Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Wilson Leads Big 12 Awards for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball + KU Football Lands 4-Star Aundre Gibson

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Jalen Wilson won Big 12 Player of the Year, Dajuan Harris won Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and more conference awards for the Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team. Biggest gripes, like Harris not being on the 2nd/3rd team, should Bill Self have won Coach of the Year, and more.Plus, Kansas Jayhawks Football lands a 4-star commitment in the class of 2024 with Aundre Gibson, a Cornerback from Arizona. Lance Leipold and staff at KU have things rolling now with their 3rd class of 2024 commit, all top 700 overall ranked players.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we discuss the Big 12 Awards, and also KU Football has a new four-star recruit for 2024. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks,

we're going to be talking a big 12 award season. All the big 12 basketball awards are out. We're also going to get into our biggest gripes. And then we're going to finish up KU football lands, a four-star commit for the class of 2024 is Lance Leipold and company. Keep doing big work here as a, we've just started up with spring ball. Originally I was not planning on having a show come out here on your Monday.

We were just going to have the Texas preview, which came out Sunday. A little extra listening on your Monday. And then we were going to be talking with Nick Schwert, which was going to come out on Tuesday. The Nick episode is still going to come out on Tuesday. But, you know, the Big 12 Awards came out and KU landed this four-star commit. So I was like, you know what? We got enough stuff there. Let's have another episode in between on Monday.

So extra free content for you. Never really, I guess, a negative thing for extra stuff you can listen to. We hope that you listen to all and every episode here. So let's go through the awards one by one. And then we'll kind of get to maybe the biggest gripes or surprises, stuff like that. So we're going to start here. This is the All Big 12 Men's Basketball Awards before we get to maybe the biggest gripes or surprises stuff like that so we're going to start here this is the all big 12 men's basketball awards before we get to the teams so jaylen wilson won

big 12 player of the year that was a bit of a discussion it seemed like that there were maybe some coaches that were going to vote and i'm sure did marquise noel for kansas state especially with the way that they finished the season and jaylen kind of struggling down the stretch though he did have the big 23 and 10 game and a big game against Texas Tech in the final two. How about DeJuan Harris winning defensive player of the year in the Big 12? I certainly think it's funny that I mean, you can have the conversation. Who's the better defender for KU, DeJuan Harris or Kevin McCuller? I lean Kevin McCuller personally because I think Kevin is more versatile and that he can defend different positions and he's so good at taking the ball away but I think if you're just arguing who is a better defender one-on-one for

their specific position if you're saying Kevin McCuller is just guarding one guy and DeJuan Harris is just guarding the one guy as a point guard then yeah you probably do go DeJuan Harris both are great there's no easy answer there it is funny though that he wins defensive player of the year in the big 12 and that a he didn't wind up on any of the first, second or third teams. We'll get to that here shortly. And also that DeJuan Harris is not a semi-finalist for the Naismith defensive player of the year. But Kevin McCuller is like that doesn't really make sense. Nonetheless, newcomer of the year, Keontae Johnson makes sense there. Freshman of the year, Keontae George makes sense there.

I mean, you could argue Grady Dick. I think Grady has more of the efficiency numbers than Keontae, but Keontae has maybe a little bit more of the counting numbers. But the way that Grady Dick struggled the last two games, don't know how much that added to the game. I do think there were maybe more, less valleys. Like Grady had a couple of those down games throughout the year. Keontae maybe had a few less of those. Sixth man goes to Serge Ibari Rice.

You heard Bill Self say in the postgame after Texas, he thought he was the best sixth man in the conference. Most improved player, KJ Adams. This one, most improved, you can always have big arguments with everyone because with the most improved player, should it go to somebody who you expect to be really good? Like in the NBA, we've seen guys who have been the second pick in the draft lately, like Brandon Ingram and John Morant, who have maybe a good year as rookies,

and then they turn into superstars in another year and they win most improved. Should that matter? Or should it just go to somebody who was, you know, you didn't expect to be good and made that improvement? I don't know the answer there. I don't think there is one right answer above the others, but you could have argued that Marququis Noel was the most improved player. I thought he was really good last year, but I mean,

he turned into a superstar this year. You could make that argument. You could make the argument that, I don't know, even Jalen Wilson, like he had to improve a ton from last year to this year. You could argue DeJuan Harris would be in that range. If we're just talking like Kansas players around the country, or I mean around the conference, you could make arguments for a couple other guys like I don't know with with TCU like maybe you'd make it for Damian Ball he was really good last year too but I thought he improved even

more in in his game this year you can make the argument with like Gabe Kalsher for Iowa State like there's a lot of good arguments that you can make for guys, but certainly nobody more than KJ Adams. I think he's up in that top tier regardless. The amount that he improved, not just from last season to this, but from the start of the season to Big 12 play and through Big 12 play with some of the different things he added to his game was so valuable for this team, and you really saw it night in and night out. Then coach of the year um this one's tough i i would probably argue that i would i don't know give it to bill self you lose it's over 70 of your scoring i i do think that drum tang is very deserving i think what it comes down to me is that we are bad at predicting things and so a lot of times coach of the year just is going to go to the guy who we

thought their team was not going to be very good and they did better but maybe it's just we just suck at predicting things right so like for instance i think most people thought who predicted k-state was not going to be that good that keontae johnson was was maybe not even going to play this year he had the insurance policy or if he did he was going to be a shell of himself if you said that keontae johnson was going to look like sec player of the year keontae johnson then you would have expected k-state to be a lot better maybe not even this much better but you would have expected them to be a tournament team and all these things and so that does kind of change things that we're just bad at predicting things and I don't think sometimes for these coach of the year awards

we give enough credence to the fact that you know coaches who are at the top to keep that consistency is so difficult and with how much KU lost to still win the league outright this year, and as difficult as a league as it has been is crazy. I do think if, if KU would have won at Texas and at that point, KU would have won the league by what? Three games. I think Bill Self,

it would have been hard not to give it to him. Voting wasn't due until the end of the games yesterday. Now I'm sure some coaches just figured out their ballot even before then, and maybe Tang still wins it. But I do think if they won by three games, it'd be hard to argue that Self shouldn't get it. But because that didn't end up happening, I'm fine with Jerome Tang getting it.

I just would probably lean toward Bill Self getting it. But again, I think a lot of these awards, sometimes people want to argue, and I'm sure there's going to be some people in the comments being like, oh, this guy should have won this or this guy should have won that. But I think for the most part you get pretty close to it uh but we'll get to gripes here in a second all right what about the uh all big 12 sorry wrong one here all big 12 first team second team third team flagler wilson johnson noel

and car on the first team so jalen wilson gets it for ku on the first team then you get george kalsher dick baugh and miles on the second team i Then you get George, Kalsher, Dick, Baugh, and Miles on the second team. I think if Iowa State would have finished in those top four spots, maybe Kalsher ends up on the first team, although I don't really know who you take off. Kind of becomes difficult there. I think that Mike Miles,

if he stays healthy and maybe TCU finishes in the top four, maybe he gets on there. But again, who you to take off? So really good there. Then the third team, LJ Cryer, Kevin McCuller, caleb boone sergio barry rice and eric stevenson and you see on the honorable mention jaron holmes osin osin yee kj adams dewan harris jalen hill grant surefield emmanuel miller timmy allen davion harman and kevin o'banner i thought kevin o'banner should

have been on at least the third team here. I thought he was a good enough player. I'd probably put him ahead of Serge Ibari-Rice, who I think is a really good player, but more of a scorer. I think O'Banner impacts winning more than that. Honestly, I would be comfortable putting DeJuan Harris over Kevin McCuller on the third team. I think he's just more important to the team and what they would want to do. And then, I don't know. I mean, Caleb Boone was so good in big 12 play crier was so

efficient like if you're alternating jaron holmes for crier i don't think it's a huge deal but i'd probably just leave crier on there i think the rest of it is is all pretty good there you could make arguments for guys with grant surefield he has the numbers to be even like second team but because they finished last it's hard to i don't know justify like the big 12 was so good this year that it becomes difficult uh overall not too many qualms with with that then we get to the other all big 12 teams so to speak you have the all big 12 defensive team which features gabe kalsher dewan harris kevin mcculler marquise noel and musa c say i think kalsher being on the all big 12 second team is is further reason why with how much he went off in big 12 play he could have been on the first team but again who do you take off i don't know dewan harris kevin

mcculler both deserving noel i think underrated as a defender i will say sometimes him being really small allows him to get picked on but he does a really good job fighting through it csa was so impactful on the defensive end of the ball that that was well-deserved on that end of things. All-newcomer team, George, Holmes, Dick, Johnson, and Rice. That's a pretty easy list that you end up with there. And then the all-freshman team, George, Lipsy, Dick, Ouzan, and Pop Isaacs, which Ouzan's kind of the one that feels like it's, eh, maybe you're kind of running out of spots there. I think you would have thought before the season started, KU would have ended up with a second guy on this list.

You know, you would have been like, oh, what if Uday or MJ Rice with Grady Dick, but didn't end up happening. He didn't get in, end up getting maybe as many positive contributions there as you might have thought beforehand. Are we going to get to maybe the biggest gripes of some of those big 12 awards? Then we'll get to KU football's newest commit, a four star corner to finish off this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, this episode, though, of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Built Bar. Are you looking for a delicious treat

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but I'm not taking Marcus Carr off. Texas finished second. You need a representative there, and he was really good. Noel and Johnson were so good for K-State this year, and I think I'd have them ahead of Kalsher. Like Jalen Wilson's your big 12 player of the year. Adam Flagler's so good on a better team with Baylor. So I think that's all fair.

I have to get DeJuanris onto one of these lists i know the stats don't jump off the page the assists certainly do but again like clearly big 12 coaches were willing to acknowledge the impact of dewan harris they voted him big 12 defensive player of the year so if you think this guy is the best defensive player in the Big 12 and that he is the best passer, the best facilitator, the best pure point guard in the Big 12, how does he not wind up on one of these teams? Also, if you just think about it as a value standpoint, how much does this guy mean to his team? Who is the most valuable player?

You can argue DeJuan is the most valuable player on his specific team, and that is even over Jalen Wilson, who won Big 12 player of the year. For that reason, I think personally, I think Dwan Harris is just a better player, more valuable than and I love Damian Baugh. But if we're just talking like pure point guards, I'm probably putting him over him on the second team. I would even be fine putting Dwan in the second team over Grady Dick, to be honest, because of the value. But I get it. A lot of these awards are based on what have you put up statistically. Okay, so if we just want to talk statistics, DeJuan Harris is not like, I guess, that far off from what Kevin McCuller did statistically.

Like, okay, yes, Kevin McCuller is going to get you more points and more rebounds, but also DeJuan Harris is going to get you more assists. McCuller averaged 11.1 points per game this year. DeJuan at 8.6. McCuller 7.3 rebounds. DeJuan 2.5. But DeJuan 6.3 assists with insane assist to turnover ratio. Kevin McCuller was second on KU in turnovers, 2.4 assists per game, both at about two steals per game.

DeJuan shot better from the field by about a little over 3%. he also shot 15 better from three i love kevin mcculler i'm fine with him being on the third team but if we're picking between dewan and kevin i'm choosing dewan now i'd probably also argue you could go to one over sergio barry rice maybe even eric steven like i i just think dewan needs to be on one of these teams uh that's my biggest gripe with all of this that that he should be on there i think uh it gets interesting when needs to be on one of these teams. That's my biggest gripe with all of this, that he should be on there. I think it gets interesting when you're voting for some of these teams. Do you vote on traditional teams, like where you have to have, like, do you care?

Do you just go, hey, if I think five point guards are the best players, I'm putting them on the All-Big 12 first team. Or do you vote where you go, we're going to make a starting lineup. It has to at least be a starting lineup, where I want a point guard in there and I want a center or at least somebody who's like a power forward who can play center like a Jalen Wilson. Or do you say I want a traditional lineup?

If you want a traditional lineup, you could argue. I mean, shoot, just look at this thing. Like the first team list, there's no traditional or not even traditional center. That's not even the right word. There's no player who plays center for their team. You look at the second team. There's no player who plays center for their team. You look at the second team. There's no player who plays center for their team. You look at the third team.

Caleb Boone at times would play the five for Oklahoma State when Musa Cisse was not in there. So that is your first like real center. You could actually make the argument. This is not an actual gripe. I have just saying this for fun. You could make an argument that if you were voting on these teams and you had to put an actual center in there, KJ Adams should be on like the second team at that point behind Caleb Boone. But I actually like it where you don't vote based on that. So I'm fine with KJ just being honorable mention.

Like I said, I would have put Kevin O'Banner on there. I probably might have tried to put Grant Shurfield over Eric Stevenson. I think the numbers are better, but I get Stevenson is on the more winning team. So I'm fine with that. But yeah, my biggest gripe for sure. DeJuan Harris not being on the second or third team. I thought that was certainly unfortunate, which again, the coaches acknowledged that he's the best defensive player in the league.

We know he's the best ball handler and facilitator and getting guys in the right situation. And yet he still wasn't second or third team. That doesn't really make sense to me. Like Marcus Garrett was third team in his junior season when he was like big 12 defensive player of the year. I don't remember if him or joke got it, but nonetheless, that is my biggest gripe. We're going to finish up KU football landing a four star commit for the class of 2024 in just a second. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. The midway point of the NBA season this year and now is the perfect time to download FanDuel,

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the big 12 tournament. Some interesting lines in there. Okay. You can get Kansas at plus two 70. Bill self, you know, hasn't won the big 12 tournament as much as big 12 regular season, but he still wanted a very good amount.

Like it's not often you're going to get Kansas at plus two 70. So I don't hate that necessarily. What what's interesting to me is I think the winner of Baylor TCU could very well win the Big 12 tournament. But unfortunately, I don't know who's going to win that game. And also then you could be playing Kansas in the semifinal. So it's really tough. But Baylor feels like the team that is built to do well in a Big 12 tournament setting. We see like in the NCAA tournament, you got to play defense. So I'm worried about see like in the NCAA tournament you got to play defense so I'm

worried about Baylor in the NCAA tournament but in the big 12 tournament we've seen like Iowa State a lot where they have teams that don't play great defense or the Missouri team in 2012 doesn't play great defense but plays really good offense that those tend to bode well in conference tournaments so I kind of like Baylor to get hot at plus 380 but I really like this TCU team plus 470 so I might avoid either one just because i don't know who's going to win the first matchup honestly on the other side of the bracket i think is where the value is yes you could get texas but i kind of have a weird feeling so kansas state went into austin and beat the longhorns now texas did overcome a uh big deficit uh if i'm remembering

right and came back had a big comeback win against kansas state manhattan but i kind of think kansas state matches up well with texas to where i could see kansas state getting to the big 12 final beating texas and kansas state at nine to one i think that might be the best kind of value pick but if i'm going with just an original pick it's one of kansas baylor tcu i just don't know which one's going to get through so pick your favorite their favorite value pick is Kansas State at nine to one FanDuel even lets you combine your bets for an even chance of bigger payouts with same game parlays don't miss your chance to get your no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars in bonus bets when you go to FanDuel.com slash locked on that's FanDuel.com slash locked on to learn more make

every moment more with FanDuel an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Finishing things up, Kansas football lands a commitment in the class of 2024 for Andre Gibson. He is a 5'11", 175-pound corner from Goodyear, Arizona, goes to Desert Ridge High School. Now you look at the 24-7 sports composite, he's a three-star recruit, but he's ranked 645th in the country, which I always say top 1000 recruit for Kansas. That's a big deal

when you get them on the football field. But when you look at 24-7 sports recruiting, which to be clear, my favorite site of the evaluations is 24-7 sports. I think they do a good job getting out to all the guys. He is 19th among corners, 242nd in the country. He is a four-star commit and the number six recruit in the state of Arizona. If you want another site like on three, has him as a three-star recruit, number 58 corner. He had other offers from like Arizona, Oregon, Oregon State. Iowa State was in there as well. Here's the scouting report from Blairir angelo of uh 24-7

sports adequate height and length with some physical upside versatile cornerback and speed to cover the fastest opponent displayed spatial awareness while manning nickel spots as a sophomore looks comfortable near the box and run support flashes very good hands and ability to high point the football and coverage attacks gaps with aggression and closes well on ball carriers shows creativity to wiggle free as a returner on special teams could continue to refine smoothness through backpedal and flipping his hips potential multi-year starter at elite power five level so i mean very high level uh scouting report there if you're kansas and you know you're talking about class of 2024

so that means he's a junior in high school right now that would make him once we get to the fall he'll be a senior in high school and you look at their class of 2024 now it continues to look really really good man you have red martel who's the running back recruit he's a top 600 national recruit you have isaiah marshall the quarterback recruit who's a top 600 national recruit. You have Isaiah Marshall, the quarterback recruit, who's a top 700 national group. Andre Gibson, in most years, if you have the number 645 recruit in the country on the 24-7 composite, that's going to be Kansas' highest commit. He's third already this year. They're three for three in landing top 1,000 and top 700 recruits so far. They are absolutely on a heater right now. And look at what just the bowl game did for this program.

I mean, it is having a real impact on recruiting. That is unbelievable that you land another kid of this nature. And I mean, the secondary for KU, it showed a lot of flashes, had a lot of talent already this past season. You're going to bring back all your starters, your top three corners, your top three safeties into this next season they should be good in the back end on top of it you bring on transfer from lsu and mcgee um you you know add a a nice recruiting class from the high school level in the secondary as well uh you have some young guys who could be emerging in

spring like a jaylen die so you're going to feel good about your secondary this year you're going to feel good about your secondary this year. You're going to feel good about your secondary the next year because you're going to have this kid coming on in addition to McGee growing up another year and whoever could come back who's already coming back for this year. I mean, the secondary has a very bright future for this Kansas program, which is very awesome. But again, three top 700 recruits already for the KU football program headed into 2024.

Obviously, the key now is having another good season and doing a good job staying on these guys because we've seen a lot of good commits to Kansas. Commit, then a week later, a month later, a few months later, decommits. You got to stay on these guys. The recruiting war is not over, but it's a good first win for KU right there on the football field as we continue on with spring ball. All right, that's going to do it for this edition of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back on tomorrow's episode talking KU basketball with Nick Schwert.

Then we'll have an episode a little later after that talking Big 12 tournament, looking at KU's quarterfinal matchup possibly with either West Virginia or Texas Tech. You can hit me up at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. You can find the show wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us on YouTube. Subscribe to the show and hit the like button if you could. See you next time on Locked on J.