Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Will Kansas Basketball Fill All 3 Remaining Spots??? Plus Jayhawks' Baseball Extends Dan Fitzgerald

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Kansas Jayhawks Basketball faces recruiting hurdles as international player eligibility concerns mount. Will KU's basketball roster be complete for the upcoming season or will they not be able to fill... all three remaining scholarship spots on the team? Host Derek Johnson analyzes the Jayhawks' limited options in the transfer portal and potential visa complications for international recruits. Where could they turn in the transfer portal or high school ranks?The discussion shifts to KU Baseball's recent success, highlighted by coach Dan Fitzgerald's contract extension and program investments. Texas Tech's game-changing $55 million athlete payment plan takes center stage, potentially reshaping Big 12 athletics.Tune in for expert insights on how these developments could impact Kansas Jayhawks' competitiveness across multiple sports.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGEfor $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.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)

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Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas is running out of options. We're going to dive into what's even left out there. And if the international market is going to be even more of a scarier place to try to get players eligible than we even thought just even 24 hours ago. Plus, Dan Fitzgerald has been extended for KU baseball big time news in the KU Athletic Department. You are a Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the locked on podcast network, your team
Starting point is 00:00:36 every day. Hold on Derek Johnson here. This is locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making your first listen every day. Thank you every day or sketching each and every episode of the show. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of LOJ, we're going to be discussing what options are even still available at KU. What if KU can't get anyone eligible from overseas? We touched on this a little bit on yesterday's episode. Thank you to every dayers already
Starting point is 00:01:02 catching that. But we're going to get even into because there's even some more talk about this. We're also going to talk about Dan Fitzgerald, the KU baseball manager head coach, who's been extended by KU baseball live. This is such big news for the KU baseball and KU athletic department. And then also a little big 12 talk to finish up here on the show, which is brought to you by game time if you're looking to get tickets to maybe Royals game in the summer game time baby, download the game time app, create an account and use code LOCKEDONCOLLege for $20 off
Starting point is 00:01:29 your first purchase with Game Time. So obviously for KU as they continue to scour, you know, adding more players, they've three scholarships still open at this point in time. We're in basically the middle of June at this point in time and they've still three scholarships open. It's a very scary place to be. It's an even scarier place when you consider that the most impactful players that are available are international players. And the reason that is scary is a couple of reasons.
Starting point is 00:01:53 One, can you get these players eligible? The other part of it is, you know, they've brought in a good international player here and there. You think of Sveemakailuk and Johnny Furphy, right? There've been other players, but it's not like a school like Gonzaga or Arizona that is like, or I guess Illinois of late, that is like feasting on this,
Starting point is 00:02:11 that has consistently shown those ties, especially in Europe specifically, right? To where it's just like one of those things where it's felt like this off season, the staff has almost been a little bit behind where it's like, can you catch up with all this with the overseas stuff? And so it's a difficult place to be in. And we kind of talked to again, if you're an everydayer,
Starting point is 00:02:32 you already got this talking about Bryce Dessert situation and, you know, for KU, like dealing with the student visa process, can you get these players even eligible coming over? What if you get a player to commit and then it takes more than a you know, a your school year starts in a couple months here. But they haven't, you know, resumed the student visa process, or even if they have their show backlog, that they haven't gotten to, you know, clearing a player making them eligible. And then you basically
Starting point is 00:02:59 end up spending all your time, your money, your projected NIL budget that would have gone somewhere that you could have used somewhere else auto player that doesn't end up on campus and being able to play for the team. So some of you talked a little bit about yesterday. And now there's this I guess quote from Charlie Baker today. This was tweeted out by Amanda Christofovich or Christovich, who is a sports business supporter called sports for Oh, gosh, I don't know what at FOS is on social media. Anyway, front office sports,
Starting point is 00:03:27 there we go. Okay, so basically sports business. Anyway, NCAA President Charlie Baker tells reporters that there are concerns from schools that international athletes could be violating their student visas, if they get paid through rev share. The NCAA is working on navigating the issue, but no answers yet. Okay, so a couple of things to that, because this becomes very pertinent to KU's situation,
Starting point is 00:03:49 who is recruiting international players. And if KU can't get international players eligible, their player pool shrinks even more. And they're basically the ability to add an impact player. At that point, if you said you can't add an international player, they don't have that opportunity. I'll tell you why here in a second. But there's a couple ways to look at this.
Starting point is 00:04:07 The NCAA is working on navigating that issue. No answer yet. Okay, so that's the good news. They're working on it, right? Maybe it will get figured out by the start of the season. Here's the bad news. Have we ever known the NCAA to just like, oh, hey, they just started working on this thing.
Starting point is 00:04:22 It's going to be done really soon. Like they're going to get it done soon and they're going to get going to be done really soon. Like, they're going to get it done soon, and they're going to get it done with a really good resolution. Or like, they're going to get it done in the next week, and it's going to be perfect. I don't remember a time where that's been the case with the NCAA. It's both those things. It's like a lot of times at the NCAA, it's like, yeah, why'd they do that?
Starting point is 00:04:40 And then on top of it, a lot of times at the NCAA, it's like, wow, that took way longer than it should have. Just think of the KU case in the NCAA IRP situation with the Sylvia DeSoto stuff, right? Think how long that took. Now, not every situation is that. But point being, this stuff takes a long time. I find it hard to believe that the NCAA is going to have that figured out. Now, the part about that the athletes could be violating their student visas if they get paid through rev share. Maybe the workaround to that is just saying, hey, they just can't get paid from rev share. Or like if you're the school, you just plan
Starting point is 00:05:14 to say, hey, we're not going to pay them with rev share. Because if we are worried, that's going to make them ineligible, we just won't do it. And the way that we're going to pay them is through NIL. The sticky part of that situation is because of again, the NC, this is perfect example, the NCAA making kind of a rule of law, whatever you want to say, that's kind of just silly and dumb. The player cannot be paid NIL while they're like in the United States. So how
Starting point is 00:05:35 teams have worked that around in the past, like Oscar Sheaway, with Kentucky, when he was there was getting a ton of NIL money, but he wasn't from America, I forget if he was from Bahamas or where he was from specifically. But basically, what they did is over the summer, they went and they had some sort of event where he was able to get his NIL money when he was you know, back home where that was legal. And that's something that KU would have had to do with like Johnny Furphy, for instance, if
Starting point is 00:06:03 he would have came back, like, he would have been able to get his NIL in the States. They would have just done something for him to get it while he was in Australia. Like there are work rounds make happen. But if you're bringing on a player this late, do you have the planning? Do you have the time to be able to put that together? So that throws another wrench into all of this. So I don't know how that's going to work. That could have obviously a huge impact on not just Kansas, but on a lot of these other teams across the country who have brought in or gotten commits
Starting point is 00:06:27 from international players. And what happens if we're halfway through the year and those international players are like, hey, I haven't gotten any money, I'm going back home. You know what I mean? Or they're just like, I'm never gonna make it there because it turns out that I'm not gonna be able to get the money.
Starting point is 00:06:39 So if you're Kansas specifically, like, what would you even do? Like, what would the even available options be left at this point in time for KU, right? If you can't go overseas, and I still think there is an element, like, what would you even do? Like, what would the even available options be left at this point in time for KU, right? If you can't go overseas, and I still think there is an element of like, do you just say screw it and risk the international thing anyway?
Starting point is 00:06:54 I think Kansas is kind of at a situation right now based on how the off season has gone, that they do have to kind of say screw it and try to risk for it anyway. That's why I am almost of the opinion that like, I just try to, like, if you're worried about not being able to get Bryce dessert eligible by the time the start of the season, I would say, screw it.
Starting point is 00:07:10 We're making that plan anyway, because I just don't know like how viable are the rest of these situations anyway. So maybe that's what you go into, but that's one option, right? Just say screw it and move forward with that being an idea. Who's even available in the transfer portal? If we go over to, which, you know, this is just one site and don't take these as gospel,
Starting point is 00:07:29 because, you know, a lot of times I think transfer portal rankings aren't going to be solely indicative. A lot of times the transfer portal stuff ends up being more about, okay, how did the player fit at his new stop than anything? And we've seen like AJ Storr and Ryylan Griffin and some of these guys be ranked super high in the transfer portal rankings, not have as big of an impact for KU as players who have transferred to other schools who maybe were under the radar
Starting point is 00:07:53 and ended up being like all conference level players, right? So take them with a grain of salt, but at least it gives us a good reference point and a good starting point. I think 24-7 does a good job. So if we look at the top 200 available players, all positions in the transfer portal, still available per 24 seven sports rankings,
Starting point is 00:08:10 there's only one player available at any position in the top 200. So if you're talking about impact players, that would kind of qualify there. And even then it's not somebody who's in like the top 100, right? And that would be Ali Diba. I've talked a little bit about Ali Diba in the past. I don't know why he hasn't signed with the school already.
Starting point is 00:08:26 Like the fact that it hasn't happened already kind of makes me think like, is there something going on? Is there an eligibility thing? Like what's going on here? So he started his career at Chicago State. Then he played three years or two years at Abilene Christian. Then one year this past season at Southern Illinois. But the one year he played at Chicago State,
Starting point is 00:08:42 he only played five games. I would imagine he would be able to get like a medical red shirt or whatever for that season, right? To where he could still have one more year of play. Maybe that's what the holdup is. Maybe he's trying to get that extra year of eligibility and the NCAA is just taking too long to clear him. And then once he gets cleared into work,
Starting point is 00:08:56 I don't know if that's the reason. He's also originally from Sweden. So does this go back in line with some of the international stuff? Is that part of the reasoning? But like he's a good player. 17.2 points per game, 4.8 rebounds per game, two assists per game on 49% from the field, 33.7% from three, so almost 34 from three, 66 at the foul line on over four attempts
Starting point is 00:09:15 per game. So he gets the foul line a good amount. Year before that at Abilene Christian, 15.5 points per game, four and a half rebounds on 48% from the field, 35% from three and 73% at the foul line. Six-five wing, I would think he would be somebody who comes in and like, I don't know that I would project him to be a starter. I don't think it would be crazy to me if he did, but like, that he could come in and I think at the very least have a role as a bench wing for KU. Like, he would be somebody that I'd be interested in. But again, what else is going on there to the reason that he's not
Starting point is 00:09:43 committed? The other guy that you're looking at in the portal if you expand out to the top 250 would be Keonte Jones played at Cal State Northridge 6 foot 6 senior 13.1 points 9 rebounds 4 sys per game 51% of the field doesn't really shoot a ton of threes shot him well when he shot him but only one attempt per game But he was previously committed then D committed to school. He's been at a couple junior colleges He's been in college five years. But if the JUCO stuff doesn't count, he has the COVID year. Can he get another year eligible? I don't know how that works.
Starting point is 00:10:10 And again, he already was committed to school. He's been out there for a while. There hasn't been any seemingly contact with KU. So why is that to this point? Is there something else kind of going on there of the reason why they wouldn't want it? So they can do that, right? You could end up in a situation
Starting point is 00:10:24 where you try to get a high school reclass. We've talked a little on Cole Rosario, who I think just finished up like an Oregon visit. He scheduled for his Kansas visit in a week, but he scheduled for a lot of other visits after that. So like, I don't know, you are really running out of options here. I'm running out of names to get to.
Starting point is 00:10:37 We'll continue to do deep dives on players if we can, especially internationally, but that just might not really be as much on the table as we might've hoped or might've thought based on some of this stuff that's kind of coming out. And that is a scary world to live in that Kansas in a situation they still need three scholarship players. I'm just kind of wondering if they're going to go into the season with 13 scholarship players, right? Do you end up just filling two of the three final scholarship spots? You end up only filling one of the final three scholarship spots, right?
Starting point is 00:11:02 Like what is going to happen for KU at this point in time? Because this is a very scary place to be for Kansas where it just feels like they can't check those boxes. And for a while I was confident they would fill those spots. I don't know how confident I am in them being able to do that anymore. So we'll talk plenty more KU basketball, but I like KU baseball. Big off season news is they extend Dan Fitzgerald.
Starting point is 00:11:24 Thanks for joining us on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find your show anywhere you podcast. Dan Fitzgerald. the NHL playoffs too. Heck, you could go for a big time baseball game, maybe it's a rivalry game, maybe it's a Sunday night game, maybe it's once we get a little closer to the postseason and things are really heating up and maybe August and September. This year's matchups are already delivering. If you want in, Game Time makes it fast and easy to get seats, even for the biggest playoff games. Prices on the app actually drop the closer you get to tip off, and with killer last minute deals, panoramic seat views, and no surprise fees, Game Time is a total game changer. Plus, I really do think it's perfect for baseball. I don't love to like be like, Oh, let's go to that baseball game in two
Starting point is 00:12:11 weeks from now. I mean, unless you like visiting somewhere. But if you're going to just a home baseball game, you're not going to play in that for head and have to get tickets. Maybe it's Father's Day or something like that. But for the most part, it's just like, Hey, my texture friends, hey, you want to go to the baseball game tomorrow? Boom, let's go look on Game Time because you have those last minute ticket availabilities. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Game Time,
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Starting point is 00:12:55 Don't forget you make locked on college football or locked on college basketball your second listen every day. Okay, so some big news for KU baseball. Can you baseball just had one of the best seasons in program history. It was a really good season overall. Unfortunately, the way it finished in the tournament unable to get a tournament win, but like that doesn't take away from the fact that it was a great, great season for the KU baseball team. They nearly won
Starting point is 00:13:17 the big 12. They won a ton of games over 40 wins, had a ton of fun comeback wins. They're a fun team to watch with as many home runs as they were hitting. Had some really stud players that in future years you're gonna see being go, you know, going in MLB drafts and that's gonna be really cool to watch and Chronicle. Can some of those players make it up so that we have, you know, more than like Ryan Zephyr John and in the MLB, who knows maybe like Maui Ahuna who, you know,
Starting point is 00:13:40 he obviously transferred after his time at KU. Maybe he'll make it up eventually. But nonetheless, 42 wins, it was announced today, I guess, on Tuesday, the Travis golf has signed Dan Fitzgerald to a six year contract extension with the Jaygox, obviously very big news. And he was, you know, I don't want to say like rumored to be going there, because that would be incorrect. But he was rumored to be somebody that
Starting point is 00:14:04 Mississippi State when they had because that would be incorrect. But he was rumored to be somebody that Mississippi State when they had the opening would be interested in, right. And then when they hired the Virginia coach, there was talk that Virginia might be interested in Dan Fitzgerald as well. Now, how much of that, you know, I don't know, like, like, where did that stuff line up? Was there any interest the other way? I don't know, we might not never ever know. But this is the best news possible that he gets a six-year contract extension.
Starting point is 00:14:28 I would imagine, I don't see the money on this release from KU. I'd imagine that'll get released at some point soon. It'll be a sizable pay increase for Dan Fichold, and very deserved one at that. Right, this is KU's first tournament appearance since 2014. It was program records for Big 12 wins. It was program records for road wins,
Starting point is 00:14:47 come from behind wins, home runs. And it seems like they're just getting started. Just think about it. They have been better each and every season. Even last year when they didn't make the NCAA tournament, they were kind of a tournament bubble team. And so if you're getting to a point for KU where you're making the tournament
Starting point is 00:15:00 and the year's where you're not, you're still getting close to the tournament, that's a great place for this program to be from where it's been kind of in the past. And Dan Fitzgerald from every interaction I've either had, which has been limited interactions, but the small interactions that I have had were the ones that I've heard from other people,
Starting point is 00:15:19 like tremendous dude, tremendous guy, very big family man. Like he's just a guy you want to have around the program, right? And he's a great recruiter, what he's doing with it's almost like a moneyball approach. We're like, Oh, everybody's spending all this money on the transfer portal, yada, yada, like, we're gonna go into Juco rankings, because now that's being under recruited, because people are looking into this. And we can end up with a
Starting point is 00:15:40 Brady Ballinger who's being under recruited when Juco baseball is actually like a very good level of baseball. And you see guys get drafted out of the junior college level into the MLB all the time. So that's really cool. It also says in this article, the release from KU, the investment in the coaching staff for KU baseball is part of a broader investment in the sport of baseball at Kansas. An increase in scholarships, plans to implement revenue sharing for student athletes in the program,
Starting point is 00:16:06 and the prioritization of facility investment present an opportunity for kids baseball to be a leader in the Big 12 and nationally. And it talks about that, you know, prior to the season, Hogan ballpark saw several upgrades, new field surface.
Starting point is 00:16:20 They're continuing to evaluate and analyze future facility investments in Hogan Park. I don't know what those would be. I don't know if that's, you know, upgrading the stands, making things bigger. They're continuing to evaluate and analyze future facility investments in Hoagland Park. I don't know what those would be. I don't know if that's upgrading the stands, making things bigger. I don't know if it's moving out to Rockchuck Park or what. Those are going to need some sort of renovations or improvements or redo of the stadium at
Starting point is 00:16:36 some point. I do think that's probably difficult. Maybe if it's minor renovations, those are things you can do right now. As far as the major stuff, like if you did get a new stadium at Rock Truck Park, I would imagine that stuff would have to have an after the football stadium is put together. But that's something that obviously has to be on the agenda and has to be something that continues to, you know,
Starting point is 00:16:55 go to Dan Fitzgerald to be like, hey, trust me, we are going to do this. We just got to get this thing wrapped up and then we'll get there so that he can see the shared vision of like, yes, there is going to be investment in baseball. Not that there has been, but like that big level of investment that will be needed once, you know, the football stadium is done and everything like that. The other big piece though, there was that part on the revenue
Starting point is 00:17:16 sharing, right? Because we have no idea how Kansas plans to split this stuff up, right? I talked about on a previous episode, do you give a majority of it to football? Do you give some to the Olympic sports where like, you know, you give some to volleyball and soccer and stuff like that, where a little can maybe go a long way in some of those sports? Like I'd imagine a lot of those sports at other schools, it might be as simple as like, hey, if you can get your donors, like the guys who are really interested in your sport, interested in donating NIL, you can use that. But like from a rev share standpoint, we're giving it all to football. I don't know if Kansas is going to do that or if they're going to divvy out at least a little bit there.
Starting point is 00:17:51 Obviously, it's a unique situation at Kansas with basketball being, you know, you're a basketball school. That's what you're known for. Right. So do you give more to rev share in basketball than other schools would? Or does it go the other way? Does the fact that you have so much donor and fan interest in basketball than other schools would? Or does it go the other way? Does the fact that you have so much donor and fan interest in basketball allow you to give more of the money to football and baseball and softball and cross country and all these different sports to where then you can basically say, hey, NIL is going to fund the KU basketball roster? Or is that just no longer a doable thing, right? If this clearing house situation comes in
Starting point is 00:18:25 and they do deny certain NIL offerings, does that put Kansas in a bad spot? Or does it actually give Kansas even more opportunity to do that? Because if the NIL payments that you're allowed to give to a player are now basically being limited, being watered down by the clearing house, then maybe you can make it work on a tighter budget
Starting point is 00:18:43 with just using NIL and basketball. So it'll be interesting to see how they kind of divvy that stuff out, right? There's a lot of different theories and ideas of which way you could go, but it is interesting they would do that for baseball. Do you think it's not a situation where you need to, you know, for rev share, give 10 of the 20 million to baseball? No. Like I said, like a smaller amount of money in baseball is going to go a longer way. Like if you compared what you could do with a million dollars in baseball versus a million dollars in basketball, it might be one borderline starter level player in basketball versus one or not one I should say, you know, versus five all conference level players in baseball,
Starting point is 00:19:15 there's a big difference in what you're kind of talking about there, in what you can do. But I'm glad to hear that, you know, because that's going to be a thing other schools are going to try to poach coaches, not just based on their salary or their, you know, footprint or their history or whatever, based on, hey, we can give you more money in rev share. So cool to see that Kansas does that, but it's going to be a juggling act for Travis golf. Kind of keeping all the coaches happy. Like this is the rev share you're going to get. This is how you're going to make it work. But I think great news overall,
Starting point is 00:19:40 because Dan Fitzgerald has been a blessing on the KU baseball program. All right. let's finish up here little big 12 talk with Texas Tech be the future powerhouse of the conference to come in a lot of different sports. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. Again, I'll be back in office for the normal studio setup. I think starting with tomorrow's episode. So thank you to people
Starting point is 00:20:04 who have reached out about stuff. But anyway, Texas Tech, I find this very interesting. If the Red Raiders could basically be the the new powerhouse, so to speak, of the Big 12 based off of money, or maybe even the better way of putting it is like the New York Yankees of the Big 12. This was sent out by Brandon Marcello of 24 seven sports CBS Sports, who's a national college football writer. And the original tweet said, Texas Tech
Starting point is 00:20:33 says it's fundraising arm the Red Raider club will be responsible for generating $14 million annually to help fund its 20 and a half million dollar rev share model. And then it was quote tweeted by Brandon Marcelo and he said, it's believed Texas Tech will pay its players $55 million dollars revenue sharing plus NIL. So that's a combination of the two among all its programs this year making the Red Raiders perhaps the highest paid
Starting point is 00:20:59 college athletics program in the country. And I know money can't buy everything in sports. It doesn't always work that way. But a lot of times in college football, if you're that flush with cash, like it's hard to not be at least more talented and good in a lot of these different sports. And so I do wonder if Texas Tech is going to be, you know, maybe the like are they going to be the most balanced best overall
Starting point is 00:21:21 athletic program in the Big 12 for years to come because it's not just that maybe they're spending a top dollar of anyone in college athletics, but then maybe that gap is a little bigger knowing you're going against other Big 12 schools. Now we've seen them be solid in football. We haven't seen it pay off in terms of like being Big 12 champions. And I don't know, like it almost feels like money can only buy you so much. I think the money goes a longer way maybe in basketball, where if you get that one or two stud players, like you get JT Toppin out of the portal, then he ends up winning big 12 player of the year.
Starting point is 00:21:52 That's gonna have a bigger impact versus if you, you could bring on 10, what you think are good football players, but football is such a big thing about the locker room and how does the player fit. And like, I don't know, there's so much more that goes into it, that's not as much of a guarantee plus more injuries and stuff in football.
Starting point is 00:22:08 So it will be interesting, though, but you've even seen it for Texas Tech with the pitcher Kennedy, who's, you know, from the Topeka from the Kansas area, who they basically I think the talk was they paid like a million dollars in softball, she's probably by far the highest paid softball player in the country, and they immediately go to being, you know, in the College World Series, being one of the best teams in the entire country because they just added this one
Starting point is 00:22:29 player. Now that sports a little bit different where you can do that more. Like you could have the best quarterback in the country. But if you would have added the best quarterback in the country to like some of those David Beatty rosters, you know, okay, maybe they're going to a bowl game now. I don't know. But they're not, you know, competing for a national championship like Texas Tech softball has been. But I do find that very interesting in a conference like the Big 12, where it does feel like it's more open. And it is kind of such a crapshoot in some way,
Starting point is 00:22:53 specifically with like football, that maybe Texas Tech becomes that school that kind of locks down that top spot. And as we've seen, Texas Tech be really good at basketball here, really since the Chris Beard era and transferring in now to Grant McCasland. You see the roster they're going to be putting together for this year. I think Chance McMillan one of their guards is going to be really good. I do have some questions about the rest of the guards from there. But I do think or I'm sorry, it was a
Starting point is 00:23:15 chasing Anderson, whatever the young guard who was a freshman last year, I think he's gonna be a stud in year two. Toppin is obviously your big 12 player of the year. I like Lowan Watts, the addition they brought from Washington State. I thought, okay, you should have gone a little bit harder after him. But you look at it, I think Texas Tech basketball, I guess point being is here to stay in terms of being a very competent
Starting point is 00:23:35 top 25 year in year out team. I think Texas Tech football is gonna be as talented as any roster in the big 12 kind of year in and year out when you look at this. And it almost just made like, it'll be just very interesting to compare when you have schools who have less money to deal with than maybe the oil money that Texas Tech has
Starting point is 00:23:51 in terms of like, okay, can you play money ball? Can you figure out ways to be just as competitive despite not having some of this stuff? And then again, we go back to the clearing house situation. We go back to the NIL situation where it's like, what happens if they are nixing a lot of these NIL deals where all of a sudden that extra money TechStack has is pointless? Because, you know, maybe they have all this,
Starting point is 00:24:12 again, if you're talking $55 million, that's 35 over what you have in revshare. But what if you're only using 10 a year on NIL? Because you can't go much further than that because they're like, nope, sorry, that NIL deal is too much, you can't sign that. You know what I mean? And then it's like superfluous and then it doesn't matter as much. But I do think tech is in a very unique position that they could be a big 12 powerhouse for years to come. And we'll see how Kansas and
Starting point is 00:24:35 other schools in the big 12 can kind of respond to that. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. Back at it later this week, we'll have some more kiddie basketball conversation like it into a fun How good is El Marco Jackson going to be conversational later this week as well. So plenty coming at you here with locked on Jay hawks. See you next time.

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