10 plus minutes played per game that we've seen in the Bell South Air. I don't say that's crap on the kid because I think Marco Jackson is a good kid. I think he has a very high potential.

Starting point is 00:16:15 I think he's a very good athlete. Let's not forget, he only played three years of organized basketball before playing this year at Kansas. And guess what? It's a lot easier when you hear those stories all the time. Well, not all the time, but a decent amount of time of like, this kid only played four years organized basketball. Most often those kids that are successful that that happens with are centers because they're like seven feet tall and they're athletic and they're big. And

Starting point is 00:16:37 it's like, okay, just be big, grab rebound, throw down dunk. Like that's a little bit easier, right? And I'm simplifying it, but still point guard is the most complicated position especially for a Bill Self point guard where you are asked so much both mentally and physically so it would make sense that Omarco would take a little bit longer to get clicking and to get going and so I would say like try to keep the kid man like I know it wasn't a great year and it was very frustrating watching it, but like Bill Self has had more success with returning talent than he has had with new talent coming into the building, whether it's been freshmen, whether it's been transfers, right? There are obviously exceptions to the rule, right?

Starting point is 00:17:17 You have a Josh Jackson's and Grady Dix of the world who hit the ground running automatically right away. And of course, but there's a lot of other ones that don't go the other way, whether it was Nick Timberlake, you know, struggling to put that together. Joe Yesifu, Charlie Moore. You want to go into freshmen, just think of the past few years.

Starting point is 00:17:31 Like, okay, El Marco struggled to get it going this year. MJ Rice couldn't get in the rotation last year. Zach Clements couldn't get in the rotation two years ago. On and on and on, right? So I think you're better off trying to develop these guys in a day and age where it's so easy to try to over-recruit someone in the transfer portal. It's clear to me, though, that Bill Self does better with returning players in his system.

Starting point is 00:17:50 Try to keep on Marco Jackson. Same goes for Jamari McDowell. And I think McDowell maybe profiles more into being a long-term role player to where maybe that has gotten through his head a little bit more to where maybe that one's a little bit more likely that he comes back. You know, it is a two-way street as much as Bill Zelf could be like, hey, I want both these guys back. What if one of them's like, well, but I don't want to come back? Then you're kind of shrugging your shoulder and whatever. But for me, I would not be trying to be like, hey,

Starting point is 00:18:13 let's push these guys out the door and try to bring in, you know, some transfer portal recruit to overplay them. Because you're still going to have scholarships available anyway. Even if you do bring back El Marco and Jamari McDowell, you're still going to have like available anyway. Even if you do bring back El Marco and Jamari McDowell, you're still going to have like a handful plus of scholarships to use. So you don't need to boot those guys. You're going to have enough space to add what you need to add and add the talent you need to add anyway.

Starting point is 00:18:35 I think that balancing adding more talent with not having more players leave, that's a big one. This sounds dumb to a certain extent because with how thin Kansas was this season and do how not deep they were, like, isn't it a little silly to now go in the offseason and just be like, oh, well, do we really want to add that much talent? Because what if it chases guys off, right? Because then you're back in this situation where this year. At the same point in time, we know it is a fine line between trying to add competition

Starting point is 00:19:03 and kind of seeing that kinetic energy lead to someone else transferring, i.e. when Hunter Dickinson joined last year. And then you saw the repercussions of that. Ernest Uday and Zuby Adjifer transfer out of the program for KU. So how do you kind of play this fine line? Maybe it's by bringing in guys who are content playing a backup role like a Jalen Coleman-Lanz or a Parker Brown after you've kind of filled the main ones. Obviously, you still need to add some starter level talent, but after you filled those, maybe it's not caring about it at all and just saying, hey, we're about competition. Like KU football does this.

Starting point is 00:19:33 We're just going to add the best players we can. And guess what? You're going to compete. And if you don't like where you were on the depth chart, like that's up to you. Transfer at the end of the season or whatever. You know, maybe that's the best way to play. I don't know. However, he plays it.

Starting point is 00:19:45 That'll be very interesting. And then how do you want to play moving forward? Like what do you want to most add? It is a little bit of a ball of clay here for Kansas. It's not totally that way because you do know you have DeJuan Harris back. And so you're not going to bring in another pass first point guard or a non-shooting point guard to play with DeJuan Harris. So that changes it a little bit. But you can go a lot of different directions with this.

Starting point is 00:20:06 Part of it depends. Are KJ and Hunter going to be back? Because then it is a bit more stern of like, hey, we need two shooters. We need a combo guard. I think either way, they need a combo guard who can create his own shot and make shots at probably two to play next to DeJuan, maybe another one to come off the bench. And then you need a scoring wing that you can play next to those guys. But do you want to play with more of a post-up big man? Do you want to play

Starting point is 00:20:30 with versatile five men? Do you want to play with three wings and a point guard? Do you want to play with two guards next to each other and two wings or two guards and a wing and KJ and Hunter Dickinson? I don't know. There's a lot of different directions you can go with this. Those are decisions that Bill Self has to make. The last one for bill self here is any assistant coaching changes um after having a year like this is it enough to to maybe want to shake things up a little bit now bill self and his staff has had so much success that is one down year you know enough to be like yeah let's let's shake things up and i guess you could say well they also lost in the second round last year but yeah that was bill self uh being out with the illness.

Starting point is 00:21:06 And that was a one seed. And like you lost a close game to Arkansas. Like sometimes that stuff just happens in the tournament. This year is much more of an indictment on how things went than last year. Last year was more of just spurned in the tournament, right? And so do you want to make any changes? Is there something about how you've been scouting for games? Is there something about how you've been scouting for games?

Starting point is 00:21:29 Is there something about how you've been scouting the transfer portal or scouting freshmen or recruiting? Like which of those, if you do want to make a change in the assistant coaching game, do you think is most important? And what are you going to try to add to? Let's continue on KU Women's Basketball. Quick preview for their game against USC on Locked on Jayhawks. When you're hiring for a small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs.

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Starting point is 00:22:19 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring. Post your job for free at linked.com slash LockedOnCollege. That is LinkedIn.com slash LockedOnCollege. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Finishing things up with this episode of LockedOnJayhawks. Quick preview for KUSC depending on when you're listening to this. Hopefully it's before the game starts, but USC comes in. They're the one seed, 27-5 on the season. They've gone undefeated against non-PAC-12 opponents.

Starting point is 00:22:49 Kansas at 20-12, 11-7. It was a great comeback for KU to come back and defeat Michigan in overtime after Zakiya Franklin, you know, knocks in the three that kind of bounces off the rim and then the great response in overtime for KU. So they've won a tournament game for the second time in the last three years, but now you're playing the one seed

Starting point is 00:23:05 on their home court. And two years ago when you did that at Stanford, it was a close game at half and then Stanford pulled away in the second half. I think now Kansas, two years of an older team,

Starting point is 00:23:14 more experienced team. I think they're better suited to try to pull this upset on the road against USC, but it's not going to be easy. USC is a very good transition scoring team. Kansas, that's not really

Starting point is 00:23:24 as much of their forte. USC also gets a very good transition scoring team. Kansas, that's not really as much of their forte. USC also gets a bunch of second chance points. So this becomes a very important game for like Tyana Jackson to kind of dominate. But when you look at what has gone well for Kansas over this recent run over maybe the last 10 games, the offense has picked it up in efficiency. The defense has been pretty darn good in terms of limiting opponent i mean they're in the 93rd percentile over the last 10 games in terms of block rate a big reason for that is tyano jackson and you know they've been a much more uh together cohesive defensive team i think over this this last bit of time they're um doing a good job of getting to the free throw line here

Starting point is 00:24:03 and this becomes a very interesting player matchup game. When you look at some of the freshmen in this game, Juju Watkins is averaging 27 points per game for USC. Samaya Nichols, who got a bit of foul trouble last game over 15 points per game. It's going to be a really fun matchup. And, um,

Starting point is 00:24:19 you know, when you look at it for USC, they've been this great team all season long, but that doesn't mean they're impenetrable. They do have five losses. So KU playing with house money here, playing against one seed. Why not? And we'll discuss whatever happens in the game on tomorrow's episode. We'll also break down a little bit more off season stuff with KU, maybe lessons that they can take away top takeaways from this season that was had for KU. We'll also get into some transfer portal targets for KU later in the week.

Starting point is 00:24:45 This has been Locked on Jayhawks. Find our show anywhere you get podcasts and on our YouTube page. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - What Off-season Decisions Are Ahead for Bill Self and Kansas Jayhawks Basketball?

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