Well, if you were going to draw up a let's get back on track. Pretend for a second, Land and I know you're gonna love this. Pretend that Bill Donald Trump's self meets with Hunter Elon Musk Dickinson in the Oval office and says, we gotta get this back on track because the last handful of sample site has been really bad. You're gonna draw up that plan, right, That analogy aside, was exactly the way that you would that you would carry out and execute objective number one, which
is blowout bad team at Allen field House. And now we are well on our way just a few more weeks to everybody getting a five thousand dollars check and everybody getting laid off in the meantime. Right, that's how this works.
Yeah, I think the five thousand dollars check is beating Colorado and then getting laid off his Texas Tech attributing sound field House.
So it's all the ingredients are in place. But analogy, silly, analogy aside. Kansas, they put the heat on Oklahoma State and a game that I think was not only badly needed for the fans who had witnessed just two groutesque losses in the last week and just desperately needed to see this team play well for their own sanity, but it had to be good for the players. They go
out there and they looked like they were having fun. Again, they looked like that they were having fun, which I know everybody makes the Little League jokes about how all it's all about the juice boxes after the game and everybody. No, it's good to see those college kids that give everything they have to make the fans happy here at Kansas. It was great to see them looking like they were having a good time en route to a boat racing
of a bad Big twelve team. So we're gonna talk about how the season's back on and you should book your final four tickets, right, that's today's agenda.
M M, yeah, that is what we're going to convince you to do.
We have two very different perspectives. I think over the course of the last few weeks, but I think we played I think that over the course of time, I think you and I are starting to feel pretty similar to this team, which is they they absolutely could put it together and play really well, but we're incredibly we're incredibly pessimistic on will it actually play out and we'll see time will tell, right, nothing could go wrong and Boulder on Monday night, that's for sure.
No, nothing ever has and nothing ever will. Oh wait, another buzzer Peter from half court just just fell. So nevermind.
Hey, other than that, that's the only loss they've had in Boulder in your lifetime, sir, that.
Is extremely true, and I would doubt that will be the ending of the game on Tuesday. But we have a game that played on Saturday to talk about first.
Yes, and we will talk all about this two man show today. Cam is in his hometown currently of Chicago, trying to get his girlfriend's car that they got towed from a parking lot because Cam doesn't know how to read signs. Is that what we're what we're looking at?
At least Cam doesn't know how to fill out paperwork.
That's true, which paperwork about a car being parked in an overnight lot for about twelve hours. I would say that maybe that may not be as much a Cam problem as it is a this is How's work problem. Agreed, But we'll talk all about it. This is inside the paint on rock Check blog.
I'm Ryan Landreth, I'm Landon Fields.
So we said landon that this is the first show that we're recording in the daytime in quite quite a while, and it has like that March. It has that March theme, Like I have a CBS game on my TV right now and it's like fifty five degrees outside. It's starting to feel a little bit like that super fun time of year. We almost made it.
Yeah, yeah, very March madness. Nothing. There's that two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon and it's college basketball time that only only March madness can give you.
And as based on how the last handful of March Madnesses have gone for Kansas, we definitely associate that with tons of victories and lots of jubilation that's come as a result of many round of thirty two wins. I'm talking about the right basketball team, am I not?
I mean to be fair, they did win a national title like two and a half years ago.
So they did. They did. You can't just say they've only made the second weekend once, but I mean they technically yes, but they went a lot further than that. Okay, let's talk recoof Let's talk about Kansas and Oklahoma State. Okay, for the final time, for at least a little while in the rankings number twenty three, Kansas ninety six, Oklahoma State sixty four. So they come out and and by the way, I first, I think the most that the biggest takeaway from this game, certainly for me, is how
good the uniforms were, especially for Oklahoma State. Kansas was supposed to wear the Fear of God uniforms. Though if anybody has seen Kanye West Twitter account in the last couple of weeks, I think that may have had something to do with why they decided not to do.
That is, what does Kanye have to do with fear of God?
And that way, there are people on Twitter that we're talking about how that was the reason.
I genuinely don't know what this is.
That you saw the Fear of God uniforms, right, yes, yes. If you look up Kanye West Fear of God on on the internet, the first result is on the college basketball Reddit page that says Indie Jana dupes their Fear of God uniforms because quote Kanye is a lunatic. So it has something to do with Kanye. I don't I don't know.
I'm not I'm not saying there, I'm not seeing much here, but I am seeing that there was something about him wearing fear of God. Okay, so yes, perhaps they've postponed.
Which in that case, that's maybe the only positive thing that Kanye has contributed in a while. Because those uniforms sucked. They were bad, So I'm glad they didn't wear those. Oklahoma States, by the way, were just chef's kiss, like that should be their uniforms. Kansas obviously taking it back to the circus uniforms as their primaries. Not in this game, but primarily this year, you've seen teams like.
This game for Kansas. Didn't like the uniforms. I haven't liked. I don't like that font at all. It's bad.
I think it looked a lot better with Oklahoma State wearing their retros. It doesn't look good whenever our team is wearing like Baylor highlighters next to it. But like I'm watching Purdue in Indiana, two very classic uniforms that haven't changed much over the years. Like teams like Texas Tech in the Big Twelve there, they've been wearing a lot of throwbacks. It's been nice to see college basketball embrace the nineteen eighties era. And Oklahoma State uniforms were just fantastic.
Agree there for sure.
Tell me about the game story. There's lots of takeaways besides the uniforms. The uniforms were pretty much the only thing that went well for Oklahoma State in this game.
Very true. After a miserable week in Utah, the Jayhawks took a few minutes to find their footing. They led just twenty three to nineteen through the first eleven minutes against Oklahoma State, and that was on a great sign. So Oklahoma State, they suck and I was wondering if we were in for the close game I predicted, but not so much. The last nine minutes of the first half were a stretch where Kansas looked like the preseason
number one team. Kansas won the last nine minutes of the first half by a score of twenty nine to four, and they continue to dominate offensively after halftime. They beat the Cowboys by thirty two points. In all, they finished as a minus two in two games this week, which is tough.
That's wild. Imagine being told the beginning of the week that they were going to beat Oklahoma State by thirty two and then we just had to guess what was their net in points, and we probably would have said the worst case scenario would have been like a minus like sixteen, that's like if things go or a plus sixteen rather with the Oklahoma State score in hand. And no,
it was much worse in probo. But overall I think that this so another instant takeaway here, Kansas opened up at minus fifteen and a half and the line didn't move very much. A week ago they opened up at minus nine and a half at Utah and the line went whipped straight to the Utah side and it closed like minus five and a half. That's an objectively ton of points to move in twenty four hours in a college basketball spread. So we kind of knew that that spread was bad and a lot of people made money
on it. Well, this is why Vegas is so good. This is why when you go into a casino there's the marble floors and the big statues and the really fancy TVs. They make a lot of money, and games like this as why nobody in their right mind wanted to bet on Kansas covering a fifteen point spread whenever they played the way that they did. Now, the thing that I noticed was the over under was actually ticking up It opened at a total of one hundred and forty eight and it closed at won fifty. So hm,
what does Vegas know on that one? They're saying that this game is going to feature an average of seventy five points per team, a lot of points. They know Oklahoma State statistically, while not record wise, but statistically and metrically is the worst team in the Big Twelve, and this is their opportunity to get I'm sure I haven't seen the numbers. I am sure the overwhelming majority of the money win this game was on Oklahoma State plus fifteen because people watch Kansas for a week and said,
why the hell would I bet on that team? And sure enough, Kansas goes out and puts their foot down. This is why Vegas is good. They nailed it. Kansas was the right side the whole time. I think I'm the only one that picked them to win a by a score that would have covered that of the three of us on the last show, because it just felt like they're just not going to lose every game and win occasionally by a handful of points, like everything was in place that eventually they were gonna play well and
why not? Why not this week? Whenever everything that had gone wrong, and they had been hearing about it all week, why not this for regrouping. That's exactly what happened.
Yeah. Absolutely, And we get into the next point of the notes here. But what was very evident is that this team did have a very kind of fresh look. Bill Solf, several of the players that talked about how they're treating this game like the start of a new season. The energy engagement was much better. Energy has become a buzzword this season somehow, but it's true. And you you could genuinely tell watching the game, like there were high fives,
there were celebrations. I noticed very specifically. I want to say it was kJ that went down and you saw Hunter Dickinson and Dwan like both sprint over to like help him off the floor, and right in.
Front of the KU bench, right right in front of the KU bench. Yeah, I believe so, yep, And that was as and and a lot of people had mentioned in the previous game and probo when Zeke Mayo went down and he was holding his knee, that only David Koite went over there to help him up. Everybody else just kind of stood there. The direct contrast between that and this.
Exactly, and there was lots of little stuff like that. That's all really anecdotal for sure, But at the same time, those are things that have been lacking. There's a general look of like disengagement. Especially I mean, and that happens also when you get blown out by thirty four. But even in a game like the Colorado win and stuff, it's not like these guys looked like they were just
psyched to be out there. And you know, that's a lot easier to do when you win by thirty plus and you absolutely cruise for ninety percent of the game. But nonetheless, it was visible. It was out there. They looked like they were having a good time. It looked like they were having fun playing basketball. There was a lot more cohesion on especially the offensive end of the
floor that was palpable. You could see it. They played within themselves a lot, and obviously the results speak for themselves. They absolutely rolled. It was their biggest margin of victory over a Big twelve team at home since Jeff Whitti's senior day in twenty thirteen. As we've also kind of mentioned already, Ryan, does this actually move the needle though? Yeah, they look great. Yeah, they seem like they maybe did figure out some of these cohesion problems or at least
like wanting to play the basketball together. Or is this just like a let the frustration out kind of thing. Is this a one off? Is Oklahoma State just that bad?
I think it can be all of those things. They obviously could have brought the exact same energy and passion to a game if they had played a better team, and they would not have won by this many. And certainly the reason why everybody is saying, oh, things might be getting fixed is because of the score. They saw him hanging ninety six and just absolutely molly whoop a team that had no business playing in that stadium against
even a lackluster for Kansas standards Jayhawks team. I think that we kind of talked about this before we pushed the record button. I think that the Colorado game is a very, very very good test for this team. Colorado is not a good team. They're not even an ok team by many metrics. They're horrible. They're two and fourteen in Big Twelve play, but they have one two of three they played better. They upset Baylor yesterday. Like clearly, this is a team that they're not twenty thirteen TCU,
and the building should be loud. It's a road environment where you've lost five straight road games this year. Kansas hasn't won on the road in a long time. So it's like this is the sort of game that the Kansas team that lost in BYU and Utah would lose in. It's also an environment that the Kansas team that we saw against Oklahoma State they would win. Let's see what kind of team they are, and I do think that
there is. You look at the course of this season, and I'm not saying they've been unlucky because there's so many wards, but they're eighteen and nine right now. The first two losses of the year to Creighton and Missouri are good basketball teams. They're at large teams in tough road environments. No shame in losing on the road, and to those teams, those aren't stains on your resume. The first handful of Big Twelve games you lost. You got
upset at home by West Virginia. That was a bad loss, albeit against a team that was playing their best ball of the year at that time. Then you had two complete losses against Houston and Baylor. You should have won both of those, you had a ninety eight percent chance to win both of those at a certain point like the and then then you lose to Iowa State, who is a who is a perfectly fine basketball team, like at that point in the year, as disappointing as the
record was, certainly none of this was staring. This is why this team has no chance to go deep in the tournament yet. And then the floor dropped out. You lose to Utah, you lose the k State. They've been playing better, I guess, but still you're not really that competitive in that loss. Then you lose to Utah and BYU, and now you're starting to look like a team that legitimately maybe shouldn't make the tournament. I really don't think that.
For the majority of the year, this team has screamed bad. This team has screamed worse than like a four seed. It just kind of all snowball at once. It dug them a really big hole to climb out of. But if you can go beat Colorado Boys, the table set for you to undo that damage. I'm not saying that it's that easy. They still have to go win those games, but you're looking at a final five game stretched Oklahoma State.
You already crushed them at Colorado. You gotta win a road game, and here's one against the last place team in the conference. No better opportunity to get one there. Then you get a final three against teams that are all in the top twenty. Texas second home at Houston team he should have beat, and Arizona at home. You
should win at least two of those three games. I think two to one in that three game stretch to get you to four and one over the last five probably gets you into the top five of the Big twelve. And I think that then then then you say the needle has moved a little bit. I'm not predicting that per se, but that's what we need to say to see to say definitively the needle has moved.
I do think there's a difference between should and can. They absolutely can win at least two of those three.
Should Kansas win their home games just pointless?
Well in general, yes, but again, this team I think actually has to show that they can beat a good team. And yes, like the Houston loss is that one especially falls into somewhat unlucky camp, Like that's a pretty unlucky loss. A loss that does not happen ninety nine percent of the time, and this is the one time it did. I do think to your point, though, these games do.
We talked about this before the show as well, that the games do ramp up in like a perfect way to give you a test, almost building up to like the boss battle that I guess is Houston. Yeah, you get this Oklahoma State game. It's a home game against a terrible team. If you can't pass that, you're passing nothing. And then you get Colorado, another bad team, but it's on the road. You struggle around the road. Then you return home to Texas Tech. Text Tech's are a really
solid team. They are good. That is a home game, though you are going to be favored. As long as you beat Colorado, you're gonna be favored. And then you go on the road to Houston. That's like the White Whale. That's the team that like. That's a that's a tough game. That's a game that even if they beat Colorado in Texas Tech, I still doubt they won't be favored to win that game. I will probably still pick against them
on the night and I will probably pick Houston. But it builds up to that If somehow you beat Houston, then then we're a trillion. All bets are off territory. But we got a few games to go. But it will be a very very interesting stretch because they did look like a They looked like a new team against
Oklahoma State. But it will be very interesting to see how much that was Oklahoma State and how much of that was Kansas has actually flipped the page because they also did not deal with almost any adversity in this game. And I do want to see them get pushed. I want to see them get pushed a little bit and see how they respond to not being an ideal circumstance as a team. If they can come together during that, then I'm gonna start really believing that you have flipped the page.
Well, and part of the reason that we saw such a night and day difference was the play of the point guard. Dwan Harris was horrible at BYU and in this game, you know, they did something I don't think I've ever seen happen in a college basketball game before which they interviewed a player at halftime. They had Dewan Harris interviewed by the sideline reporter and he pretty much
said I'm the leader of this team. Coach told me that I have to take more of that leadership role, which you know, these are kind of just hollow words at this point. Whenever you've seen a guy play one hundred and sixty some games and he only has like ten left, like, it's not just going to He's not just gonna suddenly become the Frank Mason alpha leader that
also puts up twenty points a game. But when Dewan Harris is allowed to play his game and the tempo best matches his pace, which I think the faster a game, the better it is for Dewan Harris because he has such a strong defensive skill set. We saw him just wreck havoc on an Oklahoma State team that was trying to keep up with a fast tempo and it didn't work for them at all. But he was the best
player for my money, in the first half. He had fourteen points, five assists, and six steals was the stat line in twenty six minutes, five for eleven from the floor, but he totally dominated the first half. He was the catalyst that made Kansas play so effectively at such a high pace. Six steals, all of them coming in the first half. First, like fifteen minutes of the first half, he got so many extra possessions for his team that
led to runouts as a result of said steals. He's not gonna like the difference Indwan Harris in the grand scheme of things, scoring thirteen points instead of three doesn't sound like it makes a difference between Kansas losing by thirty and winning by thirty. And there's obviously more factors than that. But when Towan Harris scores thirteen or fourteen points, it feels like the offense is going to wind up scoring twenty five more points as a team as a result of that. Yeah.
Agree, when he can actually put the ball in the basket, it can unlock the offense a little bit because then the defense has to at least kind of pretend to honor him out there. Yeah, he was quite good in this game, I mean to be fure. Mostly everyone was at least pretty good, except for aj Store, who continues to be bad. But Harris was really good. Yeah. The six steals very very impressive, even for Harris, who does get a lot of steals a lot of the time. Six is crazy. He was really good and in a
game where Kansas plays fast. I think Dwan Harris is a really good open court point guard. He's very good in transition. Ninety percent of the time he finds the player that needs to get the ball. He does that a lot. So Yeah, I think this game suited him and he took it by the reins. And if he can somehow fine and ten percent of Frank Mason deep down in his belly for ten games, like go to
that place to one. He's not gonna average twenty and five, but like, if you can be a guy that can call out people and do it on the court at least some at least more than you have been, that would be huge for the last handful of games this season, however long that ends up being well.
And the problem with Harris for for so long was that he didn't even look to score. This year, I don't think it's the same criticism. I do think he's looked to score in the BYU game. He took three or four shots in the first TV timeout before that, Like it's just a matter of it's gone from he
doesn't look to score too. He isn't scoring, and it's almost more troubling like all those years we thought with KU fans and us included kind of made it sound like all he's got to do is look to score, and we made it sound like if he just tried to throw up more shots that that would directly result in more points on the scoreboard. And that hasn't necessarily been the case this year because he has been colder
from a three point stretch. But whenever he so, it's it's gone from try to score to just score because if he can score in the double digits, Kansas is so much better on offense and it opens up so much for the bigs. All three of them, I think had much better games as a result of Harris scoring more, not just looking to score, but actually scoring more.
Yeah, I think that is true, and I do think these are these are the questions now A. It is nice that I think because last show we voiced a lot of does the basketball x's and o's even matter at this point? And I think this game proved that they do. The x's and o's of this Kansas team actually matter and that will have a lot of bearing
on what this team does. Hair. I do think this game, winning by so much and playing a bad team still covers a lot of the issues that we have with this team, and that one Harris he played well, but de One Harris is not a scoring guard. He just isn't.
And that's gonna be a There's a big difference between Oklahoma State and Texas Tech or Houston, or if you know, when you are in the NCAA tournament and you're playing against a five seed and it's a close game down the stretch, you know, in the winter, and a game takes you to the sweet sixteen, like that's those are much much different circumstances than playing at home on a Saturday afternoon against Oklahoma State. And Dwan Harris has not shown that he can do it in those atmospheres a
lot I want him to be able to. He has done it in certain spots, but he's not done it with much consistency. And also, as we'll talk about soon, they made a lot of threes. They made a lot of shots, and making a lot of shots covers up a multitude of sins. When you are a basketball team that struggles to.
Score, like they had seen game and nobody cares and no one really noticed because they made so many threes, right, it covers everything up exactly.
That's not to take away from Harris, because again Harris was really good, as was kJ Adams. He also, I thought, had a really good game despite some of the same kJ Adams things that we have grown tired of. He had some of those in these in this game. But he was really good and the team made a lot of shots, so it didn't really matter.
Well, and we'll go. We'll come back to the bigs here in a minute. I want to finish with I want to talk about the Guards a little bit because Zeke Mayo, David Koit, they were a direct They had success directly because of Harris opening up and scoring all. Harris's best stretch was the first ten minutes of the game. Uh and and once you got that part, then the Guards started getting rolling cause Zekee Mayo missed a couple of threes early, David Quoit came in and got hot
and that kind of started things. Mayo and Koit both had fourteen points. They each made five threes, Mayo five for ten and twenty six minutes Quite five for nine and twenty two. Koit also added Forrest as his best game of the year. Self said he was the most important player in the first half. I think he's right, and all Kansas made fourteen threes. They made eleven in the first twenty five minutes of this game to basically put a bow on it early in the second half.
Quoit Is is a guy that you know, we've talked all year about how he's a really valuable piece with team, and I think in this game you saw exactly what makes him good. Kansas was for the first ten minutes. They were up twenty three to nineteen halfway through the first half, and it was Quite that changed the game by making a few shots and then the lid came off the basket. For everybody else, that is the piece.
And that is why I continued to bang the drum that they're better than they were last year because Quoit is a piece they didn't have last year. Quite is what Nick Timberlake was supposed to be. A guy that goes in there, makes a couple of threes and suddenly the size of the hoop opens up for guys like Mayo and Harris and they all start making threes. I would I think ten out of ten championship caliber teams have a David Koit caliber player on their bench, a leader.
They've said he's the best vocal leader on the team. He can make shots, he can create shots, he can pass the ball. He has a high basketball IQ. They've talked about how he has another year of eligibility because the NCAA recently passed a new rule where if one of your years was at JUCO level, you do still in fact have a fifth year option at a major at a high major program. Yeah, I want David Coyd on my team ten out of ten times. He is
the piece that every championship caliber team needs. And I do think that there should be an element to this lineup. I don't think you're gonna see it. I would like to see Harris's minutes drop by seven to ten per game and let Koyd run the point guard with that. Zeke Mayo, maybe you let Aj Store to get his ten minutes during this stretch and A and Rylan Griffin and Hunter. Maybe David Coyd is you is your point guard whenever you want the team to play at its fastest.
I think he just adds so many different things to this team, and Kansas's disappointing season should not make us lose loose track of how good of a season he's had for this team.
Yeah, especially in the second half because he started something tear. It was like one for sixteen, yeah, something like that from three in the first handful of games of conference play, and we were wondering, like, oh boy, like was the jump in in talent too much for this guy? Does he just not have it? Are the problems really the truth of who that guy is? And not so much. I mean, he's he's been really, really good in unfortunately limited time. Because I really agree, I would love to
see him run the point little bit. I would just love to see him be more solidly in the rotation. Obviously, he's not gonna go five of nine for every night, and he was five of six at one point. He missed his last handful, so even then he was even better actually at a certain point in the game. But he is a piece that you are completely right that
they did not have last year on this team. He is a piece that has in the back stretch of this conference season to this point, has come in and has reliably hit threes and has scored sometimes that's not mattered. I'll la beyu. He had eleven points in that game. It just you know, his eleven points made it a thirty four point loss instead of a forty five point loss. But then he has games like this where he buries threes and really does get the offense cooking and really
does elevate what Kansas is doing. And I think he has that ability against better teams too. Obviously, Yeah, he's small, he does have limitations. He's not going to be an all world player, but he is certainly someone that I think should consistently be in the rotation because he can do this and there's not a lot of guys on this team that can Zekemeo is really one of the only other ones. And Rylan Griffin can obviously knock down
shots too, and after that, that's basically it. And that is something Kansas has struggled a lot with this year, is consistently scoring. And you have a guy in Koit that has scored pretty consistently in the last many many games.
At this point, Quoit was one for fifteen to start conference play shooting the three ball. He is sixteen of thirty five since that moment, and you know, self gave quite a lot. I've been listening to Hawk talk a little bit more, especially when things aren't going too well. I think it's an interesting element to hear what the assistant coaches say. Quoit was the guy that self talked up the most of any of them this week. He said he's the best leader on this team. He said.
They the question at Hawk Talk was which of the guys on this team would make the best coach after their playing days or done uneat That was Self's answer. He said, David Quit would be the best coach. He's the best leader. Like it's one thing to go out there and play well and get confidence from your coach and do whatever with it. But it's another thing whenever you really respond to your coach giving you that sort
of feedback, and it's it's been good to see. I think that I think that my hopes for in the tournament will always be a little bit higher whenever they have a player like this who, you know, kind of something like what we saw with Remy kind of something like what we saw with Connor FRANKMP way back when where he came off the bench in those those two games. I know they lost to Stanford, but he came in there and made two or three threes in the second half, Like a guy that can come in and knock down
shots on the bench. Is such a critical part of a team having march success. The Kansas team won the national title and would have lost in the first round or the second round if it weren't for Remy if you want to see just how thin that line is when it comes to needing a piece like this.
Also, Zeke Mayo just turns into Klay Thompson and Al Shieldhouse especially catch and shoot like that. Is another thing in this game that I think was really important to notice is Zeke Mayo did a lot less of dribble round for thirty seconds. Yeahs not thirty but dribble round for fifteen seconds and take a tough step back three.
His point guard being active sure help that.
Very true, very true. And David quit making shots and things like that obviously help as well because it can free him up a lot more too. But when Zeke Mayo is in catch and shoot stuff in Allen field House, I mean, he's just like truly one of the elite shooters that's played at Kansas. When he's in Allen field House on the road, different story, It has been a different story all season, but he's electric in that building.
What do you think Zeke Mayo is shooting in fifteen games at Allen Field House from three, He's attempted one hundred and eleven shots in fifteen games. What do you think his percentage and how many do you think.
He's made are one hundred and fifteen one hundred and eleven attempts one hundred and eleven temps. I think he has made like fifty three of them.
Yep, fifty one, fifty one of one hundred and eleven. He is a forty six percent three point shooter at home. That number goes down to thirty one percent on the road, and it is just twenty nine percent in two neutral site games, which granted is what that's Duke in Michigan State. Like, that's it's been a long time since we've seen those games.
But yeah, forty six percent three point shooter at home, absolutely electric and on this season now shooting forty one percent from three, like, he's been truly one of the He might be the best shooter in the Big twelve. This team has pieces. This isn't like last year where you had Hunter Dickinson on one shoulder and mccolor goes out and Dwan Harris is here and that's kind of
all you have. Johnny Furbey hasn't done anything in several weeks. Like, this team has Dickinson, who's gonna be some level of All America. They have a fifth year point guard who we know can play well at certain times. They have maybe the best three point shooter in the Big twelve. Like they have a guy in kJ Adams who can't impact the game in a lot of ways. Like this team is better, and I think that these last four games of conference play will show us just how much
better they are. Because, yeah, if they can win three of their last four and maybe the one loss is a is a six or seven point road loss to Houston, they get up to the four spot in Kansas City and they play okay there, I think you're gonna see the juice get put right back into this team everybody as quickly as it left. But there's obviously a lot of work to do before they get there. All right, let's talk about the bigs. They all three played twenty one minutes, and they all played really well.
Yeah they did. Hunter Dickinson, he racked up sixteen points eleven rebounds before sitting for the last fifteen minutes of the game or so. He only played twenty one minutes and was dominant floor. Badunga got a lot of run. He loged six points and a crazy sixteen rebounds in twenty one minutes. He was also a bit unstoppable down there. kJ Adams also only played twenty one minutes. He had six points on three dunks. He had six rebounds, a couple of cists. All three of them played really well. Yep.
It was a high paced game and we wanted to see could Hunter Dickinson play this well in a game with this breakneck of a pace. The answer yes. You saw him make a couple of really nice hostile plays, including a coast to coast Steve was hurting dunk got out sick and the emotion afterwards that people wanted to see they've been clamoring for that. You saw Hunter dive on the floor. I thought his box out position a
couple of times. It was clear that he was I'm going up for this rebound and I'm not letting anyone go around me, which isn't something we've seen a lot from him. kJ.
He he made a point to make a couple of dunks in this game that he normally does always go for, including one when he hung his nuts in some guy's face for a couple of seconds after he did it, which is very Hunter behavior if you know Hunter. But nonetheless, yeah, he was making a very clear point to show that the vibes were better.
Yes, and I think that he has seen the bulk of those The vibes aren't great comments directed at him. This is his team of them, a lot have gone his way, and some of that is rightfully. So whenever you're down twenty points at BYU and Hunter Dickinson is just kind of going through the motions, I can understand how that's not gonna sit super well with fans. I could argue that it should be. I mean, you can't have him be kJ Adams shot out of a cannon,
ridiculous energy at all times. That's just not how a lot of guys work. People got irritated at Andrew Wiggins for not being a assassin sort of demeanor too, But like for yes, Hunter made it apparent and kJ. This is a great kJ game wherever the opponent is. So the the thing I've seen people say on Twitter is kj' is really good against bad teams. I don't think that's giving him enough credit. Kj's really good opponents get disorganized, and Alan field House will do that to you when
an opponent doesn't really know what they're doing. Kj's very good at capitalizing in that moment of vulnerability, whether it's with a shot block, or it's sneaking behind somebody for a dunk, or it's coming through with that when they're a little discombobulated and they don't know what's going on, and it's a fifty to fifty ball that kJ gets eighty percent of the time. This was a really good kJ matchup and Florie I will say, Uh, you know what Florie's plus minus was in this game?
Probably something ridiculous. What was it?
It is, but not in the way you think. Flori was a minus five in a game where can by thirty two if that, and that goes to show just how weird that stat is. Yeah, he didn't play during their big their big run. Yeah, sixteen rebounds in twenty one minutes, including one of the stupidest goaltending calls I've ever seen. Uh, and yeah, he was a he was a minus five. Yay stats.
Oh that's wild.
Tell me about Bryce Thompson. He's speaking of wild. We need to do a study on how he becomes Alan Iverson when he comes to the fog.
Yeah, Bryce Thompson really did put on like a durant impression when he comes to Allen Field House. He only played nine games at Allen field House as a Jayhawk, but he scored forty six points and made five threes in his three games as a as a Cowboy at Allen field House, he has scored forty nine points and he's made ten threes. Possibly that's that's absurd what happened.
Well, then, the stupid one was three years ago when he made seven and they almost won. And by the way, I didn't even count. He's he's come into Allen Fieldhouse as a visitor four times. I didn't count the game last year where two minutes in he dislocated his shoulder and left. So, yeah, he could have in that game, he probably would scored twenty more like that. Those numbers were almost worse. He's only really played three times here
and he's made ten threes. And the second one he hit in this game was just ridiculous.
It was a truly crazy it.
Was who was the Baylor point guard? Was it Kiante George that went nuclear in the first half at Allen A couple of years ago and made a couple of threes from that spot, that sort of vice. But Kiante George was a lottery pick. Ryce Thompson has played two hundred games and he's still Bryce Thompson.
Yeah. Just super weird. How how that guy turns into an absolute baller. I mean, he's been good at Oklahoma State in his time there, so I guess it's not that.
But he's not a scrub. He's not a scrub. He's been their lading scorer two years in a row, but still obviously didn't work out the way they hoped it went at Kansas. And good for him for having a good college career.
I wand you like the ref camps?
No, the ref camps suck and they can go screw themselves sideways with them. You knew whenever they opened up the game by saying the refs have cameras on that those refs understood the assignment. I will be on TV even more than usual today, so I will tweet tweet tweet my whistles, and boy did theay There was a lot of fouls, but what I have never seen a goaltend like the one that they called on on on Florrie. I don't know. I don't know how that was a goaltend, Like,
no part of it makes sense. And I know they were up thirty five, but like you're supposed to be able to go over there and take that off. How did no official and the TV timeouts say, hey, actually it really wasn't a goaltend.
Yeah, that that was a very bad call and took away another great block from Floory. But otherwise I didn't think they were like to the refcam sucked. I don't need refcamps ever again in my whole life. I don't think the refs were otherwise like so bad.
No, but the game was a thirty two point blowout. I'd hope you didn't notice the refs.
Yeah, very true.
Ryland Griffin returned to the starting lineup. He made a couple threes, finishing with nine points, three of seven from the floor, But the key stat here is six assists for him and a team leading love those words twenty seven minutes. I think the couple takeaways here is that we kind of grouped aj Store, Ryland Griffin, everybody else in that category of the disappointing transfers or a lot of people have that's not true. Ryland Griffin has a
ton to offer this team. He's been a solid, if unspectacular, He's been a solid piece this year with the ceiling that is probably higher than any player on this team. And if Kansas wants to go deep in the tournament, he's gonna have to play well. And there's worse guys you could bet on there. Clearly, he is a guy. With all the criticisms of Bill self, and there's been a lot of them in the very very valid in
a lot of ways. Clearly, Bill self, for all his weaknesses this year, understands we're not going very far if I don't get Ryland Griffin in there as an integral part of my offense. And he's trying to do it. And Griffin's played a lot better the last couple of weeks.
He has And as much as Ryland Griffin has been somewhat inconsistent shooting threes this season in conference play, where he's at least been very streaky, one thing that he I don't usually think, oh man, Rylan has sucked today, even on nights where he doesn't make a ton of threes or he doesn't get the shot to fall and obviously, six sists is a season high, but he even when he doesn't have those kind of numbers, he does always make a few plays. He's a pretty good passer, he's
pretty smart. Yeah, he makes some dumb plays too sometimes, But I don't usually think that Ryland Griffin like outrightly is bad, even though he does have to make threes, because that is like, if he's not doing that, that is the one thing he's supposed to be doing at a really high level. But I do think he has a lot to offer even when he's not scoring a ton. In this game, he did both. He in nine and six.
That's a pretty good game. But I definitely agree Ryan, if they can get him going and they can find some way to get him to be consistent, or if he could just gets hot for the last few games, they the ceiling goes up. Because Ryland Griffin is and has been a very solid basketball player, even if he has been frustrating.
And when you say get him going to me, that doesn't mean he has a game every night like he had against Houston. As great as that would be, I think getting him going is making averaging two may three is a game. If he can get multiple mad threes a game, then this team's gonna be good. And so in conference play, I think that that's the word you're looking for right there, streaky, Because in out of fifty nine threes in conference play for Ryland Griffin, he's made
thirty nine percent of them. Twenty three of fifty nine is thirty nine percent in conference play. That's a great number. That is second to just seat mail on the team. Like streaky, he'll make five of six and then misses miss nine of his next ten. You got that's gotten a little bit better over the last few weeks. I think ever since that Iowa State game where they started
him and he missed so many open threes. Since then, it's been like he made a couple yets BYU and they lost by a bunch, made a couple of gains Oklahoma State they won by a bunch.
Yeah.
If he makes multiple threes every every time they go out there, this team's gonna be so much better, especially because I don't think you're getting it from this last player.
No AJ Story had seven points. AJ Store is the king of I still score between five and ten, but boy is it worse than that. He does that all the time. Seven points three for ten from the floor, oh for four from three. He did make a couple of late shots in sixteen minutes. His conference numbers are ghastly thirty of eighty seven from the floor that's under thirty five percent, eight for thirty eight from three which is twenty one percent, and sixteen turnovers to nine assists.
That's bad.
He he like abject disaster, just just objectively terrible season from aj Storre. And I feel for him because, like it's not an effort thing. It's not an effort thing. It's not like I can only imagine how frustrated he must be after having a really great season at Wisconsin last year to this is what you have at Kansas. But I don't know why he plays. If you're gonna Bill should make one roster tightening, which I know he
hasn't really done very much of this year. But if you're gonna do the roster, titan, roster titan, AJ store to the bench.
Yeah, And like that's a tough spot for self because self obviously knows the player he was. I'm sure he sees in practice this is not you know, this isn't whenever they ran out of bodies and they had to throw frickin borderline walk on caliber players out there to go get minutes because they don't have enough guys to simply fill the two hundred minutes. Self knows AJ Store is a second team All Big Ten player that has the ability, and he probably sees it at times in practice,
the scheme fit is just not even close. There are moments where Store looks like he doesn't know who to throw the ball to in the set, so he just lofts a three, and it's it's astonishing. I don't remember you mentioned the TCU game, and I think that's the answer. I was thinking, I don't know the last consequential AJ Store bucket when he made one, and I was like, wow, they really could use that one North Carolina. He played
really well on the second game of the year. That's kind of the last time I remember thinking he made a clutch time basket and yeah, it just doesn't work. Like there are other guys like Griffin, whenever things aren't going well, we're like, yeah, but he's still shooting this percentage. Da da da dah. There's nothing Aj Store. You you examine his season numbers up and down and all around, there is nothing redeeming. There he's not doing anything.
Well, no, no, there, there really isn't. It's too bad because he was supposed to be a really integral piece of this team and he just isn't. Isn't anyway, the ship has sailed, as they say.
And whenever you look at this team's weaknesses, what do they struggle with at times? Offense? They struggle getting to the basket, they struggle with shot creation, they struggle with drawing fouls. Those are all the things that aj Storr was supposed to be not just good at, but the best on the team. That was why they brought aj store in goet to the basket. Get twelve to fourteen points a game, draw three or four fouls a game.
That was what he was supposed to do. The rest of the guys have had to pick up a lot of slack in that regard. It's just not who they are. Like we do. We are hard on Jewan Harrison, kJ Adams, and Twitter's hard on Hunter Dickinson. But wow, would those guys' lives be easier if aj Storre was half of Wisconsin.
Aj Store Yeah, if he was just competent at all, Like that'd be great.
I think that Koit being better has helped kind of mask that a little bit Cooit has is playing AJ Store minutes and AJ Storre is playing David Koit minutes. These that we thought at the start of the year, we thought Store would get twenty to twenty five minutes a game, if not more than that. We probably thought Storre would get close to thirty. Koit can get into the twenty five range, and we thought Quoit would be eight to ten minutes whenever they need it matchup dependent,
that's what Store is. They just kind of switched well.
And Zeke Mayo has been fully the scorer that yeah, we hoped. We didn't know how that was going to translate. We thought he would do well, but we were there was some skepticism around is that going to translate, and it more or less has just translated. So that also helps a lot. That he's been pretty good scoring and has covered some of that that you've lost with AJ stword just being who he is.
And that's what's been weird because and I think that's why I'm cleaning to hope with this team, why I'm cleaning to this team hasn't been as bad as the eye test and the numbers back that up. The Ken Palm rankings still have them at like twenty. Whenever, from an eye test perspective they look awful at times. Is because whenever you look into the meat and potatoes of this team, I don't know how many players besides aj Store you can say have been worse than we thought.
Hunter and kJ and to One have more or less been who we thought, if not slightly underwhelming compared to what we hoped. Zeke has been a lightning rod Quite has been very good, Griffin has been a little worse
than we thought, but still solid. Like It's It's not like Las last year, where we looked at it and said, well they have no McCuller and Furfey tailed off, and Harris hasn't been very good and Timberlake's been awful, and like last year, half the guys, if not more, we looked at and said, have these guys aren't doing anything this year. I think with the exception of Store, nobody's been objectively bad and several guys have been better than we could have hoped.
I think in large part that is true. I do think that goes back to the conversation of the system fit that obviously we've been having all season, and that the system just doesn't function very well or requires very specific circumstances like hitting fourteen threes to function well. I do think a win like this takes me back to the position that I was holding previously, which was high ceiling, low floor, and they showed in this that the high
ceiling still exists. They can still hit that obviously bad team, but they you know, you don't blow every bad team out by thirty two points, so they still have the fat if you will, we'll see what the change up looks like on the road in Boulder late at night on Tuesday.
I think that is Monday, it's tomorrow, that'll be Funday night today that this podcaps. Yeah, And I think that's a great way to put it. And in the NCAA Tournament, which as we know, it's a lottery ticket, Northern Iowa will have lost to Kansas eight out of ten times. Well, they got them that day. VCU probably loses nine out of ten times they play Kansas. They got them that day. Then you can flip it around a little bit and
say we've seen teams like Kansas. They probably lose to North Carolina eight out of ten times if they're down fifteen at halftime, all you gotta do is be right that one time. Kansas is going to enter the NCAA Tournament in a position. Last year, we're like, there are four they could be sneaky dangerous, But we knew that team was running on fumes. It was like Logan at the very end of his run, like they kept taking away limbs at that point, and it's just it's nothing
at that point. Whereas this team has the high ceiling, they are the team that I think could be sneaky dangerous there. And I I don't care what anybody says about how they've been this year. If Kansas gets to the four or five line, they are not a team that any one seed seeds. Oh if it's Kansas has our potential sweet sixteen draw that sucks to see preseason number one that has the ability to play this well drawn into your bracket. So we will see. There's a
lot to be analyzed. I'm sure there'll be questions about NCAA stuff and askcarcbs, but this is a series of five tests. We know they got to pass at least four of those tests to really feel good about where they are entering the postseason. This was the easiest of the five tests, but to their credit, they passed it with flying colors. In this game, fifty two percent from the floor, forty seven percent from three to seventy five
percent to the line, didn't draw much contact. Bit they took a lot of threes, plus twenty on the glass. They four seventeen turnovers. That is a dominant stat line. It was a very good outing and they are still fifth in Ken Palm defensive efficiency. As you said, they haven't lost the fastball. This game was proof of that. The fastball for this team is defense, and in this game it's smothered Oklahoma State. In the last ten minutes of a half. It created offense and look what happened.
Any closing thoughts from this game, it was a very nice performance for Ku maybe one that will quickly forget about if they lose in Boulder, but at least for forty eight hours, it was nice to see him play really well.
Yeah, yeah, I think I think my my prestatement is more or less my closing thoughts. I think for now there's still a high ceiling, low floor team. They showed they can still have the high ceiling. Go do it against a bad team tomorrow night or tonight. If when you're listening, hopefully you're not listening after the Colorado game has happened, because that'd be weird. But maybe you're catching.
Up Big Twelve Games abbreviated version, because we are recording this before two games have gone, and they're probably the two least interesting Big Twelve games of the slates. So your quest to hear one hundred and eighty Big Twelve recap segments will be denied. You'll have to settle for one hundred and seventy eight this year. I'm sure you're all the listeners are sad.
Yeah, I can hear the tears of not getting to hear Utah, UCF and K State Arizona State recapped.
Yeah, but hey, you know what, at least we can make up for it by giving them this boring game in lou of not having two also boring games Cincinnati seventy five, TCU sixty three. Tell you at Landed, it's a two man show. So you can have the privilege of reading these scores today, or at least some of them. I'll read the score and then give myself a blurb or do you want to do it differently? Do you want to read the score and then throw it to me for the blurb and vice versa. How should we do this?
Or maybe from a workflow perspective, this would be, since you read this score, I'll read the blurb and then I'll go into score you blurb. Look at that the ultimate ultimate tug of wargame. This is so exciting. Yeah, just passing the ball back and forth, just LIKEKJ in to one, but.
Hopefully it works a little better than that most of the time.
Well, so far we're doing great, considering I still haven't read the blurb. Led by eighteen points from all world level named Gisel James, Cincinnati has won four to six overall TCU as the Universe states it must be in this case is eight and eight. That is perfectly beautifully five hundred balanced. Is all things should be, is the purple Fanos said to the purple horny frogs.
We've done a pretty good job this year picking TCU games, specifically because we've just been like, oh, they've won two in a row, they're a little over five hundred. I'll pick them to lose here to get back to five hundred. That's what they do. That's absolutely what they do. And it doesn't matter who the opponent is. Top ten Texas Tech comes to town. But you're in danger of going two games under five hundred. Nope, Jamie's gonna win that
one to get back to five hundred. Oh playing lousy Cincinnati, chance for a win streak, Nope, back to five hundred. He goes. Also Gigsel James's real name is Edward James Junior. It's a nickname.
I figured it was, but still I don't know if that's Edward and James Junior is also pretty good, and you're the son of Edward and James.
So correct. Who's a Hall of Fame running back? I think is see in the Hall of Fame. He should not be in the Hall of Fame.
I don't remember. I think yes, I think he is.
That's a hall of very good caliber player. Should not be in the Hall of Fame. But you know that's that's okay. Cincinnati is kind of like the Oklahoma of the Big Twelve. They have a lot of non conference wins, albeit they have worse non con wins than Oklahoma does, but they have a very bad league record. And we said on the show if you get this. Eighteen nineteen wins is a high major program that's almost always good enough.
But whenever you have very little success in league play relative to what normally happens, when you get to nineteen wins, it's a lot tougher. I don't think Cincinnati's gonna wind up making it, and it's because they who's the best team? Cincinnati's beating a big twelve play. They didn't beat Houston, they didn't beat Kansas. They did beat Iowa State.
They did get Tech.
When did they get Tech? They get them out? What are you sure TCU did now I'm talking about cinc.
Oh oh, oh, my mistake, my mistake. I did the thing where I stopped listening specifically to you for a few seconds. Since that's okay, Uh yeah, it's it's nobody. I don't I don't have a clue what their best win is because they haven't beaten anyone of note. Did they beat Baylor? Would it be BA?
No? I think they lost the Baylor two got blown out by Baylor, if I remember right. I think TCU is the quote worst team of these two. But TCU probably has a better resume.
That's also hard to say, when TCU has like a three game better league record than Cincinnati.
Is it really that much better? They are tc Who's got eight league wins and Cincinnati's got six. Yeah, I guess you're right. Is that is a big differences. That's too bad. They both lost the bill at home by double digits too. Kansas is only two road wins this calendar year.
Good, that's really good. Actually, Number nine Texas Tech seventy three, West Virginia fifty one. The Red Raiders get a nice bounce backed up.
Yeah, this is the sign of a very good team. They come home and they lay a whooping on a team that was solid but not great. Twenty two and eight for JT. Toppin, who is becoming one of the best players in this conference. This game was close for half and then suddenly it wasn't. The Red Raiders are very good. The Mountaineers had that nice start they won at Allen Field House. They started two to zero Big twelve play. They're just five and nine in the fourteen game.
Since they're probably gonna miss the tournament, though it's probably chucked up to having Tucker Devrye out for the year. Probably wind up getting a couple of those wins and making it if he's healthy, that's too bad. Still got to think that they have a nice looking future. Grant de Rye or Darian Devrye rather Grant is mis Castlin. Darien Devrye, the coach at West Virginia has that team better than they've been in a couple of years. In
this first year. Number five Houston sixty eight, Number eight Iowa State fifty nine. It was the game of the day in the league, but it was I think Iowa State, considering who they didn't have, did pretty well all things considered.
Yeah, Houston built a large lead early. Iowa State played some excellent defense, they get some points back. They rip off fourteen straight in the second half to get it within a possession. Ultimately they were able to pull away behind twenty eight points. The Cougars were from LJ. Crier, who was putting on a one man show for a
little bit against Iowa State. The Cyclones were a huge underdog here, as neither Curtis Jones nor Keyshan Gilbert played, which makes a nine point road loss to the best team in the league a little bit impressive in a way. But Iowa State is four and four in their last eight not great. I still think Iowa State should be a team. I think it's those guys back.
I think what hurts about Iowa State is and we kind of nailed this right, like, we never got super super super high on Iowa State relative to what everybody else did. Because while we admittedly think TJ. Alzberger is a top ten coach in the country, he is known for one thing in Iowa State, and that is getting teams to overachieve. He doesn't have the talent that Houston and even Kansas, and I would say even Baylor has.
This year, he gets a group of players to completely buy into a system in which all of their strings are maximized, but they're just not as talented as some of these other teams. Curtis Jones is a great ballplayer, but whenever he's not there and you're relying on guys like Mamsilievic and Deshaun Jackson, who again are good players, but they're not the talent enough. They're not talent enough to be able to go contend with Houston on the road.
I think Iowa State's gonna lose to a team that is seated better or seated worse than they are because I think they've overachieved to a record, which is both a compliment and an insult at the same time.
States in the tournament and sooner than they should get out of here.
Raising talk never ever happens. Two teams that are probably well, I don't I was gonna say they're not gonna make the tournament, and honestly maybe Colorado seventy six Baylor seventy four. It's so sad that when Cam misses a show, this is the time for him to read about his team that was due getting a win.
Hey, and maybe this means they're not due anymore, just in time for Kansas to walk into Boulder, one would hope. The Buffaloes defense held Baylor just thirty six percent from the floor, lifting them to their second league win. Andre Yakimovski had seventeen points, not Jakamovski. Very different, very different intimation the very different things. Yakimovski had seventeen points, seven rebounds, five as cysts. The Bear's tournament hopes really in danger
at this point. Baylor overwhelmingly mid They are sixteen and eleven. They would be in real trouble if they hadn't gotten a buzzer beater to beat Saint John's in November, which would a take away a huge win for them and make them fifteen and twelve. Baylor's five and seven in their last twelve games. Just we talked to the some on the last show too, but Baylor just playing so far below their talent level.
Baylor and BYU have very similar Ken Pond metrics. They're both top fifteen offensive teams and both sub seventy defensive teams. The problem is Baylor isn't nearly as consistent at one thing, which is shooting the three ball. Wow, can that elevate you quickly? Whenever you can do that consistently. Yeah, I
don't know about Baylor. Like they're talented. If they draw a nine seed, again, not the sort of matchup that makes any one se'd go Whoo, it's Baylor because they have like a lottery pick leading the show and a great starting five, but they've been ravaged by injuries, as they seemingly always are. And yeah, I don't know if
they're gonna make it. That went over Kansas and the win over Saint John's both kind of fluky and nature are the only things that are keeping them on the plus side of the field right now, and then there's this game. Please tell me that you saw the foul and how this game ended, because if not, you're gonna have to watch it before reading about it.
Have you seen what happened in this game? I saw the I saw a silent highlight of it. Let me pull it up.
Six number nineteen, Arizona ninety five. First off, what a frickin' basketball game, What a score? What an awesome showing by two outrageously good offensive teams. But the tarnish of the refs, the thorn in my side, the worst, the broken spot in my armor, all of the things I despise in life. The officials decided, with or without their ref cams, that they were gonna make this last minute about them, and oh did they.
I'm watching the highlight now. Let's say it's bad.
It's really bad.
Trying to get to the foul call. Boy, Arizona just took They made it a one point game. What could go wrong? It's too tough to scrub. I know the foul call is very bad. Let's see here. Me watching a video is really good podcast stuff BYU. Though they have won eight of their last ten, they should enter the top twenty five, probably replacing Kansas this week. Yep, but this one does come with a lot of controversy.
Down one in the final seconds, Richie Saunders drew one of the worst foul calls you'll ever see, resulting in two free throws. As I clicked back to the video, the video has ended, so I missed it. We'll never know. He drew one of the worst foul calls you'll ever see, resulting in two free throws to win the game for the Kuges. Also, after this game, there was a postgame shoving match with f the Mormons chance raining down in
the McHale Center. There's no need for that. I've statedly not a Mormon nor aligned with Mormons, but that you know, we don't need that.
I think both schools issued apologies to the opposite school as a result of how their teams slash fans behaved after this game. Yeah, there was some shoving and it ruined what for thirty nine minutes and fifty five seconds was just a brilliant basketball game between two very high ceiling offensive teams.
Yeah, and hey, it's fun basketball when you get two teams that like to shoot a lot and can make a lot. It turns into ninety six to ninety.
Five twenty three for Saunders, who had a hell of a week, probably worthy of Big twelve Player of the Week honors. Honestly, by you made fourteen more threes they do Arizona did yet twenty seven from kleb Love. We both kind of have thought for a while Arizona might be I think you word it at best whenever you said punching above their above their their talent level a little bit. But at the end of the day, like these are two really good teams. B why use the
same thing they always are. They're gonna be like a five or a six seed, and nobody wants them in their bracket. This is the reaction whenever whoever is the three seed sees six seed BYU pop up on the other side. Nobody wants them, but.
Also might lose that six to eleven matchup because they might give up one hundred points and.
That's what happened last year. Yeah it is. And then the two games that haven't tipped off yet, we are
assuming Kansas State's gonna beat Arizona State. They're a pretty heavy favorite there, even though Coleman Hawkins is hurt, and then UCF playing Utah at home in a game where they are favored, and who knows who's gonna win, but honestly, who really cares, So the only thing we hear about the top seven spots in the Big twelve rankings This week, Houston is fifteen and one, Arizona and Texas Tech now
three games back at twelve and four. Houston can lock up the league title with a win this next week, wherever I believe their draw is a road game at Texas Tech, so Red Raiders could could still hang in there, but we'll see. Iowa State is eleven and five and BYU is ten and six. All these teams have like NFL Classic sixteen team sixteen game era records, so I
really think that helps Houston's elite. Arizona and Texas Tech are good are really good teams, Iowa State's a scrappy division winner, and BYU is at nasty wildcard team nobody wants to play in the first.
Round, and Kansas that means they are the squeak into the sixth seed, maybe depending on how the rest of the league did that year nine and seven in sixth place, and then BYU and TCU are maybe we won the AFC West or the NFC West because those divisions suck a lot, or maybe we're on the outside looking in because they're eight and eight and they are tied for seventh.
And then I mean everybody else. We're not doing the bottom of the standings just because we don't know the records because two games haven't played. We know Colorado's in last, but they did get a win two and fourteen. We joked about how they need to win for their last seven to get out of the basement, and they're halfway there, assuming that Arizona State keeps on losing, so good for them other games. Well, I will open up with what happened on Sunday because it's not here in the notes.
So the big takeaway on Sunday is a showdown between the best fing coach in the sport and the actual best coach in the sport in Saint John's, between Yukon and the Johnnies number ten. Saint John's just blew past Yukon eighty nine to seventy five. They made a lot of threes. This is a team that's second and Ken Palm defensive efficiency and is like seventy fifth in offense, So they're nasty defensively, maybe the best team in the country, not Houston on defense. If they make a bunch of
threes on you, you are done, done cooked. So Saint John's wins that game and they are gonna win that league because Villanova made fifteen threes have you ever seen that before? Including seven of their first eight to baptize Shaka Smart's number sixteen Marquette team, they've been a big flop this year. They entered the league I believe as it was supposed to be there, and Yukon's league not so much. It is Rick Patino's league. He's gonna win it. I think the second best team in that league is
probably Creighton. Yukon's right there, and Marquette total disappointment. Shocking well.
In the one non con game of the week, Cam and I really hit the nail on the head. I promise we picked Illinois to upset three Duke in Madison Square Garden. That exceedingly did not happen. Uh Duke won one hundred and ten to sixty seven guys, one hundred and ten to sixty seven. Oh my god, the worst loss in Illinois history. By a wide margin. Duke made forty baskets. This is numbers for Duke Illinois twenty three. The fighting line I finished a truly abhorrent two for
twenty six, which is seven percent from three. So no, Illinois in fact did not win that game.
Illinois is like, this was a horrible performance. Obviously, they do have a couple excuses, like I think four of their top nine minutes getters have missed a game due to an illness going around the team in the last week. Like they have just been ravaged by illness and injuries and whatever. They were a pretty good team for a while.
But holy crap. Yeah, losing by forty three to Duke, that's that's nine points worse than Kansas did at BYU if you want that scale, Like, that's that's twenty five percent worse than what Kansas did this week.
Seems hard to do.
Also hard to do is number four Alabama losing three in a row, which they did not do because they got back in the win column not before falling behind by double digits again, this time to number seventeen Kentucky at home. They then did Crimson tied by roaring back. They scored ninety six. They won the game going away by thirteen. Kentucky's defense against the freight train that is Alabama's offense, not a recipe four success. The Crimson Tide
get the sweep over the Wildcats this year. Mark Sears all world player led the way thirty points. The Crimson Tide are going to lose to a team we are all picking them to go way too far in our brackets because they are losing in the sweet sixteen. Do like a Texas A and M kind of team that can play defense, but still they're sexy when they're on.
It's so funny how these notes are always like three to four blurbs of the SEC, just because that's how good the SEC is. They've that many days we're talking about including good games. Number six Tennessee, who got a big win. They got thirty points in eight threes from chas Lanier and route to a seventy seven to sixty nine road win against some seven Texas A and M. Shocking once again, Texas A and M not playing as well as they should, underwhelming in the big moments.
Well score does this.
Yes, pick one, just pick any of them. It is true. Number one Auburn and number two Florida both got easy victories. Man even Porter Moser gotta win against a ranked team, no less in Oklahoma's ninety three eighty seven win over at number twenty one Mississippi State.
So Oklahoma's tournament case is so compelling, like they are, I don't think they look like it inca eighteen. They're seventeen and ten, but they're three or excuse me, four and ten in SEC play, So that's undefeated, a non con with some nice wins against teams like Louisville. I think they beat Arizona. I think that they beat Michigan. Like those are three good wins. They will probably wind
up getting in. But assuming that they split their last four conference games and they're all against ranked teams or teams that are very close to being ranked, So that's maybe a lot to ask a six and twelve SEC team getting an at large berth. I don't think I would be willing to bet that no Power League team has made the tournament in thirty years with a six win finish in their conference like that is. That's horrible.
It is. There are two things that I mean that very much speaks to the quality of this league though, and also soeen. You know, if they do split the last two, they'd be nineteen and twelve in the regular season as a whole. Nineteen win Power League teams get in.
Yes, yes they do, and even it doesn't really matter how they get there historically they do. Yes, Arkansas, they were a winner. They're trying to get to nineteen wins. I think they're at sixteen now. They got a win on Saturday with a second half rally to beat number fifteen Missouri in an entertaining ninety two eighty five game. The Razorbacks are trying to get into the tournament. This was a big win for them. They got all but
twelve of their points from their starting five. Cali Perry brought a lot of talent over there, but not a lot of it's materialized. He's got five pretty good players at the top of his rotation though. The Tigers. Meanwhile, they are twenty and seven, but they're three point shooting. Caleb Grill shot them out of this game. Miss His last like eight threes or something went very cold. They've lost four of six, albeit against a gauntlet of a schedule.
They have a win over Alabama and that two and four stretch that has losses to like Tennessee and A and M and now Arkansas and like they the SEC is just a whole different animal.
The Big Ten is tom Izzo's animal. Michigan State number fourteen, Michigan State. They picked up a really nice seventy five sixty two win in Ann Arbor, number twelve in Michigan. The conference runs through Izzo once again, especially after number eleven Wisconsin got upset by Oregon at home Michigan State.
Then there was Indiana, and then Indiana, who is down twelve at halftime, outscores number thirteen Perdue forty eight to twenty one in the second half just ran away and head at Assembly Hall. Indiana and Oklahoma are basically the same team at this point. Indiana has a few more wins in a worse league. They are sixteen and eleven and seven and nine in the league, trying to get
in the field. So yes, we thought that that league would be Michigan, Michigan State Perdue, right, and then Purdue fell and Wisconsin rose up and then everything kind of balanced out. It's Izzo's league.
Does Michigan State fall into the Alabama camp if we're all gonna pick them way too far because we all go, oh, good, Michigan State, They're gonna they're gonna make a run. Are they actually good?
Most people will. I won't because I am not a tom Izzo guy, and you and I have kind of been on that camp for a while. I think you and I might be immune from it. But there are many people who will see four seed Michigan State and pick them to beat number one Alabama in their bracket and go to the final four, and it will not happen.
Are they Are they gonna be as I guess? Yeah, they'll be right in that four range. Do you think they could win their way up a little bit get to a.
Three, especially if they win the Big Ten tournament? Like if they if they win both the regular season and the Big Ten Tournament and finished with like twenty nine eight wins, I don't know why they wouldn't.
Yeah, absolutely, they're good.
Somebody who is really needing some help right now is Gonzaga. They lost at home to Saint Mary's, which results in the Gales sweeping them. Gonzaga is just twenty one and eight overall, better record than some of these bubble teams, but the resume is way worse. They are twelve and four in a really bad WCC league. They have two regular season games left and that's at Santa Clara and at San Francisco, who are second and fourth in that league. Not an easy finish. They might be in danger of
missing the tournament. They have not done that in any of Mark Fu's twenty six seasons there, so we'll see what happens. See. I think if Oklahoma and Gonzaga played today, I think Gonzaga is the better team, and I think they win by a few possessions. But from a resume perspective, if you're really trying to reward teams for getting those quality wins, Oklahoma did beat better teams than non con and they have a much tougher schedule in their league, night in and night out.
Yeah, let's say, for argument's sake, Gonzaga loses both of their last two regular season games, which I would say they probably will split. But let's say they lose, and then let's say they go one and one in the league. In the in the conference tournament, does does a twenty two and eleven Gonzaga make it in with their name?
Yes? There? If that is the exact same resume as San Francisco. No, but they're Gonzaga. They have the program. You know that, they have that history propping them up a little bit. But I personally do not think they have been an NCAA tournament team this year.
I yeah, normally almost every other year in the history of that league. If that is a twenty one and eight squad, you are out or very firmly on the bubble waffling. But Gonzaga might get in on it.
We'll see, and I think I see Gonzaga and Kansas are the two biggest disappointments relative to the record in the top ten. To start the year. I thought Gonzaga would be good. I love their roster, and we always kind of dunk on Gonzaga a little bit and think they're overrated. I thought they were really good coming into this year.
And I agree. And then they absolutely blew the doors off Baylor in the first game in the year, and we're like, yes, here's here's a very good Gonzoga team.
Then they lost to West Virginia and we were like, huh okay, well that's a little weird. And now they've just lost a lot of WCCA.
But even at the time we were like, oh, maybe West Virginia is just better than we thought.
Yeah yeah, and then they you know, they bounce back by getting a couple more wins, and it just it just hasn't happened for him, which it doesn't happen every year. I think it's interesting that Kansas and Gonzaga the two teams that are considered the biggest disappointments this year. They are the two longest active NCAA tournament streak holders. So even whenever you have all these consistent years, night in and night out, it's still hard. You still are not
immune from that from that occasional disappointing season. And Kansas's disappointing season is on a much different scale than gonzagas Kansas is firmly in the tournament. Gonzaga is not ranked teams to lose since the last time we did a podcast. Number seven Texas A and M leads this list. They lost to Tennessee at home. I still don't think Tennessee's very good. I don't think Tennessee is one of the
six best teams in the SEC. I don't, but it's hard to argue they're not better than an M. After they went on the road and.
One, Number eight Iowa stay going through a little bit of a rough patch here. Later in the year, they lost to Houston. No shame in that though.
Two big ten teams are next. Number eleven Wisconsin lost to Oregon and number thirteen Perdue got run out of assembly haul. In the second half, a couple.
Of SEC teams lost them. For fifteen Missouri they lost to Not John Know they did lose John Calperry, who's not a short anymore. They lost John cal Perry at Arkansas and John cali Fory's former school. Number seventeen Kentucky they lost to Alabama.
Number nineteen Arizona lost to BYU And they didn't really lose if we're being honest, The refs kind of just one if you think about.
It, man, in that group of the four teams there, Missouri somehow has found themselves the least likely to make out with your cousin in Yeah, Mississippi state they lost to Oklahoma.
And number twenty four old miss tough week for that state lost to Vanderbilt. What is Mississippi's nickname? Are they? Are they the Heart of Dixie? Is that still what they're going by?
They're the running ReBs. They is the running ReBs.
Also the Hospitality state and the Magnolia state. So maybe they changed.
It hospitality for some people.
And then last week can pick them land on your now two games and last but we did gain a game on Cam. No wait, Cam got it right back because he got Indiana right. Well, we just you can't win them all. It's never good that we can't. We can't keep up with the guy who we laugh at for being terrible up betting on sports.
Correct if only put games on pick em or put money on pick them.
Oh yeah, and that Cam is doing quite bad, ask RCB. Well, the vibe of the questions I would think are gonna be a little bit better day, especially after a win. Let's take a look here at Mayo Zeke Berner is Hunter's best pro comparison. Angel Reese misses a lot of layups, but he gets a lot of his own. Missus. Maybe the questions aren't gonna be happier today.
That's pretty funny. Oh yeah, maybe, I mean his best pro comparison is whoever's like playing for, like Pathanikos in Greece right now? Probably? Yeah, I was gonna say.
Someone in your house, I Cam. I think that Angel Reese is Cam's least favorite person.
She's an interesting one, and she's fine. You think she's fine and super fine? Yes, I do not fully agree.
Well, that's disappointing because Cam thinks she looks like a sloth from ice age.
Well, that's that's also wrong.
She's fine, She's she is not Caitlin Clark, though, and she never will be as badly as she might want to be at Old Rugby Jayhawk, What did the coach learn from yesterday's game? If you if you noticed anything that they still care? Yeah, yeah, I think it's the best thing. I don't think Bill Selve's not changing his schemes at this point, like they're gonna go as far as the Core three takes them. I will say the Core three looks a hell of a lot better when the ball moves.
Yeah, if they can, if they can figure out that a lot more. Also, the Core three looks a lot better when when Zeke Mayo and David Koit make ten threes combined. That helps a lot too.
Here's an interesting take at DS Conscience says, are you sticking with your hunter? Is better than Zoobie stands? Because Zubie is bawling with Yukon's bigs right now, and we all know that Hunt would shrivel up and tiptoe his way to a hollow ass double double and a lopsided loss in the same situation. This take is terrible. Okay, that may be true. Zubi edgefour does things that are
better than Dickinson. But I do think you know the most common take that I get on Twitter whenever I say, somebody says Hunter and kJ are just as big a problems and I said, no, Hunter averages sixteen and ten, and the response is, well he's seven to somebody yesterday said he could get that in his sleep. I think we are dramatically underestimating just how hard it is to get sixteen and ten in a big twelve like out mind you, Yes, no, Hunter, Dickinson's a very good basketball player.
Zubie is averaging fourteen and eight. From a stats perspective, they probably break about the same. But would I take Hunter over Zubie on my team? Yes, Hunter's better offense. I need this team needs offense. Everybody stumps their feet about Hunters defense when the team's really good on defense.
Man Zubi went eighteen nine and six, three blocks, two steals, he did have four fouls against Yukon uh. He was five to six from the floor in eight of nine from the free throw line.
He's very very good. But also the style matters. Would Zubi edge of four be there and a Bill's offense that is, pound the post kJ plays next to you. The spacing isn't great. I think that people who are criticizing Hunter really dramatically underestimate how impressive it is that he does what he does with the team around him. And if you put him, if you took that that twenty seventeen team and swapped Land and Lucas for Hunter, Hunter would have been a Nasmith candidate. Probably, Yeah, But
Zubie's having a great year. Zoobie's better than we thought. Ouda was the guy that Kansas fans didn't want to see them lose for Hunter, and it wound up being Edge four, who is coached by a much better basketball coach than Ernest huday Is at Preston's Skirt six, says Ryan. Why am I still sad because the team hasn't won back to back games in like two months. That's why if they went in Boulder, you'll get less sad. Even if it's a little bit, right you.
You certainly think so. You'd certainly think.
So at ku underscore Nagy. If kJ Adams attained a jump shot, would he be a first round NBA draft pick? Okay, let's let's do this question. If if is it because of his size?
It's because a little bit that I mean, it depends on what kind of jump shot we're talking about. If he turns right here, if he's Steph Curry, then yeah, yeah, for sure. If it's like, oh, I'm if I'm if he's he's Kevin McCuller and he makes like thirty percent of his threes, but you know it's better than zero. H No, probably not.
I think that the uh so, Okay, I think that kJ his athleticism is good enough to play in the NBA. Yeah, but he you have to be able to rebound in the NBA, or you have to be able to shoot the fricking lights out. You can't play a three, four or five in the NBA if you can't rebound. So that's where it would.
Hurstle without any ability of individual creation.
Mind you, yes, that also is Yeah, he doesn't have shot creation, but it would make him a substantially better college player, Oh for sure. Yeah, and I'm surprised it hasn't happened. I would have thought that he would have developed it this point in his career at Chris Siriko two. How quickly does the k you go back to being trash? And why is it five minutes into tomorrow's game when they fall behind fourteen to five? Very possible, very very possible outcome for this team, it is.
And that was what I was saying in the Oklahoma State recap too, was that is the next thing I want to see here, to see how much they've truly turned the page or not. Is what happens when you are struck with adversity, because they like they kind of flirted around with Oklahoma State a little bit at the beginning of the game, but they were never trailing, you know, they were largely in control, and then pretty quickly they just ran away with it and it was never anything
after that. Yeah, I want to see them go down fourteen to five or you know, twelve to six or something early against Colorado to see how they respond, because like, even if they lose to Colorado, I don't think that really affects a lot the rest of the season. Of what like their tournament seed's gonna be or or you know what they're gonna do in the victual tournament. Yeah, go down sixteen to seven to Colorado in the first five minutes. I want to see what they do. I want to see the other bets.
Back two questions that we can lump in in a similar group here at Bentley Hunt fifteen, Can we still be a top four seed? What needs to happen? And at Cebe's Burner two, what is the realistic ceiling for this team when everything clicks like yesterday? My answer is yes, they can still get to a four seed. They need to win four of the last five games. They got the first one. You expect them to win the two home games. I know that those are against top twenty teams,
but Kansas should win their home games. If you get wins over Arizona and Tech and win at Colorado, all three games that I think they'll be favored to win, then that gets you to the five or six in the Big twelve tournament with the Duke and Michigan State wins. Doing some heavy lifting in the non conslate win a game or two there which you'll be favored to Basically if Kansas wins the games that they are favored in, I think they get to at least the five, if not a four.
Yeah, they'll have a four seed very much as possibility if they win the home games and win at least one in Kansas City.
And the ceiling for this team is an Elite eight team if they get the right draw, like they they have all the talent in the world to be able to do something. They have an All America big guy, whether fans like to call them that or not. They have a couple guys who are forty percent three point shooters, as weird as that is to say, Mayo, Griffin and Koit are all thirty nine percent three point shooters. Like,
they have three very good shooters, albeit streaky ones. And they have a fifth year senior point guard and a power forward that I guess plays a three half the time that is in his fourth year. And you have a potential lottery pick next year on the bench as as your big guy, like, they have the pieces. The ceiling is high even with the low floor.
Yeah, it is. If the draw is right or if they find something, find some consistency, then they absolutely can make a run at which we're saying after beating five and ELEVENCAL the state, at least on the road, at least got to see it on the road at justin ks to NYSC.
See how many seasons as KU started off ranked as low as twenty three in the cellf ERA. They were unranked the year after winning the national title, and I think that's it. I think that's it. I think they've been in the top ten to fifteen and the lowest that they've been ranked since then was eleven to start the year. I think against it may have been thirteen. It was in that range the twenty eleven twelve year,
which they obviously massively overachieved that year. They have been ranked in the top ten of every single season since that one to start the season, which is incredible consistency.
Yeah, that's remarkable.
And then three from at Shelby Hawk to close us out here. I know it was just Oklahoma State, but it was refreshing to see an inspiring performance for the first time in three weeks. This also adds the CBS presentation yesterday was really good. ESPN broadcasts aren't bad, but they don't have any great play by play guys outside of outside of J Billis adds spat spa out datas wipes the floor with Fran for Scilla and whoever gets to do ESPN Plus broadcast, Yeah, CBS always has it better.
Camp is not a bell raftery guy, but I agree the CBS announcers are so much better than most of the ESPN broadcasts.
Yeah, And I do think there is the idea that CBS does like a lot of sports in general, but obviously do a lot less sports than like ESPN, who does literally exclusively only sports.
Obviously, so tag Wuoak not all sports, but.
CBS gets to and so does like NBC and Fox, Like they all get to put more effort into the sports they do because they don't have only sports all the time, whereas ESPN that's their job. But like they are spread a little thinner because they are doing so much all the time. And I I think I feel like I've noticed that as well, that the presentation quality of like the NBA on T and T is really
good and really high. That's because they do like four games a week, so they get to put an incredible amount of effort into those four games a week, and you know, like two inside the NBA's or three inside the NBAS or whatever, and those are great and you can tell and I think the same thing is very true here and.
It also like fran for Scilla, fatigue is a thing like he as much as we complain about when the same guy does ten of your fifteen games on the networks, Yeah, you're gonna feel it. Showe me. Hawka also says there's a possibility that college superconferences get to thirty teams and then you're gonna have to start grouping teams into divisions and basketball they would hand out division titles instead of
whole regular season titles. Imagine if Kansas was in a division with Iowa State, k State, Oklahoma State, and a school like Tulsa quite possible. Could definitely see it at the current pace that Lord your Mark is taking this league.
I don't know how meaningful that would be because we've seen Kansas dominate a regular season conference right like, But eventually, are we gonna get to a point where like there is no NCAA tournament and the Big twelve and the SEC and the Big Ten have so many teams that it's just their postseason third two team bracket.
Yeah, I mean, the same conversation is essentially being had in college football as well, where like, what just what is the nature of college sports in a world where you are rapidly approaching the idea that like, you're all just gonna have the best however many teams, it depends on who truly is in that. Like if college basketball decides, yeah, we are actually just okay with We're gonna put the best forty teams in a pot and play around, and then yeah, we're gonna do a sixteen team bracket at
the end of the year as the championship. Uh maybe I think college basketball has such a love affair with March madness that there would be more pushback from within the organization to keep march madness and obviously the fan base.
Whereas in college football, you do like it's been a much more fluid experience as to what necessitates a champion and what sides a champion, and it's been kind of a constant conversation for the last thirty years that I think in college football you do have a very very real and there's just more money there and there's more eyeballs too. You do have a much more real chance I think of seeing like, oh, yeah, here's we have pulled together the best forty teams that make the most
money and are the best. Here's forty teams, and they're just going to compete for the title and at the end of the year. Yeah, we'll have a sixteen bracket or whatever at the end of the season, and that's our championship out of forty I have. I don't think that would happen in college basketball, at least not to that level. I hope March Madness stays around, and I think doing like little weird division titles will be boring.
Yeah, I think you're correct. I don't want to see it get to that point, but I don't have a lot of confidence at the current trajectory that we're not seeing major changes down the shoot. And then the last question at Elliott rus and h Ads. I know you guys have talked about chemistry, so our frain from asking about it. We sure did. Here's my fun question. Either make all Bill self trust team or an all Bill self no trust team.
Oh boy, is one a overall on the all no trust Yeah.
Then put lagarald Vic next to him that team would yeah, Yeah, that was fun. And then you need a couple bigs who are the big trust. Yeah, and maybe Flory. Maybe we'll put Flori in there, because Flori.
Just played twenty one minutes and got sixteen rebounds. I think he's a little more trusted than some of these guys. I don't know.
You can't trust him to play more than mister floor Burns at times.
That is true.
Who's the all big who's the all trust team? I mean it's Trailer and kJ on the block.
Yeah, that's those are good ones for sure.
Yeah, Dewan, every year of DE one, last year's DE one, and this year's the one or the two point guard.
As the prophecy states, Marcus Garrett as your two guard.
There you go. Yeah, he loved Marcus. That's good, Dewan Marcus. Uh, we'll give him somebody who self try, he will say, we'll put Frank Mason here. He trusted Frank Mason.
Then, yeah, that's the thing is like, yes, self also trusted, Like yeah, Frank Mason and Sharon Collins and Devontae right, yeah, who were just obviously objectively brilliant.
Yes, but I'm with you, you can't have that team without kJ and Marcus Garrett if you ever have ascarcbs. He's a Twitter hashtag ascarcb Baye and we now preview a road game where Kansas has no chance of losing. Right right, somebody tonight we'll tell let's sell Kansas at Colorado. No ranking. I think if they win both games this week,
they probably get right back into the top twenty five. Though, knowing their Kansas on Monday at ten pm, late late tip off, nice preparation for whenever they're the sixth seed in Kansas City and they play every Big Twelve tournament game at ten o'clock.
Colorado is eleven and sixteen overall and a truly apocalyptic two and fourteen in the Big Twelve, and that has improved because they have won two of their last three.
The Buffalo best player.
Oh oh oh, you're going for it.
No, no, no, you go for it. You're just trying to get through with it. I see it.
The Buffalo's best player, as Ryan was going to tell you eloquently, is Julian Hammon, the third who leads the team with fourteen points three assists. He is also a forty three point shooter. Javon Ruffin, RJ. Smith and what Guy of the Year candidate's Sebastian Ranchik are the other wings of note.
And the big guys. We know this is a big team. We saw them play Kansas pretty tough for their standards at Allen field House. Andre Yakimovski, who is six ' eight, he's the three man. He averages ten and four. He's a pretty good three point shooter. He is the box score stuff for as we saw in the Baylor game. The fore man is Bang got Zak and the seven footer is Elijah Malone. Both these guys average eight and four. They are a good team. None of these guys are
as good at rebounding as you think. They're all pretty tall. None of them rebound very well. They passed decently well, and they just miss a of shots is ultimately what you have here.
Yeah, and we just saw Kansas play them. So Colorado's bad offense is outside the top two hundred and seventy in points per game. That is very bad. The interior offense is especially bad, as they shoot a mediocre thirty four percent from deep as well. They're a good free throw shooting team at seventy six percent. But as you said, their rebounding numbers bed their pace is very slow among the slowes in the country. They average fifteen turnovers a game,
which leads all Power five schools. So not a lot to love here for Colorado.
There's not a lot to love for some of Kansas's recent trends against bad teams, but this one is the opposite. KU's dominance over Colorado has been well documented on this podcast. Bill self is twenty one to one against the Buffalo's, but KU's last trip to Boulder ended in the one loss on that buzzer beater. Kansas after winning the first nine games in the celf Era in that building, they're nine to one. They were supposed to play here a
couple of days before Christmas in the COVID year. They got out there, they got on the court for pregame warm ups, and forty five minutes before the game started, Colorado had a couple COVID positives, so they canceled that game. This time, it looks like that they will actually go through and play set game. What do you think happens for the Jayhawks on the road?
I I want to believe and I'm gonna believe this one time. I'm I'm I'm moderately bought in. Give me the Hawks on the road to beat a really really really terrible team. Give me, give me Kansas seventy six sixty four. They get a double digit win on the road against a bad team. They do it, and I think they're gonna look at least not bad doing it. As we've kind of said, Colorado actually has kept people fairly close. Yeah, they've got dunked on several times, but
they've also had some weirdly close games in there. They can they can hang, they can play. I think Kansas is gonna get the win here though.
I think they Kansas wins the game, and I think that you see the adversity that you want them to see. I think they fall behind in the first half. I think this is the game that Colorado has had circled on their schedule. They're not going to the NCAA tournament, They're not gonna have a lot of success, but they definitely left the game in Lawrence feeling like, Okay, we can play with these guys, and they definitely will have a full student section and everything for it. I think
Colorado jumps on them early. I think Kansas trails at half, and I think you see a vintage Kansas moment midway through the second half where they go on that fourteen to four run to seize control of the game, and I think they win a game that is not safe enough to put in their pocket with ten minutes left
in the regulation. I think they pull away down the stretch and win a game that makes you think, Okay, they got a blowout and now they got an old fashioned retro Kansas win where they win on the road and they outlasted an opponent in their home gym. Kansas seventy four, Colorado sixty six. I think Kansas wins, and if they do, even though it is just two wins against arguably the two worst teams in the conference, boy is not going to make this team feel a lot
better about themselves. In the Big twelve other games, we have ten games to pick this week. The slate around the country is not quite a strong, but there are a few good Big twelve games. Number five Houston at number nine Texas Tech. These rankings will change Big twelve championship clincher game for the Cougars, but this is a tough, tough environment.
Who wins In the spirit of you saying that Houston is mid aughts a mid tens Kansas, they go into lubb it can get a gutsy, gutsy win and steal the league.
See that's using the logic that I like whenever a very good team gets taken down at home by a team and then they're the ones that go on the road and get the revenge.
Dub.
I'm gonna say Tech wins and gets a sweep over over Houston here just because I think Houston, I'm with you, they could absolutely land the knockout punch here. But the Red Raiders, they've been playing well. I think that they're pretty clearly right now the second best team in this conference, and they are so tough to beat at home. If Houston does it, then they really are twenty tens Kansas. I'll go with the Red Raiders to win a coin flip,
low scoring game. But the under Baylor at Cincinnati Bears absolutely have to have it. Do they go on the road and get one? Uh?
No, No, Cincinnati gets the win here? I think, yeah, I think you're right.
I have not seen anything from Cincinnati or from Baylor that would make me think that they can beat anybody on the road. I think since he wins and boy, Baylor's in trouble if they lose here. Number eight. Iowa State at Oklahoma State feels like a good, get right game for the Cyclones.
Indeed, it is TCU at.
West Virginia Cornfrogs won't stray too far from five hundred. They'll take a loss here, correct. Kansas State at UCF, Well, have fun with that.
Yeah, oh man, uh give me k State. UCF can't stop, like they can't stop anything. See.
I think UCF wins at home. I think we've seen Kansas State kind of peak, and now I think it's going straight back south. Utah at number nineteen Arizona that seems like an easy one. Maybe I'll take the Wildcats at home.
Yeah, I think they win by a lot.
BYU at Arizona State. That is a fascinating game. Hottest team in the Big twelve against the second worst team. But BYU eventually, eventually will run out of gas.
I don't think it's here though.
I don't either. I think BYU is very good. You've kind of slept on them a little bit this year. I think they're very solid.
Yeah, beginning of the year I was very very cold, really on BYU. They are much better than I thought.
And then we only have two other games to pick this week to make it at even ten, number fourteen, Michigan State at number twenty Maryland. I will take the Terps. I think that the Spartans are due for a loss, and I think that Maryland gets them at home.
I think Michigan State's really good. Give me Sparty.
And number seventeen Kentucky at Oklahoma the Sooners. Absolutely, I've got to start winning some of these games, you know what, Just this one time, I'll say they do it because I don't trust Kentucky on the road.
Give me the Sooners. Boy, going to pick Oklahoma back to back is tough. I'm gonna go. Oh, I kind of agree with you. I kind of agree with you, but I can't do it. I cannot do it. Give me Kentucky.
Absolutely, that's perfectly fine. And also Utah has fifteen points at UCF at the first TV timeout, So UCF maybe just cannot stop anybody, is the answer. Yeah, well, maybe, what do we do in next show?
You want?
You want to recap those two games we didn't get a touch? Are we doing ten big twelve recaps? Next game? Next show?
No, I say we do not acknowledge those games happen. No one will care that's.
That sounds perfectly fine. Our next show will be later in this week, getting ready for Kansas's last three games of the year, all again themes that are currently ranked, and it kicks off with Texas Tech at Allen Field House on Saturday, March first. It's almost that time of year. This is IP.
I'm Ryan Leander, I'm Lennon Fields.
All right, well, well, show number one of the Kansas Redemption Tour is complete. It's gonna be a fun next few weeks.
It'll be fascinating. I genuinely am very curious to see how this goes. I want Kansas to get it right, I really do. I want them to figure it out. I hope they have.
Somebody say can buy in the losing ways.
Goodbye Boulder, hopefully with a dub. You never know, Hm,