Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Who Wins the 5th Starter Spot for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Between Zeke Mayo, Rylan Griffen and Co

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, who's going to be the fifth starter for KU basketball? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at D Johnson radio. Thanks for making the lockdown Jayhawks your first listen every day. Thank you. The everydayers catching each and every show. We are free and available everywhere.

Starting point is 00:00:32 You get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show on today's edition of locked on Jayhawks. Who's going to be the fifth starter for KU basketball. We're going to talk about the candidates where things are kind of shaping out who my pick would be right now, and we are going to finish up with some comparisons, comparing some KU basketball players to some KU football players. Just a fun little segment to finish up here. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Place your

Starting point is 00:01:00 first $5 bet and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit FanDuel.com to get started today. All right, so we're going to start with who are the candidates to be the fifth starter for KU. I guess we should start here. Why the fifth starter? Why isn't this just an entire starting lineup thing? DeJuan Harris is going to start. He's a multi-year returning starting point guard. Not a conversation.

Starting point is 00:01:22 Hunter Dickinson is going to start. Not a conversation. AJ Stinson is going to start, not a conversation. AJ Storr is going to start. You don't go from being one of the 10 best players in the Big Ten to, okay, you're going to be a year better this year. Now you go to Kansas, you're the prize portal recruit. He's going to start. KJ Adams, he is going to start.

Starting point is 00:01:41 That was maybe more fodder at the beginning of the offseason when it was like, can you afford to play this way with K.J. and Hunter Dickinson? And those are still questions. Will they play as often together as they did a season ago? Can you survive that way? Can you survive if you just have better shooting around? All those sort of things are real questions, but it's not a question of if K.J. is going to start or not.

Starting point is 00:01:59 And there's not really many other four options. I guess you could start, you know, store at the four and then put extra guards in there. But, like, at least at the beginning of the year, that is not going to happen right now, like Bill Self is going to go with the guys you trust. So who is the fit starter? It comes down to basically who is playing that two-man,

Starting point is 00:02:16 the two-guard, the shooting guard role or whatever it is. Now, that can be a wing. That can be an extra point guard. That can be a shooting guard, whatever it ends up being for KU. So here's the candidates. Zeke Mayo, what strengths I guess that you would say that he brings to the table experienced player he's a senior does have good size at six foot four he would give you extra ball handling out there but the biggest thing that Zeke Mayo would bring to the table if he becomes your fifth starter is he he gives you that shooting, that shot creation, that floor spacing.

Starting point is 00:02:46 This is a guy who shot 82% at the free throw line last year, 90 the year before that, 93 the year before that. Overall for his career, 87% on free throws at South Dakota State on over 300 attempts. Also, 38% from three on his career at South Dakota State on over 550 attempts, including 380 or 38.4% last year on 211 attempts as the guy that other teams were guarding. And in games where he was matched up against top 100 quality opponents, according to Bart Torvik, he shot 41% from three a season ago. So this is a guy who he hits from deep.

Starting point is 00:03:23 He can take them from all over. He can take him in a myriad of different ways. He can take him off the dribble. If he is your fifth starter, it gives you that extra scoring punch, that extra shooting punch that you're looking for. Now what the questions kind of become of will Zeke be the fifth guy? Will it not? Defense would be one of them. You know, he was more of when you look at like synergy

Starting point is 00:03:41 and average defender at the Summit League, which when you look at the, and this is part of it too he's not known for being like a great athlete does have good size for that position but he's not known for being a great athlete so when you look at the jump up in competition when you look at the jump up in athleticism from the big 12 you're talking about a real jump there that could that have a negative impact on what he is as a defender and how does that kind of affect things with bill self? We know he's going to very much value that defense side of the, the,

Starting point is 00:04:11 the basketball, especially because you can't afford for your guards to be sieves. If you know, we saw the issue with pick and roll defense with playing more to traditional bigs that K you had a season ago. So that kind of becomes the big question in that jump up in competition. But it sounds like he's handling that jump up in competition pretty well. But yeah, those kind of become the big questions there.

Starting point is 00:04:31 Rylan Griffin is another candidate. He is your guard wing transfer from Alabama, 6'5". So you'd get a little bit more height from having Griffin over Mayo. Probably a little bit more athleticism juice with Griffin as a true wing. And similar to Mayo, the biggest advantages, the biggest strengths you would have if Rylan Griffin ends up being the fifth guy is the shooting ability, the gravity he would bring on the floor that he would help open things up on

Starting point is 00:04:57 the inside for Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams and driving lanes for, you know, DeJuan Harris and AJ store that he would be a good, you know, player that you can play on the same side as Hunter Dickinson, that he can shoot from deep just as well as Zeke Mayo can, that he can hit him in a myriad of different options. I think Mayo probably better off the dribble than Rylan Griffin. Rylan Griffin may be better off the catch, but both of them are extremely good three-point shooters. At least that's been the sample size and what's on the scouting report

Starting point is 00:05:25 coming in at this point in time. The biggest question here, I think, is also defense. You look at Ryland Griffin. He graded out as a good defender on Synergy his freshman year. Didn't grade out as a good defender in year two at Alabama, but in some key moments, like you look at the Sweet 16 game against North Carolina, he's guarding R.J. Davis and performing really well.

Starting point is 00:05:44 Now, some of that was R just missing some shots, but like in this specific role, whether this is for Ryland Griffin or Zeke Mayo or any of these other guys we're going to talk about, if there are questions on defense, does maybe being the guy where it's like, okay, if Hunter Dickinson's option one and AJ Storrs option two or vice versa, if I'm the third option on the floor, maybe even the fourth option at certain times, do I have more energy to expend on the defensive end to where it can help there? So that kind of becomes the question. I do think the defensive potential is higher for Rylan Griffin than Zeke Mayo.

Starting point is 00:06:15 Like I said, a little bit more athleticism. He's played in a power conference level before. I guess slightly bigger height and length in terms of what you're looking for. But he also has to make a jump, and it's a different type of jump. Zeke has to do it from the level of competition, which, again, I think Zeke is going to be able to do. But until we actually see it on the floor, it does remain fodder and a question for now.

Starting point is 00:06:38 But with Griffin, it's translating from the Alabama system to a system that is not going to just get out and run that much, right? Like in Alabama system, he had free reign to just go out there and just chuck up threes. And while I think that would be kind of a positive for this KU team, when you look at the lack of three-point shooting they had on last year's team, Bill Self ain't going to roll that way. You take a couple just like heat heat check bad threes before the flow of the offense I don't know how that's going to go over so he has to make that transition from the NATO system as well and I think something else that that maybe I'd give the edge to Zeke Mayo would

Starting point is 00:07:14 would be rebounding but we'll get into a little bit of uh that um as far as how it affects KU if either one is the starter I don't think either one has a huge impact like on the other the other still going to probably get a good amount of minutes coming off the bench. They're both good shooters. Maybe it tweaks a little bit here or there that Mayo is more of a ball handler type, Griffin more of a wing type, but I don't think it has a huge impact. What about some of the other possible players you could throw in here? I think there's the injury question mark that you could have made a real case that Shaquille Moore was in this running before the injury. Now, as we've kind of talked about, the injury might not actually force him to miss any game action. And from that standpoint, maybe he's okay and good to go. But if the injury

Starting point is 00:07:53 causes him to be rusty coming back or makes him miss all this key practice time, which it is going to have him miss, then it could have him starting behind the eight ball. But if you go Shaquille Moore, it's very different than those first two guys. Way less size. You're talking about a guy closer to six feet tall, but also the best defender of the bunch. He will get in there. He will pressure the basketball.

Starting point is 00:08:15 Also probably the best athlete of all of them. I mean, he's getting a bunch of dunks from being a shorter guard, very quick, very fast. You do have a bit of shot creation. He shot well from three last year, not to the same extent or volume as Zeke Mayo or Ryland Griffin. So that one would certainly be interesting from a different perspective, but the biggest questions for him would just be, you know, what is the offensive efficiency overall? What are you getting? If you're playing two small guards, like really small guards next to each other with the one and Shaquille Moore,

Starting point is 00:08:41 what does that do? So I don't know that it is the natural fit, but I think you will see a lot of minutes with Shaquille Moore next to DeJuan Harris. Others that I would be surprised if they ended up starting, but it is an open competition and anything can happen. Diggy Coit, you do have to throw his name out there. Again, in the same vein as Zeke Mayo, where it's like putting up huge numbers, scoring, shooting, shot creation, big point per game totals at a lower level. He didn't have nearly the team success, though, that Zeke Mayo did.

Starting point is 00:09:12 So, like, you know, it's easier to put up 20 points on a bad team than it is to put up 20 points per game on an NCAA tournament team. But Diggie Coit brings some quickness to the table. But again, defense size questions, the jump in competition for Diggie Coit brings some quickness to the table. But again, defense, size questions, the jump in competition. For Diggie Coit, like joining late, he joined late. Then a lot of these other guys not getting summer ball with some of them. But he deserves to at least be thrown out there. Rakeese Passmore, I have a hard time believing that the true freshman would start this early. But what if this is one to at least bring up now where it could be like a furphy situation?

Starting point is 00:09:44 What if Rakeese Passmore is playing 10, 12 minutes a game off the bench where he's showing the strengths that he could have being athleticism, being this power athlete wing, um, having, you know, being a good score. I think the ideal version of him is being a good slashing shooting wing, but it could take some more time and and maybe this is more of a year two thing with with ricky's pass more but i'm at least opening it up to like it's hard to predict what you're going to get from a freshman and what if you do get a johnny furphy kelly ubra type of role or you could just get a guy who maybe impacts you more in year two and then jamari mcdowell would be the last one who again it's an open competition I don't expect this one to happen I lean toward more likely that Jamari McDowell ends up red shirting but who knows he knows the

Starting point is 00:10:29 system like that's one thing that he has up on in these other guys right where he's passed more is a true freshman Diggie Coy she killed more right than Griffin Zeke Mayo they're all transfers into the program so if Jamari McDowell you know educational edge of being in the Bill Self program. What is that worth? Ideally, he can be a three and D player and maybe having him as, you know, again, if you have Hunter Dickinson and AJ store, and some of these guys who are higher up on the food chain in terms of options, just having a guy who can hit threes and play defense. Again, you didn't get those things consistently enough a season ago,

Starting point is 00:11:00 but that's the ideal form of Jamari McDowell. Then if he can hit that, then it makes some sense, but I don't really expect that to be the case. So who am I going with for that fifth starting spot and why? I'll tell you in a moment. This episode is brought to you by 5-Hour Energy. You can use it to get in the zone. 5-Hour Energy shots give you the feeling of alertness and energy you need

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Starting point is 00:12:31 So who am I going with? Those are the candidates and what they kind of bring to the table. I am going with Zeke Mayo right now. I think to me, at the end of the day, this comes down to a two-man race. Maybe if Shaquille Moore would have been healthy, it would have been more of a real conversation there about who that guy would have been, especially because we know Bill Self wants a real conversation there about who that guy would have been, especially because we know Bill Self wants to go with the guy he can trust

Starting point is 00:12:48 and the guy he can trust on the defensive end of the floor. And you could say, well, there have been other situations where, like, last year they started Nick Timberlake to start, and I don't know that he trusted him on the defensive end of the court. Okay, but look at last year's team. What other options did they really have? Eventually they went to El Marco Jackson, and the reason he basically fended off Nick Timberlake for so long was because he was just a better defender and then eventually

Starting point is 00:13:08 they were just like oh well furphy's just the best overall player so we'll just play him um but to me it comes down to zeke mayo versus rylan griffin and at that point you have two guys who are good three-point shooters it more so is about who can handle the other stuff so if you think both yeah maybe at the end of the day like maybe the translation of rylan griffin in a different system or maybe the translation of zeke mayo from the summit league to kansas in the big 12 maybe it leads to them not shooting as well as their previous stop and then maybe that's a different equation but on paper right now i look at both guys being like a shooters that you know what i mean?

Starting point is 00:13:45 Like they're 90th percentile shooters, whatever you want to talk about, like both very good shooters. And so if you're looking at what determines it, okay, well, Zeke Mayo 6'4", Rylan Griffin 6'5". So, I mean, that is kind of a check for Griffin, but is it that big of a deal? Athleticism, probably check for Rylan Griffin there. You look at the passing ability, that would be checked for Zeke Mayo, who has played some point guard.

Starting point is 00:14:09 Now, if you're an off guard, that's only kind of more helpful there in terms of what you'd be bringing to the table. I think one underrated one is probably rebounding. Rebounding, though, Zeke Mayo has been the better rebounder. Yeah, this could be a jump in competition thing, but you look at even the rebounding numbers, it favors Zeke. And that's even with Ryland Griffin playing in a super up-tempo system that has more possessions. Now what Nate Oates is asking guys like Ryland Griffin to do isn't crash, you know, the offensive glass from the two guard spot. Like that's not really

Starting point is 00:14:40 what's happening. So in a different role, maybe Ryland Griffin ends up the better rebounder than Zeke Mayo. On paper, Zeke Mayo has been the better rebounder. And I think that could be a huge factor when you talk about a team in Kansas who Hunter Dickinson, very good rebounder, especially defensive end of the floor. He's an elite defensive rebounder. He's a solid offensive rebounder. KJ has not been a very good rebounder so far. He was good on the offensive glass two years ago.

Starting point is 00:15:03 Last year wasn't really great at either. If you can at least get one end of the floor this year, and then you're looking at guys like, can Storr be a better rebounder? Can you get some rebounding from the guards? And if that kind of matters, which I think it does, like Zeke Mayo becomes more prominent there. And then the other big one is defense. Who's going to take on that charge a little bit more here, right?

Starting point is 00:15:20 I think, like I said, Griffin has probably the higher potential for where that defense can be. But, you know, what if you don't reach that potential right away? What if Zeke Mayo, by being a more experienced player, can just be a better team defender? There's more to it than just individual defenders. There's being a team. So if by just being a better team defender and knowing where to be and helping others in a real way, even if you're not as good at isolation defense or something, that can be a way to stay on the court.

Starting point is 00:15:48 So I am going with Zeke Mayo right now, but I feel like it's one of those 55-45 things. And I think this could switch based on stuff that happens. But again, we go back to those comments that Bill Self made, calling Zeke Mayo kind of the best player, whether it was of the bunch they brought in or just everybody they had. There are other reasons he would say that, but we haven't heard anything since like for or against, so I'm just going to continue to kind of ride with that.

Starting point is 00:16:13 All right, let's finish up comparing some KU basketball to KU football players. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook which you can get in on the action for college basketball KU 10 to 1 to win the national title you can bet some KU football bets uh opened up as a favorite oddly enough in the TCU game you can get some props for that game whatever you'd like and for NFL fans you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel 2 America's number one sportsbook so when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view

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Starting point is 00:17:03 Locked On Podcast Network. Finishing things up on this episode of Locked On Jayhawks with a little basketball to KU football player comps. We'll get into on tomorrow's episode, what does KU football still have to play for? That sounds like a blunt question, but it feels like their goals have gone away. So we're going to talk about some of the things that they can still accomplish this season, that there is still reason to keep playing and moving forward. All right. I didn't do every player here because I wanted them to be like actual comps that I liked, not just things that, okay, that's close enough. We'll just throw that

Starting point is 00:17:40 together. Let's start with this. Zeke Mayo has been somebody we talked a lot about today. I think Zeke Mayo is Luke Grimm. So you have a lot of production from both these guys, right? Like with Luke Grimm, a lot of production. He's not the tallest guy in the world. He's not the fastest guy in the world, but he gets open. He catches passes. He makes plays maybe a little bit more to him than you might think. And a little more sauce to him than you might think, right? Same with Zeke Mayomeo you know he's 6'4 he's good height not the best athlete in the world um but he's got a lot to his game and he can be really exciting and a lot of skills there so that's my comp there I have Rylan Griffin as Quentin Skinner hasn't been a great start to the year for Quentin Skinner I don't know that that's

Starting point is 00:18:23 really his fault I think that has more to do with the play calling and Jalen Daniels struggles, but nonetheless, Rylan Griffin is somebody who hits from deep and not just like deep, but like deep, deep beyond the three point line. Skinner is the best deep ball threat on KU. So like there can be some games where Quentin Skinner might have one catch for 18 yards. And then he might have a game where he has three catches for 110 yards and a

Starting point is 00:18:44 touchdown. I think that's what we're going to see with Ryland Griffin this year. There might be some games where he scores six points, whether it's a starter or off the bench. There might be some games where he has 15 points where he goes four, five from three or something like that, right? How much short and intermediate are you going to get from Quentin Skinner? How much short and intermediate and the other stuff

Starting point is 00:19:01 are you going to get from Ryland Griffin? Those are things that remain to be seen. AJ Storr I have as Daniel Hiel highshaw out of all this because highshaw is this power athlete who will mow through you uh it's it's not necessarily finesse there is a little bit of finesse to his game every now and then right like i think about that like spin movie had against uh was it the duke game on a couple years ago uh you can get a little bit in there but for the most part, he wants to run through your face.

Starting point is 00:19:26 With AJ Storr, there's a little finesse. He'll hit some threes. He'll hit some jump shots, but he's a power wing who wants to drive it into you and use his frame to kind of finish at the rim. I have KJ Adams as Jared Casey, which is a player who is limited. They're shorter for what they're being asked to do. In the case of KJ, I think it has more with wingspan related. And typically they're super dependable players that do exactly what you need them to do and are kind of a coach's best friend. They do the dirty

Starting point is 00:19:59 work. They find their ways to keep plays. They get hype plays. They get the crowd hyped up and they just produce even if it's not coming with like a huge professional potential afterwards. Flory Padunga equals DJ Warner. These are players who are young, they're raw, but they are physical freaks that when the light goes off, when things do hit their ceiling for DJ Warner and for Flory Padunga, it could be scary for the opposition because both those guys could be making some monstrous plays. I have Diggy Coit as Trevor Wilson. Both are players that could be used on a specific role, on a specific play, on a specific game,

Starting point is 00:20:37 but are both guys that might not be used. Like there could be, there's games where Trevor Wilson has like five snaps. There's going to be games where Diggy Coit probably has a DNP. There's going to be other games where maybe like Trevor Wilson, I don't know, has like a 40-yard kick return and maybe has like a jet sweep for 20 yards or something like that. There's going to be games where Diggy Coit has those 12 points off the bench or something like that.

Starting point is 00:20:55 They're explosive players, but they can also both hit a point where it's like maybe do a little bit less. Like there could be a point where Diggy Coit's in there and he gets pulled because he just keeps shooting and Bill Self's like stop and sometimes that's okay it's like Trevor Wilson stop returning the kicks you know okay and then I have Rakees Passmore as Jalen Todd this is one where it's like I have it as the next one we've heard Rakees Passmore compared to Ochagbaje I don't know how much Rakees is going to get on the floor this year but I think he's got stardom in his future for KU and that's how I feel about Jalen Todd like I think he's got stardom in his future for KU. And that's how I

Starting point is 00:21:25 feel about Jalen Todd. Like even though he's the fourth corner right now, he's not getting a ton of run because it's pretty much, you know, they're not really playing three corners that often. And when it is, it's Demarius McGee. But I feel like Jalen Todd's going to be a really good player when he gets his chance in maybe another year. As far as some of the other guys like Hunter Dickinson, I couldn't think of a real comp because there's not a player on like think about it like this is there a player on ku who has production of like an all-american but has questions about how actually impactful it is and how like much pro potential is like from a from a pure like statistic standpoint where it's like you're putting up huge statistics you could compare it to devin neal where it's like you're putting up huge statistics, you could compare it to Devin Neal.

Starting point is 00:22:06 But it's like with Devin Neal, there aren't those questions about, oh, but what about Hunter Dickinson on defense or something like that? You know what I mean? So I don't think there is a real comp for Hunter Dickinson there. I also couldn't think of a great comp for DeJuan Harris. The easy one is to look at a quarterback because he's a pass first point guard. And honestly, like I was wondering should I comp it to Jalen Daniels or not because the Jalen of 2022 and 2023 you know

Starting point is 00:22:31 if we talked about the guy as a a sleeper Heisman candidate that's kind of above you know what what you're getting from but if you're comparing it to this Jalen I think there are some comps like last year's DeJuan where there were certain times last year where it was like, okay, DeJuan wasn't as good as layups or as consistent on defense last year as he was the year before. And you're like, what happened here? And that's kind of what we're doing with Jalen Daniels. So maybe there are some comps there where it's like, yeah, but I still think he can be a good distributor and make some stuff happen for this team. Couldn't think of any for Jamar McDowell, Zach Clemens, Shaquille Moore. So hit me up on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio if you think of a good comp for any of

Starting point is 00:23:06 those or one of the ones that I already went over. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. Sorry for some of the connection difficulties today. Not sure what's going on there. So we'll be back tomorrow talking a little bit more KU football on tomorrow's show and the big things that KU can still accomplish this season.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Who Wins the 5th Starter Spot for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Between Zeke Mayo, Rylan Griffen and Co

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