Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Who is Most Likely to Take Over Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Point Guard Post Dajuan Harris in 2025?

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Who are the favorites to become the starting point guard for Bill Self and Kansas Jayhawks basketball in 2025-2026 after 4-year starter and 6-year player Dajuan Harris graduates following 2024-2025? Elmarko Jackson, Darius Acuff Jr., Darryn Peterson, transfer addition or other and why? Plus, why the backup center battle between Flory Bidunga and Zach Clemence is so crucial for this year and beyond. And an update on Mass Street TBT in The Basketball Tournament after winning against Ram Up behind Frank Mason and Billy Preston's strong outings.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COM and add a big win to your summer bucket list!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)

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, what is KU's future at point guard post DeJuan Harris? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up? I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio, and you can find our show. It's called Locked on Jayhawks. Anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page, where you can like and subscribe to the show.

Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every show. Thank you for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. And on today's episode of LOJ, we're going to be talking who is the future for point guard for Kansas, because we haven't had to think about this for a while with DeJuan Harris being this veteran player for KU for multiple years. Who's going to be the guy in 2025 to 2026? We'll also get into why this season's backup center battle isn't just crucial for this year's team, but it's crucial for 2025 to 26. And then we're going to give a little bit of an update on Mass Street TBT,

who advanced through the first round. Frank Mason was awesome, and they're on to the second round of that event. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more as playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily. That's right. There's something for everyone every day, all summer long. Visit FanDuel.com to get started.

We're going to start with who is KU's future point guard post DeJuan Harris. So this is something you haven't had to think about. DeJuan Harris has been a three-year starter. This year will be his fourth year as a starter for KU. He has a fifth season where he started two games and was a every game player for KU. And then he had a sixth season where he redshirted in the program. This is a player who's been around for a long time. And obviously you're hoping that he has a great season to cap things off this upcoming year. But it's not just that you lose DeJuan Harris after

this season. That's obviously a sizable hole that you haven't even had to think about in terms of the veteran ability and, you know, getting along or being that coach on the floor, I guess, basically the point guard is asked to do with Bill Self. But you're also going to lose Shaquille Moore, who sounds like early good returns there with that transfer. You're going to be losing Zeke Mayo. Both of those players are going to graduate away. That's all three of your ball handlers off this year's team that are going to be playing. Now, Marco Jackson would be a ball handler if you were playing off the injury, but specifically with DeJuan, that's a four-year starter and a five-year rotation player.

So that is a big hole to fill. Obviously, DeJuan isn't in the same mold as a Frank Mason, Devon Dotson, Devontae Graham where he's like the scoring guard, but he is in that mold of like the Aaron Miles that has been this pass first, like set everybody else up. So who are the candidates to possibly replace DeJuan Harris? Who could we be seeing as the starting point guard come 2025 for the first time since the starting point guard since Devon Dotson back in whatever, 2020 or 2019, 20, or I guess it would have been Marcus Garrett in 2020 to 21 would have been your last starting point guard before DeJuan Harris. Well, El Marco

Jackson was the name I just brought up. That was one where, you know, had El Marco not gotten injured in that camp scrimmage and played this season, and let's say El Marco gave you 10, 15, 20 minutes per game, right? Somewhere in that range. And he showed some good flashes. I think you would have felt okay going, okay, our starting point guard is going to either be El Marco or this newcomer player we bring in, but we feel good about where the floor is at if El Marco showed us some good stuff. The problem now is that with El Marco getting injured, it's twofold, right? He's coming off a season-long injury. He's coming off a very serious injury to where there is no guarantee that he's going to look like the same player right when he comes off the injury.

For some guys, it takes a year. For some guys, it takes three months of shaking the rust off. For some guys, they just never get back to where they originally were. Some guys get back to that original part right off the bat. We just don't know how he's going to react to the injury, which that makes things a little bit more complicated if you're Bill Self and trying to plan ahead once we get to the offseason. Now, by the time we get to next offseason,

maybe he'll have more workouts and a better idea of what that's going to look like. But specifically for El Marco, who is a very explosive player, that could very much matter. But then the other part of it that's going to look like. But specifically for El Marco, who is a very explosive player, that could very much matter. But then the other part of it that makes this difficult is, you know, El Marco played a lot as a freshman, but it wasn't always great. There were definitely ups and downs of being a young freshman. And I have been someone that has been very high that I think eventually El Marco would turn into a good player.

The injury complicates things, though, because if you are Bill Self, you were saying, yeah, this year could be a year where, like I said, if he plays 10 to 20 minutes, you know, you get an idea of, are there flashes? Are there good plays? I made a comparison earlier in the off season before the injury to Jaden Bradley at Arizona, who played like 20 minutes per game for Arizona this past season and was behind guys like Caleb Love and stuff in the guard lineup, but still playing a good amount. But you saw a lot of games and you saw a lot of highlight moments and flashes where you were like, okay, now that they lose Colin Boswell to the transfer portal, he's just going to step into the starting lineup and you feel great about it, right? That could have been what El Marco did

this season, but unfortunately you don't get to see that either. So now you're coming off an injury and the last time we saw you, it was very up and down in your freshman season. So that certainly complicates things a little bit. If you were to tell me that, hey, we have a third year on Marco Jackson, that sounds great. That could be your starting point guard. But then when you say it as like, yeah, but we haven't seen him succeed at a consistent level and he's coming off a season long injury, it makes things a little bit tougher to just completely bank on that as being your guy.

So the next category of who could be that guy who's playing point guard for you, who's starting a point guard for you in 2025, 26 is a true freshman. And there are a lot of options out there for KU that they seem to be recruiting right now. This is not something that, you know, as much as it is difficult to play point guard for Bill Self, and he has so many plays and so many sets, and it's going to be very demanding to be a freshman point guard starting for Bill Self. We've seen it before. It's not happening every year, but, like, Mario Chalmers started

as a freshman for KU at the point guard position. Devon Dotson started as a freshman for KU at the point guard position. Both those guys turned out okay, obviously, and both of them had good freshman seasons. And even if you wanted to, like, count Tyshawn Taylor, who was more of, like, a combo guard because you had Sharon basically running point, but like, you know, he was basically starting games. Frank Mason started, I think like three games.

Sharon Collins started like three games as freshmen. So you could say, I mean, DeJuan Harris started two games as a red shirt freshman, but I'm not exactly sure that counts there, but still point being like, he has shown the affinity that he will do it if he has the right situation. I think it's even harder to start and play a billion minutes as a freshman center than it is as a point guard in Bill's off system, to be completely honest. So when you look at the freshman point guards and everything, and you look at the offers, I guess that Kansas has,

has put out there. So there's certainly some big ones that stick out. Now there are guys further down the recruiting list that we could get into. Like I think Kansas has an offer out to a guy like Kingston Flemings, who's ranked 21st. Like that's a very good point guard in the class. But I want to specifically look at the top of the board here, because I think there's some very interesting candidates. So Malik Thomas is somebody who is ranked ninth in the class on 24-7 sports. He is a combo guard at 6'4". We've seen Bill Self have all sorts of success with combo guards. That one is interesting.

Michael Brown is a 6'3 point guard. He's the eighth rated player in the class, and Michael Brown is somebody who is maybe more of that pure point guard that I know a lot of people are very high on. Then you have Darius Acuff Jr. He's going to be committing later this week on a Friday. He is a six foot three point guard from IMG Academy. He's the number four player overall in the class.

Very good scoring point guard, right? He's able to get to the lane. He's got a very good quick first step. He can hit shots from the outside. He is going to be picking this Friday. Like I said, it seems like a lot of people are leaning toward it being to Arkansas, but that Kansas is a finalist. And certainly that's been an interesting recruiting battle that one that has been by all accounts, I don't know, volatile in a certain way, going back and forth

with the camp and everything. But it seems like at this point, KU's top target is also the top guard in the class. So the number one overall player in the class is small forward, A.J. DeMonsa. Cameron Boozer, who's a power forward, is the number two player on 24-7 sports. The number three player is Darren Peterson. He is a combo guard, 6'5", out of Huntington Prep in West Virginia. Number three overall recruit, number one in his position. He's a 99 out of 100 on 24-7 sports so it seemed like KU was going after both Acuff and Peterson I'm sure one reason would be well we don't

know if we're going to land both I'm sure another reason would be let's try to land both right why would you not try to get as many good players as you want maybe from both parties though it's like well do I really want to go to a school where he's also playing um and you end up with a if that happens a Devon Dotson Quentin Grimes situation where like Quentin Grimes was for Bill Self for like the under whatever it was under 18 under 19 USA team or I forget if he was on the Bill Self one or if he was on just a one uh maybe those were not coinciding years but he was basically playing a lot of like lead ball handler and he wanted to handle the ball and you had Devon Dotson who was handling the ball and so it didn't end up being a great fit now ironically Quentin Grimes went to Houston

and he turned into exactly what KU was hoping he would have been next to Devon Dotson which was like a three and D wing but at the time he wanted to be kind of that combo guard ball handling and maybe you didn't want to do that if you're Darren Peterson and Darius Acuff where you had to kind of split time you want to be the guy so I think if you were recruiting Darren Peterson he's listed as a combo guard it would be to play point guard at KU. Now, we do know KU and Bill Self loves to throw out two point guard lineups. So could that lineup feature, you know, Elmarco Jackson and Darren Peterson? And who's the one bringing up the ball more? I don't entirely know, but that is, yes, very much a possibility. We've seen Bill Self have so much success playing combo

guards at point guards that I think you feel great about that. And it seems like Peterson has been a stud. It seems like this 2025 class is going to be really good at the top. Debonza, Boozer, Peterson, Aikot, like there's a lot of really good players in this recruiting class that could make for some special players. So I think that would certainly be one to keep an eye on. And then you also have to keep an eye on like the transfer portal, right? This is impossible to know who it would be, but we've seen a lot of good point guards enter the transfer portal over the last couple of seasons, right? So if you had a, this is just a name that just popped up in my head, Max Ace Miss from two years ago, right? If that popped up in the transfer portal and let's say you do land Darren Peterson, you could still bring on like a Max

Ace Miss type in the portal. If you're K ku this next offseason and play ace miss next to peterson like that that would be a really fun lineup or you know that type of player and that type of point guard but if you were asking me to pick like if you were saying what is the favorite among all this if el marco were healthy this season i would honestly pick el marco because i would expect him to have a better sophomore season and then improve on that even more as a junior and he'd have the trust and the system and everything but the injury leaves me wondering where that's going to be so because of that I would say the favorite here would maybe be Darren Peterson or just in general if you want to say freshman and transfer portal edition where you start two combo guards basically you start you

know two point guards basically and it seems like KU is sitting in a good spot with Darren Peterson I know he has the like NIL deal with Adidas. That certainly can't hurt with Kansas being an Adidas school. Who will be the main point guard? I don't entirely know. But yeah, I think my betting favorite right now might be Darren Peterson to be the starting point guard in 2025. At the very least, I think it would be a new player. And I think it would probably be, yeah, you would have, you know, Peterson and Amarco or Peterson and a combo guard or something like that. If LeBaron Phylon would have stuck around, that's kind of the irony in all this.

LeBaron Phylon, you know, maybe Kansas doesn't even bring on Shaquille Moore and Phylon's just playing a role on this year's team. And then you're like in 2025, 26, it's like, okay, Phylon, you have the keys to the car. You're going to play next to a Darren Peterson or one of these other players we add to the floor or something like that. But it'll be interesting because I think Kansas is going to have much more scoring punch and ceiling at the point guard position, but it'll look very differently because the floor general, the defense, the steadiness could be lower as well with a younger player than DeJuan, but it just kind of depends on if a young freshman comes in and clicks right away, because that's always a question of how it's going to work out as much as we like to buy into the potential. All right, let's continue on here.

Why is the center battle this year for the backup center spot? That could only be like eight minutes per game. Why is it so critical? Not just for this year's team, but for the following year's team with locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. love sports I love them so much but I never want them to stop but as the playoffs wind down we get fewer games and the sports aren't sporting like you want them to but FanDuel lets me keep the sports going whenever I want all I have to do is open the app dream up bets anytime I'm in the mood and this summer FanDuel is hooking up all customers with

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and start making the most out of your summer FanDuel official sports betting partner of the Locked On Podcast Network. Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every show. We're going to have Phil Steele on with us on Wednesday's edition of Locked On Jayhawks. Tomorrow's edition of the show, we're going to be talking ceiling versus floor possibilities and expectations for KU football in 2024. So make sure you subscribe to the show anywhere you get it.

Don't forget, you can check out all across our Locked On Podcast Network, including Locked On Sports 24-7 stream that's going on each and every day. Okay, why this season's backup center battle is crucial, not just for this year's team, but beyond. I think what Connecticut has shown us really the last two years, but I think even more so the one two years ago. I mean, this year's team, Samson Johnson was a very good backup for sure. But I think of it even more the year before two years ago. I mean, this year's team, Samson Johnson was a very good backup for sure. But I think of it even more the year before because the year before you had Adama Sanogo, who was the final four most outstanding player

and Donovan Klingin, who was a top 10 pick in this year's draft and probably would have been a lottery pick had he left the year before that as your two centers. And even though Klingin is only giving you 10, 12, 15 minutes in a given game off the bench, it was a very impactful minutes off the bench for him that you basically had the best center on the floor for all 40 minutes of the game. That wasn't always the case last year for KU.

And I think you have an opportunity to maybe go more of that mold. I mean, if Flory Budunga hits right away, it's going to be hard to say that another team has a better backup center than what Kansas does, right? Or if Zach Clements comes into his own in his fourth year in the program as a former top 50 recruit, that's about as good of a backup center if, again, that hits as anybody would have. So even though Hunter could end up playing 28, 30, 32 minutes a game, which would mean you only have eight to 12 minutes as a backup center position. Those can be crucial minutes. And that's not even counting. We had the conversation last week during everyday, or you heard it with Nick short talking about what if Flory does play

next to Hunter Dickinson for a handful of minutes per game, right? Then there's even more minutes to kind of talk about. So it's obviously very helpful and crucial in 2024. But I think beyond that, the Hunter Dickinson graduates at the end of the season. And you look at the center position for KU come 2025 to 26, like KJ Adams graduates too. So you wouldn't even have the option of playing him as a small ball five.

That means that you would be in 2025-26 as far as what you have on the roster right now. You have Zach Clements, who would be at that point a redshirt senior in 2025-26. And you have Flory Badunga, who would be a sophomore at that point in time, which means whoever wins the backup job this year has the upper hand. They are already ahead in the competition for 2025-26. And there

could be reverberations around that, right? If you're Zach Clements and you get beat out by Flory Badunga this year and you're going, okay, well, I'm heading into my redshirt senior year in 25-26, and I know Flory's going to play in front of me, even if I know now I have a role on the team because I've slid up in the depth chart with Hunter gone, maybe I'd rather transfer somewhere else. Or if you're Flory even, right, and Zach Clements beat you out, maybe that's a little different

because you still have years in front of you, but that could have reverberations. What if Kansas does go into the portal and adds another center? What if Kansas does land a center? There's a couple centers they're going after in the recruiting class for this year, right? Like how does that kind of affect whoever loses out on the job? And then whoever wins out on the job becomes the favorite to start in 2025 to 2026. Maybe there's a chance you even start Clements next to Flory Badunga.

And if we see Clements at the four, and that actually works this year. I'm a little hesitant on that being able to work from a defensive perspective, but I'm a little hesitant on that working because of the idea of Clements next to Dickinson. I think Clements next to Flory is actually a little bit more doable because with Clements, you play him at the five defensively, and Flory, who is a quicker defensive player, can maybe get out on fours a little bit more. And then you have Flory as like a weak side rim protector when he's guarding the fours, which would be a lot of fun.

So like that lineup could actually work. And then you have Flory at the five offensively and Clements at the four. I don't know how many minutes we're going to see that this year, just because like Hunter's going to play so many minutes. So you have a limited amount of minutes that you can kind of go off of there but you know um even though that is a possibility whoever does win that job is going to be the favorite

to play 20 25 plus minutes per game come 2025 to 2026 so that's a big reverberation not just on this year but on the year following all right let's finish up here mastery tbt on the round two big time win over ram. We're going to talk about it next. Welcome back to Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page, where you can like and subscribe to the show. Thank you to every day

for tuning in to each and every episode. And if you're curious what some of these other schools across the Big 12 are doing, check out Locked on Big 12 or check out one of our Locked on shows from one of the other big 12 schools and you can find that throughout our locked on podcast network so uh locked on i'm sorry mass street tbt is uh moving on to the second round of the basketball tournament and they're going to be playing tonight if you're listening to this on monday um so they they took down their seven seed they were the two seed in

the Wichita region, Ram up, which was the Colorado state alumni. They were dominating the game. It was, it was like a 22 point lead in the fourth quarter. And then you have the Elam ending, which once you get to the four minute or under mark, and there's a stoppage, whichever team has more points, you add eight to the end of it. And then that's your target score. So the target score became 81 points and like mastery just started turning it over they they missed like four straight free throws at one point it got a little scary at the end but they ended up pulling away uh it's also cool if you're wearing puma shoes because the event is sponsored by puma and you hit the game winning shot the elamender as they call it you win a thousand

dollars so before dedrick lawson shot two free throws he had to make both he put on kevin young shoes who was wearing Pumas and he won a thousand dollars for hitting it so that was kind of cool as part of it but Frank Mason was awesome I mean I I posted this on on Twitter and like I I never get tired of watching Frank Mason play basketball it was so much fun Billy Preston though looked really good like that was really cool to see um. You saw Dedrick look pretty good. The shots weren't really falling, but I thought Dedrick looked a little bit quicker than he did at Kansas,

a little more spry in terms of what he's added to his professional game. Right now, they're running without a complete roster. Thomas Robinson is playing professionally. He's playing in Puerto Rico. They're in their playoffs right now. So Kansas needs to continue to win and hope his playoffs get over with so he can join the team. Silvio wasn't with the team.

I don't know why that wasn't the case. Ben McElmore, I don't believe, is listed on the roster anymore. So I know he's undergoing his court case, so I'm assuming that's kind of why. And then Brandon Rush, I don't believe, played in that first game, so I don't know if he's going to be able to join at some point in time. But now they're taking on a really good opponent. You look at this bracket, and I really thought that whoever won that first game of who they're going to play between LA Cheaters and Florida TNT

would pose a real threat to Mastry in the second round. Florida TNT ended up a real threat to mastery in the second round. Florida TNT ended up winning by 20 points. They've got some guys who maybe had a cup of coffee or something in the NBA, like Antonio Blakeney. He had a cup of coffee. I want to say he had two or three years with the Chicago Bulls. Christopher Walker was a former five-star crew. I think Kansas was in on him at one point in time.

Christopher Warren was a really good player at Ole Miss, and he had 27 points in that first game. Kenny Boynton, who went off for Florida for a while. Michael Forrest, who was on that FAU Final Four team. So they've got a good team. It'll be a good matchup, but they're playing tonight. We'll see if they can move on, and like I said, I will be tuned in because I get a chance to watch Frank Mason play basketball, and that's pretty cool. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find

our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. We'll be back tomorrow talking ceiling versus floor expectations for KU football in 2024. We'll be back on Wednesday with Phil Steele to talk a little KU and Big 12 football. So be on the lookout for those. And don't forget, you can check out all across

our Locked on Podcast Network for plenty of more content. See you next time with LOJ.