So... what do the new guys do?
On a special edition of Self’s “Hawk Talk” radio program—which was taped at the Wakarusa Johnny’s aka the wrong Johnny’s in late June—Self candidly recapped the 2019-2020 season. It’s a good listen, even if you’ve heard some of the information before, thanks to Self’s surprising emergence as an offseason content machine. (While Hawk Talk is effectively state sponsored programming, and the hosts offer all the journalistic resistance of Chris Farley, Self does elaborate a little bit on the current civil rights movement at the 41:24 mark.)
At the end of the day, if you’re looking for a few KU basketball nuggets to grapple onto while we wait to see if there’s a 2020-21 college basketball season, Hawk Talk is the place to be.
This suits the purposes of this particular edition of the newsletter. I’ve been wanting to put together a premature preview of the incoming class of Jayhawks, because it’s a group with pretty interesting skill sets who all bring something new to the table. With Udoka and Dotson departing, a lot of nuts-and-bolts production will have to be replaced. And while the prospective 2020-21 Jayhawks look about as deep as any Jayhawk team in recent memory, any projection of who-replaces-what is purely hypothetical right now.
So, I’m pulling together what we know now and make a few educated guesses about where the four incoming Jayhawks slot in, asking myself the question “Well, what do these dudes do?” and then trying to back that up as much as I can. Here’s to hoping we get a closer look before 2021.
Bryce Thompson, 6’6’’ G
Bryce Thompson’s history with Bill Self will become the new “Udoka Azubuike has lost weight!” or “Svi Mykhailiuk is only nineteen years old!” of 2020-21 national TV broadcast cycle. Bryce’s father, Rod, played for Self at Tulsa and this fact will be brought up 10,000,000 times. Thompson the junior has been commended for hanging in there while the initial storm of NCAA sanctions passed; whether that’s the result of an agreement between Self and the Thompson family, or a Cade Cunningham-style “I’m coming no matter what” sign of faith, is tbd technically but encouraging any way you shake it.
Anyway, Thompson is a scorer who can create his own shot, which is a skill Self admits was in short supply last year. (The Jayhawks had 13 offensive shot clock violations last year). With Dotson gone, guards like Marcus Garrett will carry more of the creative load, but Thompson will probably be a play-finisher unlike anything we’ve seen since the Andrew Wiggins era. He’s here to get buckets, and any other dimension he delivers will be added value. Looking back through his highlights, anytime a bigger defender had to switch onto Thompson in a pick-and-roll, Thompson destroyed them. This is good.
Thompson can wield this creative versatility to devastating effect within the current 4-out-1-in look of KU’s offense. If he can create and command the focus of an opponent’s defense to the point that they’re shading their sets toward his positioning, that will mean more space for Braun (an underrated creator) and Garrett to work. It’s unrealistic to expect Garrett to fill Dotson’s shoes, from a box score perspective. With an apparently retooled jumper, giving him more time to get into rhythm will be a very good thing.
As with any freshman, there’s a likelihood of hitting a productivity wall, but maybe with a shortened calendar all bets are off. Here’s to hoping there’s not a lid on the rim early in the campaign, because if not it’s gonna be all-gas-no-breaks as an attacker. I have no idea what his defensive aptitude is, but I don’t think it matters even in a Self ecosystem. Thompson will have the green light from the jump.
Tyon Grant-Foster, 6’7’’ G/F
When Bill Self talks about incoming players, he does so with his usual dedication to strategy. Tyon Grant-Foster is a KC-area prospect from Schlagle HS who Self “didn’t even know about” as a prep player; now, with two years at Indian Hills CC, he comes to Kansas as a 20-year-old with two years’ experience at a high-level CC. Self has set the bar high for Grant-Foster—”He’ll be a pro, and I mean an NBA pro”—in a way that also serves as a challenge to younger players on the roster.
To me, Grant-Foster represents a two-way force that will help KU get out in transition, another part of the game they struggled with last year. Given his age and experience, I would guess that there won’t be any “training wheels” style appearances in the vein of say, one Tristan Enaruna. (Who Self is still very hype on, by the way). In a KU group that will play a lot of 4-guard lineups, players like Grant-Foster (6’7’’) as well as Thompson (reportedly now 6’6’’) and Jalen Wilson (a sneaky 6’8’’!) suggest KU has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to length. They’ll play four guards but be bigger than some small-ball NBA teams. Grant-Foster may very well be the link between “playing small” and “playing big.”
Self clearly expects a lot from him, which could take some creative pressure off still-developing guards like fellow Kansas Citians Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun.
Gethro Muscadin, 6’10’’ C
Muscadin is a project, but one Self seems excited about, given the track record of skilled-but-developing bigs KU has had in recent years. (Paging Ramsey Nijem). With Doke out of the picture, KU could use a shot-blocking presence near the rim; the years where KU hasn’t had a player like that, the defense has been more vulnerable.
I expect Muscadin’s positive contributions to happen on the defensive end before they happen on offense, but the expectations around big men have changed at the highest level of basketball. At this point, no one is expecting all-hands-on-deck development of a back-to-basket post game. All that might be needed is a well-honed sense of timing on ball screens and runs to the rim; this is how NBA prospects like the Brooklyn Nets’ Nic Claxton went from “Who the hell is that?” status to an absolute asset.
Self has added modern wrinkles to his offense every year to account for what trends are happening across basketball, after years of relative reluctance to do that. Muscadin seems well suited to these developments, and given KU’s providence with big men, I see an intriguing player that could portend a new playing style for Kansas.
Latrell Jossell, 6’0’’ G
According to Self, Jossell is an undersized shooter, which is an archetype all Kansas fans have grown to love in the Self era. Jossell was so under-recruited that he’s maybe the first Jayhawk recruit I’ve looked up that had his own HUDL up. (HUDL is a social networking site where aspiring college athletes can upload their own highlights and results). He is very fast, and I like the idea of someone filling the “this dude is insanely fast” void left behind by Devon Dotson.
His jumper looks nice. He’s zipping around in his highlights but he’s finding balance quickly when he lifts off. Players his size need to be able to stretch the floor and Jossell looks like he could be a rotation player. Also, dunking is part of his game, a development Jossell worked years for—this whole DMN piece on Jossell is worth checking out for more background on that.
I’ve had a theory that, if we’re talking about the best 300 high school players in America, player #300 is a lot closer, ability-wise, to player #1 than they would have been ten years ago. This is the power of the three-pointer; it’s worth taking some shots further down the rankings on shooters, all other things being equal. Let’s hope Jossell sticks around and finds out how far a few years in the program can take his game.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Given the suspended state of the sport and the threat of sanctions hitting the program, KU has to play the long game while also paying attention to short-term needs. Thompson takes care of that latter thing, and the other three strike me as attempts to find effective two- or three-year players who might not be getting the same acclaim as they would in different seasons. Assuming everyone sticks around and doesn’t transfer—I think transfer rules will be even less restrictive going forward, and I think that’s great for players—prospects like Muscadin and Jossell will tell us a lot about what we can expect from the future of KU basketball.
College hoops as a format isn’t going anywhere, because there will always be players who need it. Schools like KU and Kentucky have facilities have more in common with European pro teams than they do with the relative resources of their conference rivals. What’s the future of that sort of development laboratory? The changes will happen at the top of the game and trickle down to the bottom. Even though going macro with analysis is basically all one can do right now, watching the currents change in college basketball is going to be a years-long process. KU will weather the storm. But where will the players stand? If we’re starting to optimistically think about 20-21, that’s what I’m thinking about.