KU Jayhawks Q&A: Basketball’s last scholarship, Lance Leipold’s choice + QB thoughts
We’re back for another Kansas Jayhawks Q&A. Let’s get to the questions.
Probably not good.
Remy’s father, Sam, has made it clear in recent interviews that the Arizona State point guard is focused on making it to the pros while leaving a college transfer as a backup option.
That already puts the odds against Martin landing at KU. Even if he did decide to transfer to another school, however, that decision would likely come in July, and he’d also have many other suitors besides the Jayhawks.
It can’t be completely ruled out, of course. KU coach Bill Self, from his recruiting actions recently, has heavily hinted he’s still chasing a starting point guard, and Martin would certainly fit that role. KU also was one of Martin’s finalists out of high school, so that could help the Jayhawks’ outlook as well.
This still seems like a long shot at best. Martin seems most likely to be playing as a professional next season, meaning KU (or any college team) isn’t likely to have him in 2021-22.
Tough to tell, but my official prediction at this point would be North Texas transfer Jason Bean.
Neither Miles Kendrick nor Jalon Daniels was impressive at KU’s spring game, where the offense had just one touchdown in four quarters (and even that one came on a short field).
Bean has starting experience for the Mean Green, and the fact he missed spring ball shouldn’t mean as much in this particular situation given that all KU’s QBs will be restarting a bit after the school brought in a new head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in the last two weeks.
KU football coach Lance Leipold has previously done a good job molding his offensive schemes to his team’s most talented pieces, and Bean — a high school track star — seems like he could be enticing as a dual-threat quarterback right away.
We should know more in the days to come now that Leipold announced his complete staff this week, but things are likely to get worse for KU football before they get better.
The Jayhawks have already lost talented defensive linemen DaJon Terry and Marcus Harris to the portal. Cornerback Karon Prunty — the team’s best player — also seems like another candidate to leave who’d have immediate high-major interest elsewhere.
KU could still add to its recruiting class — and potentially from Buffalo, which has had nine players enter the portal since Leipold’s departure — but the bottom line is, this is going to be painful in the short term simply because of the circumstances.
The immediate-eligibility rule gives more freedom to players; that’s overwhelmingly a good thing. In KU’s circumstance, however, it also means much of the dues-paying the staff did the last two years in recruiting high school players and developing them could vanish quickly if talented guys look for opportunities elsewhere.
Again, this is no one’s fault. KU athletic director Travis Goff has to worry about the long-term health of the team, and hiring Leipold in May gives the coach a few extra months to build his program.
More departures might make it difficult for KU to have an immediate turnaround in 2021 or 2022. But the focus has to be on the horizon, so if some players leave, that’s simply part of the price KU must pay while trying to get the whole thing turned back in the right direction.
It’s a great question ... and one that Goff likely will have to answer soon now that he’s accomplished his first big obstacle of hiring a football coach.
Booth Memorial Stadium — for about two decades now — has desperately needed renovation (or a rebuild). There are numerous challenges to making it happen, though: The fund-raising to get it done has to be overwhelming, and the fact that the stadium is a war memorial makes a less cost-effective renovation more likely than a complete reconstruction.
This has always been the chicken-or-the-egg dilemma with KU football: Do you commit yourself to raise the funds while the team is bad while hoping it’ll get better, or wait till the team is better and have more security that you’ll be able to raise the funds?
Looking back ... former KU AD Jeff Long addressed this topic early in his tenure when he first arrived at KU in 2018. A year later, he said at a KU Athletics board meeting that a Booth Memorial Stadium renovation remained far off while the department created a “master plan” for potential construction.
That obviously never came to full fruition, which leaves Goff the task of trying to complete what Long and previous AD Sheahon Zenger couldn’t get accomplished.
It obviously won’t be easy.
Well, I’d definitely say KU basketball giving its last scholarship to a non-eligible local sports talk radio co-host would probably be the worst use for it.
Martin would be the best option, but as mentioned above ... that’s a long shot, and KU will have to fight off other schools if Martin does decide he wants to come back.
Georgia’s Sahvir Wheeler is an interesting one. He has the ability to be an excellent passer, and having a point guard who could create easy or open shots for guys like Ochai Agbaji (if he comes back), Christian Braun and David McCormack in pick-and-roll settings could provide a huge missing piece for KU’s offense next season.
Having said that ... Wheeler’s overall efficiency numbers last year at Georgia were dreadful. He turned it over way too often, made just 23% of his threes and also was a below-average shooter on twos and free throws. At 5-foot-10, he also faces some limitations defensively, meaning if KU does add him, it should be considered at least a bit of a gamble.
It’s a good question, and honestly, this philosophical conundrum is part of the reason why I wondered through the process if Leipold would remain interested in the KU gig. He had a good roster returning to Buffalo, and with another nine- or 10-win season, surely another Power Five AD would have come calling.
I think, though, you have to get a bit inside Leipold’s head to understand why he wanted the KU job. Kudos to KU football SID Daniel Berk, who allowed us a couple minutes off to the side with Leipold after his formal press conference to ask follow-up questions.
While there, I asked Leipold this: “Why did the challenges of this job not scare you?”
His response was revealing:
“Because I think at a higher level, there were some parallels that they said about the last job I took. There’s a lot of people that told me not to take the Buffalo job,” Leipold said. “I felt there were parts there (where) we did a lot there. It was time for another one. It’s what I want to do.”
Leipold seems to embrace this sort of challenge ... and also specifically a Midwest “us-against-the-world” mindset he spoke about later. He said he grew up in a small Wisconsin town, which had some similarities to Kansas.
“The Milwaukee Brewers and the Kansas City Royals don’t have the same resources and everything as the Yankees. The Green Bay Packers and the Chiefs don’t have what the Cowboys have,” Leipold said. “That’s the way I was raised.”
Translation: Leipold enjoys this. When he talked about others saying this job “fit” him, this is what he meant.
Wisconsin-Whitewater and Buffalo were both tough places to turn around with fewer resources. He was told it would be tough. He figured it out anyway.
The next-biggest stage to do that again? Kansas sure seems like the place.
And perhaps that’s why Leipold was ready to make the Power Five move now, knowing this type of underdog role is a position where he’s thrived before.
