Woodling: Piper can provide stability for Jayhawks

By Chuck Woodling     Dec 15, 1987

Not that comparative basketball scores mean that much, especially in December, but look what Arizona did to Iowa IN Iowa City over the weekend.

If you’re like me, you’ve been watching Iowa scores closely ever since the Hawkeyes all but stole Kansas’ uniforms a couple of weeks ago in Hawaii.

Iowa won, 100-81, on what was essentially a neutral court – although Iowa had the noisiest fans at the Maui Classic – and I’m not sure it was actually that close.

I mean, if that Iowa-Kansas game had been played on the Hawkeyes’ home floor, you could rationalize about it being tough to win on the road, and forget about it.

Heck, how many times has Kansas humiliated an opponent during its 52-game win streak in Allen Fieldhouse? Blowouts happen. Even to great teams. Almost always on the road, though.

Iowa sure didn’t blow Arizona out. The Hawkeyes lost, 66-59, on their own floor. I checked the stats and I know at least one reason why. If you remember the Kansas-Iowa game, you’ll recall a guard named Jeff Moe was unconscious that afternoon.

Moe was pure momentum. His five three-point goals demoralized the Jayhawks as much as the Hawkeyes’ rugged offensive rebounding. Against Arizona, though, Moe was more like the middle man of the Three Stooges. He took only one shot – it was from three-point range, natch – and he missed it.

If there was ever a classic example in basketball of living by the sword and dying by the sword, it is the three-point basket. Case in point: Rider. The Broncs took 29 three-point shots against Kansas the other night, made only five and lost 110-72.

Meanwhile, Knasas launches three-pointers about as often as, well, the KU football team made a first down last fall. That is to say, seldom. KU has fired up only 22 of ’em in eight games, and 15 of those were in the Maui Civic Center.

In the Jayhawks’ six wins, a grand total of seven three-point goals have been attempted. Conclusion: Kansas won’t win if it has to rely on long-range shooting.

If there has been a trend in the first eight games – more than a fourth of the regular season, incidentally – it’s been a familiar one. Danny Manning averaged 23.9 points a game last season, and he’s scoring at a 23.4 clip so far this season.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you Manning isn’t a pillar. Sure, he’ll have a sub-par game from time to time, but when you look back at his statistics in, say, five years, you’ll shake your head more over his durability and consistency than his numbers.

Obviously, Manning is the one player the Jayhawks cannot do without. Now if they just had the other player they’ve needed so badly in the early going, the ailing Chris Piper.

Piper? How can you miss a guy who averaged 6.6 poings and 4.7 rebounds a game last season? Easy.

“We rated our players – the coaches did and the players did,” KU coach Larry Brown noted, “and Piper came out second…on both lists.”

Piper, a 6-8 forward, is a fifth-year senior who started all 36 games last season. If Manning is consistency, then Piper is stability. He is the closest thing Kansas has to a coach on the floor. If any Kansas player was conspicuous by his absence in Hawaii, it was Piper.

“I don’t think we could have beaten Iowa without him,” Brown reflected, “but Pipe knows everybody’s in position and, well, just having him around is important.”

Kansas’ other key player is the third returning starter, guard Kevin Pritchard. So far, the 6-3 sophomore has had some free throw difficulties – he’s had plenty of company there – and some foul problems, but he’s scored in double figures in seven of the eight games.

Right now, I doubt if Kansas could go into Iowa City and knock off the Hawkeyes like Arizona did, but I have a hunch that when the NCAA tournament rolls around, the Jayhawks would salivate at the prospect of another crack at Iowa.

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