Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Which Kansas Jayhawks Star Has the Best Shot at Player of the Year, KU Football/Basketball Crossover

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Kansas Jayhawks Basketball and Football crossover questions; does Jalon Daniels have a better chance at winning Heisman than Hunter Dickinson has of winning Naismith National Player of the Year? Plus more KU crossover questions and Whose Stat Line is it Anyway featuring KJ Adams and Daniel Hishaw.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. Terms and conditions apply.eBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit. eBay Motors dot com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO HUNDRED 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, we're going to be talking some football, basketball crossover questions between some award possibilities. Could Jalen Daniels or Hunter Dickinson win their respected player of the year award in their sport? We're going to get on to whose stat line is it anyway? Plenty more on today's episode with Nick Schwert. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m.

on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Nick Schwert joins me today, and he kind of teased last week that you're going to be able to hear him on some upcoming stuff. So I don't know if he can release that yet, but I don't know. Nick, where can people find your work? Right now, you know what? Just find me on Twitter. Find me on social media.

I'm on threads, man. No, nothing official. We haven't launched yet. This is like when your friend is having a baby and then you're the one trying to break the news to the world that I'm having a baby. This new venture is going to be my

figurative baby. I don't have any children. You don't get to make the announcement that I'm pregnant. That's my announcement. I will make it on my own time. But thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with you. All right.

Well, on today's episode, we're going to have some fun crossover questions between football and basketball. More likely to do this or that. We've got a whose stat line is it anyway? Let's just get right into the show. First crossover question I have for you here. These are between the Kansas Jayhawk football season upcoming here in 2023 and the basketball season for 23-24.

Who is more likely to win their Player of the Year respected award? So for basketball, the Naismith, or I don't know, there's a billion of them, right? So any of them. Or the Heisman for Jalen Daniels. Who's more likely, Jalen Daniels or Hunter Dickinson, to win that prestigious award? I think you have to go with Hunter Dickinson. Even though Jalen Daniels was one of the Heisman frontrunners before he went down, it's hard to say frontrunner

when you're not even halfway through the season. But according to Vegas odds, he was one of the five most likely players. I think he was fifth or fourth in Heisman odds before that TCU game. But the answer has to be Hunter Dickinson for a couple of reasons. First, if we just look at the differences in sports and how those awards are handed out, the Heisman year after year after year is often won by a guy that wasn't one of the front runners at the beginning of the year. Now, I know Caleb Williams, not necessarily the case, but there are so often guys like Jalen Williams or Jalen Daniels last year who jumped up out of nowhere and made themselves candidates.

Meanwhile, in basketball, there's more staying power. And Hunter Dickinson is a perfect example of that, right? He came on the scene as a freshman, was one of the best players in the country and has continued to be one of the best players in the country and has continued to be one of the best players in the country since then even though the teams that he's played on haven't been great you can't do that in football you can't be a prodigious stat sheet stuffer while your team is six and six and still be a heisman candidate hunter dickinson is going to be on a top 25 team in the country.

Even if you don't think Kansas is going to be a national championship contender, he is going to be on a top 25 team in the country. He is probably going to put up, let's just say conservatively 20 and 10 per game. That right there probably puts you on one of the first two all American teams. And if you're, that means you're one of the top ten players in the country, you've got a decent chance of winning national player of the year.

So it's just much, much easier in the position that he's in for Dickinson to win it over Daniels. Yeah, I think betting odds have Dickinson around 12-1, 15-1 range. Jalen is like 80-1, which I was surprised it was necessarily that high. I saw that. I wonder if this is a difference. I guess you do have Caleb Williams with this in football, that that's a clear roadblock.

Then again, guys like never win second Heisman. It's only happened one time ever, so it's very difficult. But with Hunter Dickinson, the Zach Eadie roadblock in front of you, like it's with Zach Eadie for Purdue, the way he doesn't win player of the year is if Purdue is just, you know, I don't know, they're a three or four seed in the NCAA tournament, because this isn't like a point guard who it's like, well, last year he shot 40% from three. What if this year he only shoots 33%? He's seven foot four. Like the floor on what he's going to do is going to be 20 and 10 every night.

So I do wonder if there is a bit more of a roadblock there. And with Jalen Daniels, maybe you could follow that like RG three path when they won. I think they were eight and four in the regular season. I can't remember if they won nine games in the regular season. I know they won their bowl game. So maybe that got them to nine. And he won the Heisman that year because it was, I think not only did you have this dynamic quarterback who was really good, but you had kind of the shock and awe of, you know, Baylor up until RG3 was running on a decade plus of basically being where Kansas was over the last decade. Not quite as bad, but kind of near that, the basement of the Big 12.

And you had the shock and awe of, oh, Baylor's actually good. What has this guy done? Like, I wonder if you get that at all, if Jalen Daniels can get Kansas to even like eight wins. Well, I mean, you look last year at, I'll start first with basketball. You look last year, Oscar Shibuye was reigning national player of the year.

We thought he was going to go pro. Comes back, big NIL deal. And all of a sudden we say, okay, well, this guy's just going to win it again. And his stats dipped just a little bit bit and Kentucky was just a little bit worse than they were the year before he was still an All-American but that's the difference between being the National Player of the Year and an All-American a slight statistical drop off and maybe the team's not quite as competitive you've kind of laid it out That could easily happen for Zach Eadie, and often is the case,

whether it's Heisman or National Player of the Year in basketball. If you win it and come back, you have to be better. You cannot be as good. You have to be better the next year because now the voters are judging you off your own standards as well as everybody else in the country. With Jalen Daniels, I wonder, too, if there is a curve because he's on Kansas. off your own standards as well as everybody else in the country with jalen daniels i wonder too if there is a curve because he's on kansas like you could be on baylor but baylor's had success in the last 10 years whereas at kansas yeah if you get to seven wins if you get to eight wins i think seven

probably wouldn't be enough but if you get to eight wins and your stats are undeniable, you got to think that that's going to at least put him in consideration. The hard part for him is that all it takes is one guy on a team with 10 wins to have stats that are just similar to yours. Because if that is the case, and we see this all the time, like there are guys at smaller schools with less success that are putting up crazy numbers. I know you dig through them all the time. Those guys aren't Heisman candidates because they're not winning enough games. So ultimately, I think the threshold, I think we even discussed this last year. I think we talked about this early in the season,

like how many wins and how many touchdowns would Jalen Daniels have to get? And I think you could just probably rehash it again this year like you're gonna have to get to eight or nine wins to give yourself even a shot and the numbers are gonna have to be undeniable uh more likely to be drafted Jalen Daniels Hunter Dickinson oh I so I actually think that if Jalen Daniels has a big season, I think he's like a round three, round four guy. You're not going to be a first-round guy, and teams don't like to spend second-round picks on quarterbacks

because it's like if you liked him enough to pick him in the second round, you would have just drafted him in the first round where you get the extra year of control. So I don't love this. The draft class is really top heavy with guys, you know, with Caleb Williams and Drake May. But after that, there's not a lot of like, you know, Quinn Ewers, is he going to be an NFL quarterback? I'm not sure. If Daniels has another good season, he's six one ish. I don't know. We'd have to get him up against

the wall and really measure to see how close he is to six two. But for the But I hear that he gets called undersized. I don't really see it. I wouldn't be surprised to see him go in the third or fourth round if he has a big season. I agree with you there. I think with Hunter Dickinson, it's just so tough as a center. And, yeah, if Jalen has that season, then he's going to have that opportunity. More likely to have a first-team All-American,

Hunter Dickinson or any ku football player hunter dickinson it's less competition i think you're you can talk about there being 350 some odd teams in college basketball but how many teams you actually competing against to be like a first team all-american you know what i mean like somebody from lehigh is not going to be a first you could go to lehigh and average 45 points a game you will not be a first teamteam All-American. You know what I mean? Like somebody from Lehigh is not going to be a first. You could go to Lehigh and average 45 points a game. You will not be a first-team All-American. Whereas in college football, it's like there's one spot for each position. So like Jalen Daniels better be the best quarterback in the entire country

just to get that guy. You go on down the line. The positions where KU is most likely to get All-Americans are the toughest ones to get All-Americans at. I go quarterback and running back. Turns out a lot of teams have good quarterbacks and running backs. So I think, again, it's just like, I know Dickinson's going to be good. I know he's going to be good. I think Jalen Daniels is going to be really good. I think Devin Neal is going to be really good. I have absolutely zero concerns whatsoever that Hunter Dickinson is not going to be one of the top 10 players in the country. And now you're

just asking me, can you get into the top five, which I think Bill Self can get you into the top five. I want to get to more of these either or questions in a second. First though, this episode of the show is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business. You want to be 100% certain that you have access to the best qualified candidates available. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs helps find the right people for your team faster and for free. You're going to want somewhere that you can easily post your job. People can see it a lot. It's super easy on LinkedIn. People are

scrolling through the LinkedIn app, checking out what their friends, family are up to. You're going to easily see those jobs and then it's going to be easy to apply for because you've got all your stuff preloaded into your LinkedIn profile. Add your job purple hashtag hiring frame to the LinkedIn profile to spread the word that you're hiring. Simple tools like screening questions make it easy to focus on candidates with just the right skills and experience so you can quickly prioritize who you'd like to interview and hire. You want to add the right team member. All these college football, college basketball teams are looking to add that one last final piece to push them over the top.

Be the game changer. Make that game changing hire. Get the right team member. Small business is rate LinkedIn jobs number one in delivering quality hires versus leading competitors. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash locked on college. That's linkedin.com slash locked on college to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

Okay, some more either or questions. Do you think we get more double digit scores for KU basketball or double digit touchdown getters for KU football and I will let you count the quarterbacks here with passing touchdowns okay well that's a big one because outside of that my first pick would be Devin Neal he had 10 last year and I don't think any receivers even got close, right? Wasn't the leading receiver like five? Six for the leading receiver. I think Fairchild and Grimm tied for the lead there. That sounds about right.

So I'm not, I mean, if you set the over-under at one and a half, like that's where you're setting it for football, right? You're not going to set it at two and a half because everybody would take the under. So I'm going to say two guys get it in football. And for basketball, I mean, Hunter Dickinson's a lock. Who averaged more points per game last year? Was it KJ Adams or was it Kevin McCuller? McCuller was right around.

They were both right around the same number, weren't they? I think it was Kevin for the season. But they both were double digits. Yes. Deuller was right around. They were both right around the same number, weren't they? I think it was Kevin for the season. But they both were double digits. Yes. DeJuan was right there. DeJuan was around nine. Yeah. So I'm taking basketball.

I'm taking basketball because I think you're probably getting at least three. Whereas football, I feel like you're capped at three. Well, last year it was three. I hope it ends up going higher. And then all of a sudden, boom, you're talking about a really explosive offense, but I don't know who it would be. Like, at least I can name the names in basketball and football. It's kind of like one of these guys might do it.

Well, it's very, it's very balanced. I guess last year you could have, last year it was three, but Jason Bean was one of them if I'm giving you quarterbacks. So, you know, barring injury, you don't expect that to happen. Daniel Hyshaw would have been on pace if he was healthy. We'll see where that's at. I don't know. Maybe one of the receivers emerges.

I think there is a chance this is football. Like, what if Dickinson is around 18, 19 points per game, and then your second guy is around 13, 14, and then you just have a collection of, like, two or three guys around, like, seven to nine i mean to that point like i think dickinson's gonna be more than 18 or 19 points a game like i think it's gonna be around 22 to 24 and that may may not seem like much but that's you know if you if you think 18 and i think 24 that's six points a game that could be the difference between someone averaging 13 and someone

averaging eight and then another guy averaging 11 and nine. So yeah, I guess it's not, it's just, it's tougher for me to like map it out to you because I don't know who the guys in football are going to be. Okay. Here's some non-including Hunter Dickinson ones.

More rushing touchdowns for Devin Neal or KJ Adams plus Parker Brown made threes? Okay, give it to me again while I ruminate. Devin Neal rushing touchdowns, which he had nine of them last year. And one receiving, okay. You get three pointers made by KJ Adams and Parker Brown combined, which Parker Brown, I think is shot around 28% from three for his career, but you know, there's going to be a limit on his minute ability.

Yeah. So I'm basically, you're basically asking me, will KJ Adams develop a jump shot? That's what you're asking me. And I feel like this is a, this is a deeper question than you're leading on because you're basically insinuating that KJ Adams is going to need to develop a jumper in order to justify playing him at the four. I see what you're doing here, and I like it.

It's tough because KJ was never supposed to be a guy that, like, you just had to find minutes for. And then none of the other big guys stepped up last year, and he was that dude. And I feel like he was a stopgap guy. I think he did an interview and admitted it. And nobody ever stepped up, and he was just the dude all year. And then the coaches didn't want to take him out of the game because he did all the little stuff that nobody else was doing. And he was just a very coachable player. He's a very Bill Self player.

But I'm not... I don't know. Have you heard whispers that he's all of a sudden just lethal from 24 feet? No, I've heard it's more so he's working on his mid-range game than three-point game. And that's perfect because his

frame does not look like a guy who's just going to be, you know, Drano from deepy deep. So I'm, I'm going to take Devin Neal. I'm taking Devin Neal. And I just don't think those two guys are producing a lot of trays. Yeah. And Parker Brown last year at Santa Clara was 14 of 57 from three, but that's with playing like 30 minutes a game. So yeah, he's going to play what? I mean, five minutes,

10. I have, it depends how long Dickinson's going to play. Yeah. Okay. More likely KU football wins eight regular season games or they make the final four in basketball. Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm. Because eight seems like a big number for Kansas football there. It does. Also, though, the final four inherently is just kind of a crapshoot with the tournament. Yeah, because if you're asking me, like, what would surprise me more, I would say the eight games. but I think mathematically making a final four is probably more difficult because it's single elimination tournament four times over just to get to that point. So I think I got to go with the eight wins,

even though it doesn't sound right. I think this is it. You're playing your, your mind and your heart are playing, you know, they're at war with each other. Your mind will tell you that, yes, it's the eight wins, but your heart's like, no. Can you football eight wins, Kansas basketball, Final Four?

Like, what have I seen more of in the last 10 years? But I still think it's a numbers game. I'm taking the eight wins with Kansas football. I'm curious where you're at on that one. I think I would do the eight wins as well I I was trying to I I wish there was like odds out there that you could take a team boosted because the the win total for KU depending where you look is like five and a half six six and a half um I wish there was a place that you could be like I want to boost it and get like boosted odds

but for Kansas to make the final four that's probably going off at what like four to one something like that. I mean, I can't imagine if you took a bet over seven and a half wins for KU football, it'd be higher than four to one. So yeah, I think you get the, like we don't even know what seed Kansas is going to be to begin with. Obviously people are going to expect them to be a one or two seed because that's just what Bill Self does.

And this team seems very talented. But I don't know, Maybe things don't work out. Maybe you do end up a three or a four seed, right? But either way, it's so tough. You don't know how your path is going to work out, the crapshoot or the single elimination. At the end of the day, it's a little easier to view eight wins. If you're looking at it from the KU perspective,

it looks like you're looking up at the Empire State Building. But if you look at it from a standpoint of, well, you won six games last year. You return all these starters. You think you have the best quarterback in the league. You think you have one of the best coaches in the league. Why couldn't you win two more games? You know what it is, Derek? Smarter people probably could have figured this out quicker than I did.

But as you're sitting there talking, both of those teams could play flawlessly for three months, and only one of them would accomplish their goal. Kansas football plays flawless for three months. They're winning at least eight games. Kansas basketball can go undefeated in the regular season, and then they still got to win four straight games in March. So March Madness is amazing, and we love it, but it's also the most difficult tournament to win because there's so much

luck involved. All right. Last one here, more likely to win big 12 coach of the year, Lance Leipold or Bill self. Oh, I mean, it's gotta be Lance Leipold.

This one's this one I feel like is, is an easy one. Bill self can't win big 12 coach of the year unless Kansas runs the table or like they just, they went 17 and one in 2020 to 21 and he still didn't win it. Who won it that year? Scott drew. Of course.

Because it's like this fun. I love, I love coach of the year awards because you know, medium and media will come out and they'll say, well, and this is a, this is like, this is the difference between coaches and media coaches will look at a team and they'll look at themselves and they'll be, well, and this is the difference between coaches and media.

Coaches will look at a team and they'll look at themselves and they'll be like, tremendous coaching job. Like, wow, those guys, we didn't even think this guy was a division one player, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Media will just give it to the team that they thought was going to suck the most. Like the team that overachieved based off their preseason poll. And they'll be like, who could have seen this coming well not you maybe just maybe you're not great at this whole evaluation thing so it's difficult for a guy like phil self to ever get it just like it is for any great coach in any great sport but i feel like the media would almost like be ready to give it to lance libel like we're going into the season like come on lance just win seven games and it's yours win Win eight games, the trophy's yours. Just show up to work

and we'll give this to you at the end of the year. All right, let's finish up. Whose stat line is it anyway? This is Locked on Jayhawks. Finishing up, whose stat line is it anyway? I'm going to give you a stat line. We got one basketball one, one football one in theme with the crossover questions.

We'll start with the basketball one. Whose stat line is this? 11.4 points per game. This is in Big 12 regular season games only. That was third on KU. Also about four and a half rebounds per game, 59% from the field. Okay, I feel pretty good about this, which means it's probably wrong. But a name popped into my head instantly

I'm going with KJ Adams KJ Adams is the correct answer and one that we talked about a little bit earlier but have you thought about at all like what if KJ is just like this elite driver of the basketball and he just and now that he's going to be on slightly smaller guys, like what if he just can't be stopped driving to the rim and none of the shooting matters? Yeah. But then you're talking about him still playing alongside Hunter Dickinson. And we've seen this before where you try to put two big guys who on paper are not the same player, right? They don't play the same.

And I think the last one that I can, who on paper are not the same player, right? They don't play the same. And I think the last one that I can, that really comes to mind, is Dedrick Lawson playing with, well, at the beginning of the year, I guess it was Doak, and then it ended up being David McCormick. And you're like, well, and Dedrick wasn't the same, but he was kind of a floor spacer, mid-range specialist, couldn't shoot the three. And we're like, well, there's enough spacing out there because these guys don't play the same.

It's not the same. Like you can't take a big man and say, we're just going to play you as a wing. Now, granted, KJ is not a big man, right? He's like 6'7", and he moves like a wing. So I think there could be something there. But the only way that works, Derek, is if everyone else is sort of doing the thing that allows that to exist. Right. So if you're a great spacer, then that means Hunter Dickinson has they've got the coaching staff really has to do a great job of getting Hunter Dickinson on the perimeter, creating driving lanes. That way, every single time KJ Adams is taking it to the hole, you don't have this seven-foot big dude kind of in the way clocking things up. So I do think they're going to use Dickinson a lot on the perimeter

because he can help you there. But you've got to think about it through the lens of, where is KU going to be at their best? They're at their best with Hunter Dickinson, who is the best post player in america operating in the post so i think there are going to be opportunities for i don't know if it's going to be ku's bread and butter all right the football one uh 13 game pace 928 total yards, 16 total touchdowns. Okay.

Well, I feel like you gave me an Easter egg earlier, so I'm going to go with Daniel Hyshaw. That's right. There was your Easter egg, and the 13-game pace kind of adds to that. Those are really good numbers for if that's your number two running back. He was having a phenomenal season, and I felt like he and Devin Neal complimented each other very well. And then all of a sudden,

I think it was the Iowa state game. If I'm not mistaken, where high shot goes down and it was like more than just like a, Hey, this guy, you know, landed kind of funny or they, this guy might miss a week.

It's like, Oh, this is a very serious injury. You just don't take your, can you can you think of anybody else who's because like we have so much track record on well this guy came back from an acl injury or ankle injury whatever i can't think of anybody else who came back from a dislocated hip and it doesn't mean it can't happen i just can't think of anyone no um it's scary it's scary so i I would assume this guy is more equipped to come back from it than most people would be like most people like, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and call it a career. Like if I'm going to play intramural basketball, dislocate my hip. It's like, yeah, I'm going to hang them up. It's time. You know, it's been a good run. But these guys, they have access to the best training and they themselves are very resilient and can probably bounce back in ways that most of us couldn't even imagine.

So I'm excited. I would say I'm proceeding with cautious optimism. I'm not going to get my hopes up and say that, like, oh, this guy is going to be the exact same player he was last year before the injury. But he had some juice, man. And that run against Duke, I still think, was one of the top three or four plays of the season for Kansas football. And if he can just bottle that up and give it to you, even in doses this year, I would be really excited to see what this offense looks like and how close they can get to what they looked like the first five weeks last year.

All right, he's Nick Schwert. Give him a follow at Nick underscore Schwert on Twitter. You can find me on Twitter as well, at DJohnsonRadio. That'll do it for the show. Find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. Like and subscribe to the show on our YouTube page. See you next time with Locked on Jayhawks.