Shock Jock Jayhawk

2023-24 HNQ Team Previews - Kansas Jayhawks

Deep in a shroud of endless wheatfields, a villain has risen in college basketball. The locals have warned about their menace for decades, and finally, the outside world has taken notice.

Kansas’s regionally contained fanbase, Head Coach Bill Self’s general affability, and a lack of brash star players have allowed the Jayhawks to fly under the radar and become dare-I-say-it likable even for a noted blue blood hater such as myself.

Not anymore. The rest of the nation is finally ready to experience Kansas as Big XII fans have for the last quarter century. After a recent national championship win, trouble with the law, and a vile transfer portal addition, college basketball at large has found their new heel.

The Scumbag

Meet Hunter Dickinson, Kansas’s major transfer portal acquisition of the offseason.

Hunter Dickinson isn’t the first basketball player hated by the entire state of Maryland.

Pictured at his peak dweebiness here, J.J. Redick was subject to numerous vulgar chants from Terps faithful during his time at “Dook.”

But Dickinson may be the first to truly revel in it.

An interesting choice in celebration from Hunter Dickinson during a Maryland-Michigan game.

These two perhaps shouldn’t be in the same breath.

Oh well, the guy holds a grudge against a local program that he believes didn’t recruit him hard enough out of high school, and Wisconsin for some reason. That’s not the end of the world.

Not great. I’d love to pile on here, but I’m sure my previous invocations of the Rhodesian Matabele War in describing Zach Edey will catch up to me eventually.

Hunter Dickinson’s mouth isn’t the only thing getting him into trouble; plenty of other body parts, including his elbows, have drawn ire.

Cassius Winston was a two-time All American,  Big Ten Player of the Year, Big Ten Tournament Most Outstanding Player, all while suffering through the tragic death of his brother during the 2019-20 season.

I won’t make any similar agreements, although I think the resemblance is closer to Yeltsin, personally.

After leaving Michigan (explicitly for financial enrichment), Hunter Dickinson struck one final stab into the hearts of Michiganders by attacking what they cherish most: being from the Midwest.

Who you associate with reveals quite a bit, and Dickinson made many of these jabs while recording podcasts with former Iowa point guard Jordan Bohannon, a man so unlikable he has lights knocked out by his own fans, and Marty Mush, a Barstool Sports employee who willingly goes by the name Marty Mush. Kansas’s offseason acquisitions also included Arterio Morris, a former 5-star recruit who faced assault charges during his freshman year at Texas.

These rather unsavory characters do little to dispel with the crooked notions Kansas has been painted with after winning a National Championship while being actively investigated by the FBI for corruption and bribery. With Coach K’s retirement leaving Duke a shell of its former hateability, Coach Cal’s Kentucky largely a punchline, and 0regon fans unknown to most outside of the Pacific Northwest, Kansas has become the premiere program for the seething fury of subordinate fans.

That makes it all the more frustrating just how darn good they’re likely to be this season.

The System and The Pieces

Kansas has been remarkably consistent in their achievement under Bill Self, never finishing outside of the top 20 on BartTorvik and KenPom analytical rankings since Self took over for Roy Williams in 2003, with the exception of the COVID-wacky 2020-2021 season. Boasting the longest NCAA Tournament streak in the nation, Kansas has bullied and broken the Big XII to the tune of 17 conference championships while adding two national titles during the reign of Self, although Kansas fans will swear it should be three, as they were poised to be the #1 overall seed in the cancelled 2020 NCAA Tournament. (There’s about seven claimed national champions that year from different fanbases.)

Bill Self’s adaptability and ingenuity speak for themselves, but his teams do tend to follow a certain system when he has the parts. 4-out-1 in, with four guards or wings flanking a central post figure, has been used to great success in Lawrence, as the aforementioned 2019-20 team centered around Udoka Azubuike, while the national championship team of 2022 saw the emergence of David McCormick in this role. Kansas teams generally feature at least one elite-level defender on the wing, with stars like Ochai Agbaji, Marcus Garrett, LaGerald Vick, and Josh Jackson tasked with locking down the best scorer on the opposing team, even if their offensive production hadn’t quite caught up yet, although it often did by the time their Kansas careers came to a close.

This year’s Kansas squad seems to be tailor-made to these specifications. Hunter Dickinson is a menace in the elbow and low post, particularly as his improving jump shot will encourage Coach Self to move the post further from the basket, allowing for high-low sets involving K.J. Adams Jr, a tweener wing who can thrive off-the-ball. Kevin McCullar Jr. returns as the experienced lockdown wing defender, and if the offensive jumps of McCullar’s predecessors are anything to count upon, the senior could be in for a rocket boost to his 11 points-per-game scoring. DaJuan Harris is the steady hand running the show for the Jayhawks, providing more than six assists per game last season as an on-court extension of Bill Self’s trademark command. Kansas are no strangers to precocious freshman, and 5-star Elmarko Jackson will look to follow in the footsteps of sharpshooter Gradey Dick along the NBA production line. Last season, Bill Self was plauded for manipulating a janky Kansas roster into a workable and successful team. It should inspire fear that he won’t have to this season.

The Outcome?

Buried amongst all the other excuses I laid out earlier, there’s another reason lurking as to why it is merely Big XII fans that sneer upon the sight of the Jayhawk. For all the Big XII Championships, for all of the 1 seeds, even with the two national championships, Bill Self’s Kansas teams have continually disappointed in the NCAA Tournament. Three of the last four tourneys have seen Kansas fall in the Round of 32, with two more of these early exits in the last ten years. While Kansas’s post-centric orbit offense works wonders in the regular season, it has, at times, come back to bite them against more athletic teams from outside of the Big XII’s grit-and-grind identity. Of the five teams that bested Kansas during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament over the last ten years, just one featured a player 7’0 or taller, that being USC’s superhuman lottery pick Evan Mobley. If Kansas wants to escape the ghosts of defeats past, Hunter Dickinson must be able to defend in space, on the pick-and-roll, and against stretch big men who can knock down outside shots. Unfortunately, these aspects of Dickinson’s game are exactly why he remains in college basketball rather than in the NBA. Hunter Dickinson’s limitations may be too ingrained to overcome; in that case, there is no coach I trust more than Bill Self to get creative with zones, switching, and trapping in order to free Dickinson as a shot blocker and rebounding force. Given how many excellent defenders dot this Kansas roster around Dickinson’s spectacular offensive game, I think these villains will dominate their opponents on both sides of the ball.

Expect a final showdown between good and evil with a team of destiny in the National Championship game.

Don’t be surprised if the bad guys win.