Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Who Are Kansas Jayhawks Basketball's '8 Starters' for Bill Self?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, Bill Self says he wants eight starters for five spots. We're going to talk about that with A.J. Storen, Rylan Griffin onto the team, plus some fun episode on the show with Nick Schwerer. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:31 He's Nick Schwert at Nick underscore Schwert. And this is Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition, we're going to be talking AJ Griffin or Ryland Griffin and AJ Storr coming into the team. Eight starters.

Starting point is 00:00:50 What does that mean for Bill Self? And a little edition of who cares and whose stat line is it anyway to talk a little KU football and KU basketball. First game off. We got to talk more about Monopoly Go. This fast paced game lets you team up with friends for tournaments to unlock awesome prizes like unique stickers for trading, cool playing pieces and hilarious emojis for taunting your friends so download monopoly go now free on the google play and app store today game on all right so let's start right there uh

Starting point is 00:01:15 since we last talked aj store and rylan griffin are on the team for ku and bill self just the other day did a i guess interview podcast whatever you want to call it, with Andy Katz, and one of the things that he mentioned was basically he wants to have eight starters for five spots. Now, let's start there. When you hear him say eight starters, I think in a lot of coaches' cases, like Nate Oates, for instance, he plays at a fast pace. You're going to have a lot of guys who are coming off the bench

Starting point is 00:01:41 who are playing high-minute totals. When you view Bill Self saying eight starters, are you actually viewing it as him saying it's going to be like eight guys who are playing around the same amount of minutes or are you viewing it in a different light? Okay. So I'm viewing it in a slightly different light, but there's layers to that comment that are very funny to me. The first one is I view that as bill self promising eight guys starting spots next year okay so but maybe that's not necessarily true like kj adams they may have had an honest conversation about his role moving forward i don't know right just speculation but i think we talked about this a few weeks ago when he's going to zeke mayo aj store rylan griff, Riley Kugel, and he's trying to get them to commit to Kansas.

Starting point is 00:02:26 These guys are highly valued commodities on the open market. And there are probably schools for all of these dudes who are saying, yes, not only are you going to start, you're going to be our A1. We are going to run the offense through you. You're going to get X amount of shots per game. Bill has to recruit against that a little bit. So I don't know explicitly that he is promising all these guys starting jobs, but I would imagine there's some element of, Hey man, like it's going to be an open competition. And I think, I think you've got a good a shot to start as anyone, right? Like walking up to the line and getting as close to it without outright saying, I promise you're going to start.

Starting point is 00:03:06 Beyond that, I don't view it as him saying, we're going to have eight guys all playing 20 minutes a night. I think it's more of him setting the tone that we have eight guys who could start. We have eight starting caliber players. And what that really tells me when you compare it to last season is that there is going to be competition that didn't really exist last year. Like the competition last year was which of these two guards coming off the bench, all of whom are underwhelming, are going to get the most minutes this week. That was the closest thing we had to competition. Now, all of a

Starting point is 00:03:43 sudden, KJ Adams for the first time in two years, is really going to have to fight off guys for playing time. Not necessarily guys at his position, but guys who can be the fourth starter. You don't need a power forward, not even that KJ Adams is a power forward, but you can go another wing. You can go another stretch three to put there at that four spot. So I think that's what he's saying. There is open competition.

Starting point is 00:04:05 We have a lot of guys vying for starting jobs, and I'm looking at my roster, seeing eight guys potentially who could start for this team. Okay, so who do you think those eight guys are? DeJuan Harris, Hunter Dickinson, like those are two obvious ones. KJ Adams, even if you think he comes off the bench or starts, he's in that conversation.

Starting point is 00:04:24 Zeke Mayo is in that conversation. A.J. Storr, Rylan Griffin in that conversation. That's six right there. Would you put Elmarco Jackson there? Obviously, we're waiting and seeing what's going to happen with Riley Kugel. Who knows if he's going to be part of the roster or not. I don't know if you put Zach Clements or Flory Budunga there. Feels more like it's more likely that like Jamari McDowell red shirts. A lot of

Starting point is 00:04:46 people seem to be really high in Ricky's passport. Who are you putting for those final two spots? Before I answer your question, can you explain why you felt the need to throw Zach Clements's name in there as a potential starter? Well, not as a, I guess starter was probably the wrong term there. I almost viewed it as even though Bill self says, like, okay, if there's an eight man rotation, which is which is almost how I'm viewing him saying eight starters, right? Realistically, we know Bill Self once it gets down to cut in time, it's seven man, maybe an eight man rotation, you're going to have a backup center in that eight man rotation. So which of those do you think it's going to be Florida Badoonga or Zach Clements? I don't know. But you're right. Yeah, as far as being a starter, no, that's not happening.

Starting point is 00:05:27 Okay, so thank you for your explanation. I am politely going to remove him from the rest of this conversation. Shout out. I think you can remove Flory, though, too, in that same light. You're not starting. Yeah, and I think that's right. Yeah, it depends how you want to look at it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:43 Is Flory good enough to start for kansas sure is flory doing good enough to start over hunter dickinson no no right like we don't know he's a freshman very talented but like yes i think you're right it depends on the context of how bill is saying this um so you named i think six guys there off the top if i'm just going through my projection like what i think is going to happen, I would guess that your starting lineup is going to look like DeJuan Harris, Zeke Mayo, AJ store, Ryland Griffin, and Hunter Dickinson. If you want to throw KJ in there, that's fine.

Starting point is 00:06:18 He makes it six. And then you get to guys like El Marco. Easy to forget. This dude was a top 20 player coming out of high school last year. We thought he was going to be the starting two all season long. That didn't happen. I feel comfortable for him going into year two, another year of development. He decided to stick around there.

Starting point is 00:06:33 None of us thought he was coming back, right? Nobody thought that in this day and age of the transfer portal that El Marco Jackson was coming back. So maybe he's betting on himself. Maybe the coaching staff is betting on him. I'm willing to throw his name in there. And yeah, and then you're kind of debating that last, that eighth guy, whether you think it's Floyd Badunga,

Starting point is 00:06:50 Riley Kugel, if he ends up sticking around, Rakees Passmore, a lot of people are high on him. So it's not hard to get to that eight. It's more about just figuring out like who's on the outside looking in and Bill's mind. Yeah, I would have El Marco in that eight for sure. And honestly, like, I think if you gave me even odds, the value play would be that, okay, which of these guards Zeke Mayo or a Marco Jackson, there's a better chance of starting. I would take Zeke Mayo there. I guess

Starting point is 00:07:14 what I'm saying though, is if you gave me say four to one odds, five to one odds, then a Marco Jackson would be the fifth starter. I'm going to actually sprinkle on that because I do think there is something there about, like you said, the, the development in your, let's not forget, like a Marco Jackson didn't start playing organized basketball till like, he played like three years of high school basketball, like at point guard in Bill Self where you were being demanded, and I guess you'd be more of a two guard here, but point stands, that's more of a cerebral position. It's going to take some time. And on a team where I think Kansas has done an unbelievable job at overhauling the shooting, the scoring, the shot creation that they're going to have.

Starting point is 00:07:50 But what's kind of the one question left at this point that I don't think you're going to be able to answer really is who are going to be the defenders on this team? Okay, well, you know what would help? Marco Jackson was in like the 93rd percentile defensively on Synergy last year. That's a smaller sample size coming off the bench and everything. But like, I think he can be a good defender. If you have Duan and El Marco is kind of the point of attack defenders, maybe that makes it easier to play all these guys and Hunter Dickinson as the

Starting point is 00:08:13 big man where you're not getting, you know, blitzed as much by some fast garters getting in the lane because you, they're just kind of being cut off. So he would be in my seven. And then the eighth guy, I think right now, if you were just going off the roster that the eighth guy, I think right now, if you were just going off the roster that they currently have, I don't know, maybe you would just go with that center, with saying the backup center and view it that way. Maybe you would go over Keith's pass more. But I think the real answer there is it's going to be a transfer. The eighth one is

Starting point is 00:08:38 going to be a transfer. They're still active in some of these markets. You talk about Jackson Robinson at BYU. He's going in the draft process. If you can make it Riley Kugel, I think he would just be part of that eight, but that kind of remains to be in question. I think what becomes interesting to me is if you do add, let's say, okay, I just brought up the name Jackson Robinson, who's averaging 14 points per game for BYU last year. Now he was the big 12 sixth man of the year.

Starting point is 00:09:02 So maybe that means he's fine coming off the bench, but that could have like a huge impact in terms of where the minutes go, because that's not the only part of this of who are those eight. It's how many minutes are they going to play? Right? Like we could go back and forth about this guy's the seventh guy, but does that mean 10 minutes a game? Does that mean 20 minutes a game?

Starting point is 00:09:19 Does it mean 25? There's a lot of different ways that can go. Well, I think you kind of know the answer though. It's not 25. No. Right. And that to me is, I I think you kind of know the answer though. It's not 25. No. Right. And that to me is,

Starting point is 00:09:26 I wonder where the line is with this coaching staff. Obviously they want to have as many great players as they possibly can, but convincing those guys to come to Kansas, a guy like Jackson Robinson, whose coach left for Kentucky. You were the sixth man of the year at BYU. I'm putting myself in his shoes. I don't know that I'm all that interested

Starting point is 00:09:45 in transferring to another program where I'm maybe going to be the sixth man. I think it's great if all of these dudes are on board with knowing that, hey, I'm going to have to earn everything and there's a chance I get beat out. And I'm not really a part of this rotation because we name eight guys. That's fine. You get to nine and 10, Derek, you're talking about guys that aren't playing. So if there's a ninth guy on your team or a 10th guy on your rotation, and they're coming to Kansas thinking they're going to be the starter, how are they going to respond to getting seven minutes a game? Some guys may be down for that. Like some guys may be all about, Hey, that that's, that's part of the deal. That's part of the game. I'm

Starting point is 00:10:25 just going to compete and take what comes with it. But you don't want guys who all think they're going to be the dude, who all think they're going to be a starter because you need roles. The best Kansas teams, the best teams, period, college, NBA, you name it, are filled with dudes who know their role and execute their role. I'm not alleging that there's anything that's going to happen, but I think that's very common when you get into these sorts of situations where you really have a hard time kind of finding that breaking point of these are the dudes and these are the guys who are kind of filling those smaller roles. All right, we're going to continue on with a little,

Starting point is 00:11:05 who cares more KU basketball and some KU football talk in just a moment. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by eBay motors, passion, drive, and patience. The formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive.

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Starting point is 00:12:18 I don't know, somebody else, North Carolina, Duke. But who cares? Kansas being preseason number one this year versus being preseason number one last year. So I'm going to ask you to go back in time a little bit. Oh, not how I feel right now about them being preseason one. Okay. I think I care more about this number one. I know that's the easy answer, knowing how last season ended, but it's tough for me to go back in time and retroactively remove the results from my head

Starting point is 00:12:53 because I feel like I am clouded by the fact that I now look back on it and say, really? Like Nick Timberlake, the addition of Nick Timberlake and Hunter Dickinson made you number one. I'm just going to go with what I know for this team, which is that it's deeper. It's deeper. There are more shooters. Last year at this time, we were banking on the unknown of El Marco Jackson, the unknown

Starting point is 00:13:20 of Nick Timberlake translating. The only thing I was supremely confident about last year was that Hunter Dickinson was going to be an all-American candidate, which he was. You can kind of plug and play that type of guy in Bill's self-system. But now as I look forward to this season or this next season, proven shooters, Zeke Mayo, proven shooter, AJ Store, proven scorer, Riley Griffin, proven scorer at Alabama. Proven shooter. These are known commodities versus a lot more unknown last year. Granted, I could also just look at guys like DeJuan and KJ and Kevin

Starting point is 00:13:57 and say, well, we knew who those guys were, but it feels more substantial now knowing that your biggest additions are guys who have proven it, and in a couple of cases, proven it at a very high level. I agree. I think this one means more because as much as they were preseason number one last year, they weren't a deep team. Obviously, you know, there are some things that changed there with Artario Morris, but still, they weren't a deep team.

Starting point is 00:14:22 There were questions all the way through, like, is this team going to have enough shooting? How are they going to get to that point of shooting? And that obviously came back to mind. Whereas this team, I guess the two possible flaws you would point to is something you talked about in the previous segment, like how does everything mesh? Does everybody find their role? But that's something that basically every team has to figure out nowadays

Starting point is 00:14:40 with as much player movement as there is. And the other thing is just are they going to be a good enough defense? But Bill Self always just, I don don't know he wakes up in the morning he poops out a top 25 defense you know so are they are they going to be good enough there like probably so uh it is weird though i've brought this stat up a couple times here on the show but i'm going to reshare it here this is kansas is a preseason number one so since bill self took over they've been preseason number one four times, including this past season. First round out, second round out, second round out, and second round out versus the rest of the teams that since

Starting point is 00:15:16 2004 have been preseason number one, Sweet 16, National Champs, Final Four, National Champs, Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Sweet 16, Runner Up, final four, runner up, second round, elite eight, COVID canceled tournament, runner up, sweet 16, and then the weird Carolina one that missed the tournament. So like Kansas is the only school that is not having success as preseason number one. I don't know why. I think that's just maybe crap luck. Who knows? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:41 Yeah. I'm thinking back to some of those years though, like 2019, they were preseason. Number one, a lot of new faces, right? Three freshmen in the rotation. So yeah,

Starting point is 00:15:52 and maybe that seems to be the common thread. I mean, the Oh nine 10 team was, was preseason number one. And that team gets lumped in with these other ones. Cause they were second round out, but that team was objectively like amazing. They were 30.

Starting point is 00:16:03 It was great. That team was great, but still weird March stuff. Okay. Who cares? KU getting an unofficial visit from Noah Shelby, the point guard transfer from rice or Johnny Furphy's NBA draft combine results next week. I'm shocked that you even felt compelled to ask this one. Obviously, obviously I care more about Johnny Furphy than Noah Shelby, who would likely show up and red shirt and be a developmental guy. Furphy sounds, it sounds like Furphy's gone, right? The way that they're recruiting and looking at some of the mock drafts, like he's firmly going to be a first round pick, maybe not a top 15 guy. Like we thought halfway through the season or halfway through his season. He's firmly going to be a first round pick. Maybe not a top 15 guy like

Starting point is 00:16:45 we thought halfway through the season or halfway through his season, but he's going to be a first round pick. I see little that could take place, but anytime you give me Furphy as a this or that option in a question, I'm going to choose Furphy because I'm fascinated by him. He is always going to be the what if guy for me, like what if he would have returned for a second season? I think he could have been really special, but go make your bread in the NBA. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:16 Do you dare answer Noah Shelby here? No, I would answer Furphy as well. You know what the real, what if there is, what if Nick Timberlake is just like good for Kansas this past season? Not only like how does that affect the season for KU, but what if he just never relents like a starting spot in the lineup?

Starting point is 00:17:34 Furphy never comes into the starting lineup. He never blows up to be an NBA draft prospect this early. And then not only are you better this past year because Timberlake's better and you have now Furphy coming off the bench to make the bench better, but also you're better this past year because Timberlake's better and you have now Furphy coming off the bench to make the bench better but also you're better this next year because you have Furphy back yeah I don't know like Furphy was such a weird thing the way they got him at the last second and I didn't really buy into the idea of him being like a difference maker until right at the beginning of the season.

Starting point is 00:18:08 And then you see him play a little bit. I refuse to answer or entertain any what ifs about Nick Timberlake. We should have seen it coming. We should have. And Derek, I think we even talked last summer and we talked about when we were doing the same thing we're doing now, which was projecting

Starting point is 00:18:25 starting lineups. How does this guy fit? And I think we had the convo about Nick Timberlake and we said, Hmm, a guy who chucks and doesn't play defense. Does that sound like a bill self guy? Does that sound like the type of player that really endears themselves to bill self? Like we've seen those dudes before. Remember Brandon green? Like, and that guy actually hit threes. That guy actually hit threes and he got ran off the team. No, I remember we brought up Joe Cremo in that transfer.

Starting point is 00:18:53 It was such a big deal. People were talking about it. He ended up going to Villanova and he played like 15 minutes a game. Malik Newman was more than just a shooter. He could put the ball on the deck and create so like you can be a shooter in bill's health system you just can't be only a shooter and that's what nick timberlake was i ku football they added two transfer portal pickups both former

Starting point is 00:19:20 really highly recruited high school kids who were at schools in the state of Michigan and our red shirt freshmen this upcoming season, Amir Herring from Michigan interior offensive lineman by Job, a defensive end for Michigan state. Oh, between the two of them, I'm going to, I'm going to go by Job. It sounds like this dude's like an absolute freak and it's at an important position. Granted offensive line is very important as well but it's like we're ranking the importance of like having good players at these spots pass rusher is top three for me maybe number two right quarterback pass rusher receiver like that's probably the

Starting point is 00:19:57 order of how i'm going and i think that that's just going to be so vital. I have enough faith in this offense, even with Kotelnicki gone, that you're going to be able to find production with the talent that you already have in place. It's always great to bolster the offensive line. That was such a weakness for this team for about a decade. But having guys like we saw last year with Austin Booker who can get after the quarterback and disrupt the other team's offense, that to me is always going to take the trump card.

Starting point is 00:20:32 All right, I agree. Let's finish up. Who's stat line is it anyway on Locked on Jayhawks? First, this episode of the show is brought to you by Monopoly Go. Game off. We got to pause here to talk about Monopoly Go. I know what you're saying. Flag on the play.

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Starting point is 00:22:33 these are among ku's three transfer signees so aj store zeke mayo and rylan griffin obviously rather google hasn't actually signed or fully come aboard yet. And I'm going to ask you which has the best. We have three quick ones here. Who has the best defensive rebounding rate among KU's three transfer signees? This is last season stats, I should mention. I don't recall Griffin being a strong rebounder. I'm going to say AJ Store, even though I feel like he's just a scorer. You know what?

Starting point is 00:23:13 I'm going to think you're throwing me a curveball. I'm going to go Zeke Mayo. Correct answer is Zeke Mayo at 15.7%. AJ Store was at 12.5%. And Ryland Griffin was at 9.6 percent and if you want comparisons at all like kevin kohler was 15.7 last year so so they're fine yeah hunter's gonna good thing hunter's gonna get you 12 to 15 a night everybody else just has to pick up the scraps we don't need any heroes out there on the defensive glass we already got a big boy down low he's going to take care of the lion's share of the work all right most fouls drawn per 40 minutes per 40 see these per 40 numbers can kind of they can kind of trick you

Starting point is 00:23:57 a little bit because they'll make you think like oh this guy he loves Loves getting to the line. You know what? I'm going to go Zeke Mayo again. Zeke Mayo was second here at 4.8 fouls drawn per 40 minutes. First was A.J. Storr at 5.2. And actually, this one's kind of interesting because Kansas was not great at getting to the free throw line. Last season, they finished 186th in the country in basically free throw rate. They were ninth in Big 12 only games. Well, out of reference, Kevin McCuller was KU's leader in fouls drawn per 40 minutes, 5.1.

Starting point is 00:24:34 So Stor was slightly above that. No one else for Kansas was above 3.7. You're bringing in two guys who are well above that. Yeah, and it's so odd to me the way that they would run that offense through Hunter Dickinson. And for a big guy that seemed like he was in a lot of physical moments down low, like him never getting to the line is still just startling to me.

Starting point is 00:24:57 Like, I wonder if we see a little bit of progression in that regard for him next year, because it's great if you have guards who can drive and get contact but you have a guy who touches the ball a lot and gets a lot of contact that that's the easiest way to get to the free throw line is if hunter could just get some more calls all right how many of ku's new three transfers shot below 80 from the free throw line last year? Zero. That's the correct answer. Zero. Kansas was 170th in the country in free throw percentage a season ago. They were seventh in

Starting point is 00:25:34 big 12 only games, but you just added three knockdown free throw shooters. I love that. I love that. Like, yeah, you still need to get the volume for that to really make a difference. But I think that just lends itself to what the theme of the offseason has been which is you needed shooters you went and got three really good ones all right we are up against it Nick where can you find some of your upcoming work right now uh the podcast is could be wrong you can check it out wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube as well all right he's Nick Schwert at underscore Schwert on Twitter. I'm at D Johnson radio.

Starting point is 00:26:07 Find our show here with locked on Jayhawks, anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. We'll see you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Who Are Kansas Jayhawks Basketball's '8 Starters' for Bill Self?

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