PORTAL TARGET? Jordan Ellerbee Could Provide SCORING SPARK for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball

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1:02What's going on, Derek Johnson here with another episode of Lockdown J. And on today's episode of the show, we'll get to some of the latest news. What is the latest on Tyron Stokes, Bill Self? We'll get into a little latest K-1 basketball and so forth. We'll get into the strengths and weaknesses of the game of Jordan LRB with his scouted and port. And we'll start right there with a little bit of a deep dive on a potential KU basketball transfer portal target in LRB. So shout out Fogg underscore Allen on Twitter who gave a recommendation to take a deep dive into LRB. And he is a 6 foot 2 175 pound guard from Florida Gulf Coast. He was a freshman this past season. So he'll be a sophomore three years, I guess four if you would have read shirt. But three years left to play at the collegiate level. He was a mid tier three star crew out of the Philadelphia area in high school. He was actually the Philadelphia Gatorade player of the year. Mostly uses a two guard at Florida Gulf Coast. So you know, 6 foot 2 is a two guard. That's going to be a little more undersized when you're talking about at the power four,

2:04power five level. But let's see what we got working with here, right? Because he just set the Florida Gulf Coast freshman scoring record went on to average 13.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists per game, 0.9 steals in around 27 minutes per game. And the shooting splits are good, 47% from the floor, 35% from 3, 73 at the foul line. He was taken about four and a half, three point attempts per game. And you look at some of the box score moments that he had, the game logs that he had. Some explosive game moments along the way. He had 20 points against rice. He had 42 points against a Kenisostate team that ended up going to the NCAA tournament and challenging Gonzaga in the first round. He had 21 points at UCF, a UCF team that we saw defeat Kansas. He had 22 against North Florida, 23 against Central Arkansas. So those are all good moments. He did also seemingly hit what we refer to as the freshman wall at the end of the season. He went just 14 to 54 over the final five games.

3:06That is a 26% field goal percentage. So it would have fit right in with I guess the freshman wall that maybe Bryson Tiller was hitting at the end of the season. As far as some of the analytic number of the metric numbers for Jordan LRB, he was in the 64th percentile. So above average solid there in RAPM and that featured a top quartet finish for the offensive number, but a below average number on the defensive side. He was in the 79th percentile in offensive win shares per 40 minutes. Only in the 22nd percentile for defensive win shares per 40 minutes. So again, you're looking here, you're like, okay, offense looks good. Defense maybe you have some questions looking at some of the on encompassing numbers. A very efficient player though, 81st percentile in PER and then the 74th in wins above replacement player. So, you know, overall, I think a very interesting player here because you're talking about somebody who is clearly a good score clearly showed they could, you know, pop off as a freshman and it gives you hopes that, okay, if they continue to improve their game, what

4:10do you kind of looking with here? And we've seen Kansas have success with guys around 6162 in that range who are good scores or maybe we're a little under recruited and, you know, is that something that this kid could potentially kind of come in for now? One thing that comes interesting if Bill self decides to come back and it ends up being his final year at Kansas, is he going to be all going, you know, all in on win now guys where you don't want to take potentially a sophomore here where you're like, well, what am I developing him for? I'm not going to be here. I want to take all seniors, you know what I mean? I want to take all players that I feel like are at their ceiling right now. And that's a very real question that who knows what would be kind of the answer to. But, you know, I think last time KU brought on some help from Florida Gulf Coast, I think they want a gold medal. I'm, I cannot remember the name of the guy, but they add Julian Debose maybe or something like that. They added to their gold medal team with the kid from SMU too, Nick, Nick something and ended up win the gold medal in the world university game. So I guess that's good vibes there, right?

5:12But I think in general, everything when you're talking about potential player additions is these two questions. What is the role and what is the cost? Because when those two things intercede, you can almost make any transfer addition make sense. If the role for a specific player is to be your 14th man and they're getting paid pennies, sure, it makes sense. If you're bringing on a player who's going to be really good and they're supposed to be your third best player and they're getting a decent amount of money, but not all American money, again, that makes sense versus the flip side is what if they're coming on to be your fifth best player, but they're asking for, you know, $4 million a year at that point, it doesn't make sense. It's like, where can you find the intersection on like a graph of what is the project, what is the role and what is the cost? And if those two things can intercede anything, I think makes sense. And so with the right cost and with the right role, I'm game for this, for KU, like the

6:18way I look at it, I think I opened this talking about like, could he be the bench score, KU needs maybe he doesn't want to be a bench score, you know, maybe he wants to go somewhere and say, Hey, maybe I'm not going to wind up at a blue blood, but I'll wind up at a better low major or I'll end up at a smaller high major and be, you know, potentially a starter or to see say, Hey, and again, this where the money stuff comes in, right? Do you have to over pay someone for them to be willing to come in and be a bench player for you, even though they be a rotation player and somebody who would be playing. And I look at it this way, when you look at right now, right, who knows how the roster is going to shake out, who knows who's going to leave, who knows going to come back. Um, El Marco and Jackson and Jamari McDowell were pretty much for the majority of the season for KU, the first players off the bench for Kansas. And El Marco, even though gave up the defensive stop at the end, for the most part of the season, he was a good defender for KU. Jamari McDowell was a good shooter at home, but neither of those

7:18players were giving you points or scoring production. And that's where I think a player like LRB could be really helpful for a team like Kansas. When I look at Kansas needing more of a scoring punch off the bench, when I look at Kansas needing more of a scoring punch and production off the bench for years now, I look at a player like LRB and I go, Man, could you tell this guy, Hey, we're going to give you a good sum of money to come here. You know, um, if you work out to what we think you're going to be, you could play 15, 20 minutes per game this year as just a bench guard that's going to come in, flamethrower, um, the basketball and try to just score for us off the bench and give us another score that we can bring in off the bench at certain points in time. And I looked to like Iowa State who had the ability to kind of do that, right? With, uh, the Bateman kid who could come off the bench and just get hot in a given moment. You know, I, I think that's such a nice luxury to have. Kansas kind of had it the last time in the one title. Obviously it ended up being Remi Martin. I don't think you can expect to get another Remi Martin level player off the bench here, but you know, could he be a cheaper option LRB? That is,

8:22um, coming off the bench and then say adding some like established power five guy like possibly. I don't know. Um, to me, he doesn't hurt that he is three years left to play as well, even though it might not matter for Bill Self. But like, you know, of course, if he's wanting star money or starting roll, then those things don't match up. But if you can say you're competing for a rotation spot and then we'll see what happens. And you can be the scorer off the bench. Like I think that's valuable for Kay, you know, we can get into a real conversation of, you promise that, but then what actually happens in season, if you miss a couple shots or you make a couple, you know, defensive flops, we've seen that story before where players get in the bill self doghouse, right? And that probably makes this a little bit more challenging too. And agents probably know that. But just in a vacuum, if you told me that KU is going to add a potential, you know, strong scorer off the bench, like LRB, I think I'd be in on that. So let's get into his strengths and weaknesses a little bit more and we'll get to some of the latest news. This is

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11:30March. You'll unlock ad free episodes of the show. You'll get into our private listener group chat over on discord. It's locked on jhawks.supercast.com to get your free month with code March. Our strengths and weaknesses for Jordan LRB. The scoring side of things is definitely a strength 83rd percentile and effective field goal percentage really good to point percentage and a solid three point percentage on decent volume as well. You watch him on film. He's really able to create his own shot off the dribble. Strong step back game. Strong crossover game. And those things of being able to bring somebody in like that for just a couple stints throughout a game to increase your offense is something that KU has really been missing off the bench for a little bit now. Mid-range shooting is really good. He's really excelled shooting from kind of the free-throw line elbow area. He shot 59% in that area this past season. He did struggle on one of the baseline sides but was really efficient on the other side. But good mid-range player overall. He shoots more in the area he's good at. So it knows his strengths there. And overall he was in the 96th percentile

12:33for scoring efficiency in the mid-range. And I think that makes him a good match to me for Bill South because Bill South is now one of these coaches who is teaching hey don't shoot mid-range or something. In fact, Kansas has been shooting them more than a lot of other teams which analytically speaking probably not a great thing. But if you're going to do that, mine as well get somebody who's good at it. And that is kind of the case here, right? He's also an excellent corner 3 point shooter which I think becomes important because when you see a lot of a lot of times if you're not the primary option you will get put into corner 3 point shooter mode. If you're a Kansas player, if you're kind of the secondary off ball option, right? Can you knock down corner 3s? And he showed that he can kind of do that stuff. He's also a pretty good rebounder from the guard spot. Now it's against a lower level competition. So how would that scale up as a question? But 73rd percent how an offensive rebound rate is a good number there. And he's average in defensive rebound rate. Now again, you scale up in the size and stuff like that that probably goes down a little bit. But he's not going to be a zero for you on the boards, which is always a nice thing from your

13:36guard spots. As far as some of the weaknesses, the adjustment and competition would certainly be something not just from like the rebounding, but overall Florida Gulf Coast was a below 500 team this year in what was the 24th best league on Ken Pomp. So that is a big jump up in what you're playing for. And he did play a couple of games against power five opponents. He had the UCF game where he was really good scored over 20 points. He was 9 to 15. I said they'll annoy game, which is not very good. Five of 14 shooting, right? And I would just say the biggest area I'm concerned about that he wasn't shooting great at the rim. When you look at the six foot two size, if you're listed at six two, who knows, are you six foot six foot one at the collegiate level? And you're doing that against smaller competition. If you go up in size, are you going to really struggle shooting at the rim? And then our teams just going to be able to defend you in an easier way to really keep you at your jump shot. I don't know, but that would certainly be a big question there, right? Now you would think to counter that, okay? But he's going to also get better at these things because he's getting older and saying college longer. The defense, I think, is another

14:38weakness here. Defensive analytics did not like the season he put together there. He was below average for guards in steel rate and in block rate. I will say to his credit, it's possible. Some of those things are more contextual about the team situation because specifically, if you look at like his on off ratings, the team was five points per 100 possessions defensively better when he was on the floor. So they were actually better with him on the floor defensively. It's just that their defense was so bad overall that it still didn't matter. And overall, they were like 12 points better as a team overall per 100 possessions. So he wasn't impactful player for Florida Gulf Coast. Did it as a freshman? And typically the things you see get better. I say this all the time for players, the longer they say in college, it's like awareness on defense, shooting an overall consistency. Well, we know he's a good shooter, but now if he becomes more consistent and I've become more aware on defense, what can you kind of get there? He also doesn't really get to the free throw line much. He has a below average assist to turnover ratio, but I would view him more again. If you're bringing him on as Kansas, it's going to be a bench score.

15:41It's not to be a bench facilitator, right? Not a great passer or picking roll ball handle or either or driving kick guy more there to be a score. But again, I think if you're bringing him on, if you're Kansas, that is exactly what you're going for and trying to get. And so I don't think he he fills the role of if you're if you're trying to get somebody to be your bench guard who can play the one and the two that you can basically just have a three guard line up where you have your two starting guards and then a bench guard plays both and you just kind of rotate through those positions kind of like with, you know, Russell Robinson, Jerome Collins and Mario Chambers or any of them could play the one or the two basically for KU. I don't think that would be the fit you're going for here. It more so be, hey, he's a bench to guard who can come in and you know, if he gets hot in the game, he can give us 12 15 points. If he's not feeling at that game, maybe he's only playing eight, ten minutes that game, right? But I think it is important for teams to have some of that ability to, I don't know, give some of your starters a break some time or kind of get you over the edge and a couple of games wouldn't need it. And KU hasn't really had that for a couple of seasons

16:42like they had in many other seasons kind of in the past. So what would be the potential fit here, right? I think that kind of describes it, right? I kind of almost view this as like a like I said, bench score. I wonder if this should be the type of player you would bring on if you lost Colversario, right? And I don't want to lose Colversario for what it's worth. What am I expecting? I think he removed Kansas from his like Instagram account, which who knows what that means nowadays? Could they just be in negotiations or who knows? But like, I don't think it would shock me if Cole left, right? Given how the season went, you go from starter to not even being in the rotation and then you make your last appearance and you play really well. And then you come out for the last play when your team loses the game, I would not be surprised if he decided that he wanted to go somewhere else. I again, like I said, I hope Colversario is back. But if he is gone, you know, what what is the idea of Colversario? It's a little bit of an undersized guard who is, if he's playing the three, if he's playing the two, he is, he has enough size, but who is somebody who can get you offence of rebounds, extra possessions and be a good three point shooter. And this comes in a different package in a

17:46different way, but that's kind of the idea here with LRB. Good shooter, good score, again, 73% offence of rebound rate. It's not as good as the Rosario, you know, athleticism package and stuff, but you could see the role for what the idea would be there, right? And like I said, like under the assumption that the right role and the cost is there for a kid like this, I'm in on this because I do want more scoring and bucket getters. And I think having some of those options off the bench does make sense for Kansas to be able to go to more than they have in some of these recent years. All right, let's continue on some of the latest news. What's the latest, the Tyrant Stokes, Bill Self, K1's basketball, we'll get to all that next. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by five hour energy. Welcome to the five hour energy flavor draft with 18 different flavors to choose from, including new options like confetti craze, fruity rainbow or cotton candy. There's something for everyone. More to set, the flavors are ready and I got my number one pick for the five hour energy flow draft. I think when you're looking

18:48for maybe some under the radar potential surprise number one picks look no further than tropical burst. I think sometimes that gets slept on a little bit, but you get that tasty caffeine with the island vibes, the island style fruit punch five, which is always I think a good way to start your energy booster with five hour energy. It's got that smooth rounded flavor and sweet with a light tang. Five hour energy has a lot of upcoming flavor innovations too and their five hour energy shots give you a boost with zero sugar. Find your new favorite flavor of five hour energy shots available online at fivehourenergy.com or on Amazon. Thanks you for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks. You can find the show anywhere you your podcasts, including on a YouTube page. Hit us up on Twitter at L.O. underscore Jayhawks. If you want to suggest somebody for us to a deep dive on, we do have a a long queue. I promise that that I am working on constantly of, you know, players to get to and we're actually going to have another bonus episode. We did Jackson Shellstad bonus episode yesterday. We're going to do a Paulius Morowskis bonus episode for

19:48a transport or target there with how many players that we're seeing who are interesting players or potential good fits or just potential like good players. Do they make sense? Do they not? We're going to try to get to a lot of those over the next couple of weeks just to really cover all our bases here. Some latest news though. So when we talked over the weekend, there was a report from Joe Tipton from on three that Tyrant Sox could be committing Tuesday at the McDonald's All-American game. Well, it turns out that ain't happening and I think now we're at a point where, you know, the Joe Tipton tweet outs of who's entering the portal and stuff that's great information to have. I think the reporting from Joe Tipton probably not always the best information. I can't remember the name of the kid, but there was that one player who was like trying to come back from playing professional and he said a bunch of schools that like offered or were interested. I think Kansas was one of the ones he said and that was just like factually not true for a lot of the schools and now this happens. So I guess point being I'm going to watch a little more closely with what

20:50Joe Tipton kind of puts out there to see. So anyway, point being doesn't sound like Stokes is going to be committing today and in fact, who knows when it's going to be and this has been the kind of tyrant Stokes recruitment to a tee. It's like, oh, it might be coming soon. No, it's not happening. You know, it might be, you know, no, it's not happening. And so who knows when exactly that was going to happen. Is this good or bad news for Kansas? I have no idea, right? Again, I wanted to connect the dots of, oh, could it mean Bill Self is back and then Tyrant said, well, the fact that that's moved around, the fact that we're here on Monday evening and no Bill Self News, I guess no dot connecting and all, which is probably a little bit disappointing from that standpoint. So who knows what's going to happen. And yeah, like the Bill Self situation too, like kind of piggybacking off that, this is honestly taking longer than I thought it would. Now he, he, you know, for his health stuff and he's the best coach in KU basketball history, he deserves to be able to have his own time. At the same point in time, because of the calendar of the college basketball world, you're almost not afforded the full amount of time that you probably should be allowed.

21:50And I kind of figured we were going to get a decision one way or another sooner rather than later for that reason, the transfer portal. I mean, if you're listening to this on Tuesday, transfer portal, transfer portal opens up next week, you know. And so I thought that we were going to hear more because it's not just the guys that you have to climb. I'm sure he's doing work behind the scenes just in case, but if you don't know for sure if you're coming back or not, are you doing that work 100% or you fully in on it? You know, what's going to happen with the play? Like eventually there's going to hit a certain point where the players who are like, do I come back or do I go or going to say, well, you still don't know. I'm just going to enter the portal and we'll see what happens. And that can be a dangerous game. Now, for all we know, those conversations have been had with Bill cell from the players and the athletic department and they all are on the same page and know what's going to happen. But I don't know, man, this waiting game is people are getting getting intense about it, so to speak. So hopefully we'll hear about it soon, who knows? Because the worst thing that could happen for KU is that we get to like next Wednesday and then Bill

22:53self decides to retire. And so through that notion, it almost makes me feel like the longer he goes without, you know, making an announcement to retire, the more likely it is he's going to come back because I don't think you would want to leave Kansas in that position too, but it certainly is, I don't know, the timeline is short mean not for self's fault, but because of kind of the NCAA calendar kind of around it. Final thing here, a little update on KU women's basketball. So they're playing in the WBIG semi finals and they lost to a conference phone, BYU 7U67 kind of like come back to even get it to a one-score game. They were down like eight with like 30 something seconds to go or something like that. Three turnovers, stuff like that, they get it to a three-point game and good fight by them to get there and stuff. Little disappointing though and how the final play. So Kansas forces a turnover. They get the ball with like five seconds for an under the basket baseline out of bounds play and they were just struggling to get the ball in and you're down three

23:54with five seconds. Your media thought would be okay, you throw it into the perimeter, shoot a three to try to tie the game, right? They ended up having to throw it into the middle where the ball just goes like out of bounds from there on, I don't know if it was like a shot attempt or a drop or whatever, but even if they make the shot because the shot was with like three seconds, they're shooting a two with three seconds out three and at that moment you're just like was that was drawn up here because that's not great. So yeah, kind of a disappointing, disappointing end there to I think in general probably a disappointing season for KG Women's Basketball, right? Like I think all along, especially with the talent that you had, I know you had some injuries kind of felt like okay, this team should be making the NCAA tournament. I'm not saying they should be like a top four seed or anything, but they should be getting back to the NCAA tournament and that unfortunately didn't happen. So we'll see if they can, I guess, get back there next year. All right, let me know for this episode of Lockdown J-Hawks, you can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show and check out the bonus episode. We'll have Paulius Morowskis out later today.

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