Chris Piper stood at the top of the key, spotted an opening, exploded down the, uh, pipe and dropped the basketball into the goal.
It was as pretty a driving layup as you’d ever want to see, occurring as it did midway through the second half of Saturday’s 73-62 Kansas victory over Colorado in Allen Fieldhouse.
Moments after Piper’s basket, time was called.
Were they stopping the game to present Piper the ball? After all, it was the 6-8 forward’s first – and only – goal in the Jayhawks’ last three games.
Nope, it was Colorado coach Tom Miller who called time in an ostensible effort to slow KU’s momentum, although it’s possible, I guess, that Miller may have felt his players had been stunned by Piper scoring and needed time to regroup.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m here to praise Piper, not to ridicule him. In fact, if anyone deserves defense from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, it’s this fifth-year senior whose legs – thanks to a nagging groin injury – have deserted him this season.
“It’s hard to jump and it’s hard to go into a crouch,” Piper confessed about the injury that will not go away and can be cured only by surgery.
It’s also hard for Piper to score because, he confessed, “I’ve lost confidence in my jumper, and it’s obvious other teams are going to make me shoot that.”
Piper scored 10 points at Nebraska two weeks ago, then came up empty in identical 23-minute stints against Kansas State and Oklahoma. Until those two games, Piper had never suited up for a loss in Allen Fieldhouse.
In the Oklahoma game, he struggled so much that, yes, he could hear the fans, if not exactly booing, then certainly grumbling about his “dead-man” performance.
“I think against Oklahoma is the first time I’ve heard boos. It hurts, but that’s the way fans are,” Piper said. “It hurts, though, because I know I’m trying to do my best.”
His shutouts in the Kansas State and Oklahoma games – no doubt the fan derision had something to do with it, too – convinced Piper that he would never step on the floor again unless coach Larry Brown allowed him to practice. Because of the injury, Brown had been saving Piper for games.
“I was really frustrated and my performances showed it,” Piper explained. “I’m playing bad when I don’t practice. I don’t have any timing on the floor. When you step on the floor to play and you haven’t been practicing, it’s just not the same.
“I’ve just got to practice. That’s all there is to it. I don’t know whether it’s a Catch-22 or what. I guess maybe 99 percent of it is mental, but there’s no way I can be halfway effective without practicing.”
Brown heeded Piper’s plea and, for the first time in two weeks, Piper practiced on the Friday before the Colorado game. And he appeared more comfortable against the Buffaloes even if he did manage just that one basket.
Something Piper did that went basically unnoticed – much like his invisible injury – was defend against CU center Scott Wilke who scored about five points under his average and had five turnovers.
“With all the problems he has, Pipe battles defensively,” Brown remarked. “It’s great as a coach to know he’s gonna go out there and make ’em work to score.”
Unfortunately, Piper may have logged too much time in the Colorado game because, he confessed afterward, it was “the first game I’ve felt a whole lot of pain, and it was mostly in the last minute.”
It occurs to me that if Piper wore a knee brace or a light cast or a large bandage, the home crowd would be much more sympathetic. As it is, he appears hale and hearty out there, even though he isn’t.
So, to paraphrase an old bumper-sticker, don’t rag him anymore, please. He’s pedaling as fast as he can.