STILLWATER, Okla. – Chris Piper and Richard Dumas each recorded one field goal here Wednesday night.
One difference, though. Piper didn’t miss any shots; Dumas missed 11.
Piper has been around. He’s a fifth-year senior forward at Kansas. Dumas is a rookie. He’s a 6-7 freshman at Oklahoma State, and he’s also the Cowboys’ leading scorer.
Not Wednesday night, though. Dumas settled for 11 points – nine at the foul line – while Piper hounded him.
“I think he got frustrated in the second half,” Piper reflected. “I played off him when he had the ball on the floor and inside I tried to deny him the ball.”
Piper wasn’t about to toot his own horn, of course, so it was up to KU coach Larry Brown to push that button.
“Chris did a great job on Dumas,” Brown gushed. “I’m really pleased. I was so appreciative of Piper’s performance on Dumas.”
In the meantime, Oklahoma State coach Leonard Hamilton was less inclined to praise Piper than he was to give the standard definition of why they say it’s a long season.
“I thought Richard forced some shots when he had opportunities,” Hamilton said. “If he stays in basketball long enough, he’ll have more of those nights. He’s just gotta regroup.”
So do the Cowboys. They were coming off back-to-back road wins at Nebraska and Iowa State – two places Kansas had lost – and then buckled to the Jayhawks, 78-68, on Wednesday night.
“Kansas changing defenses, I think, threw us out of sync early,” Hamilton said. “But I wish we would have been a little tighter and more intense about this game.”
Kansas staggered Okie State with its early outside shooting. In fact, the Jayhawks’ first basket was a three-pointer from, of all people, sophomore Jeff Gueldner.
Gueldner made his first career start in this one and, he confessed, “deep down I was nervous, I guess. Once I got over that, I just wanted to go out and do what I can do.”
Gueldner was a surprise replacement for Lincoln Minor who never came off the bench on Wednesday night.
Speculation was that Minor’s 0 for 15 three-point shooting had put him on the bench was not confirmed by Brown who, when asked, said: “Minor doesn’t deserve to play. That’s the situation.”
Dannny Manning, as usual, led the Jayhawks with 23 points and nine rebounds. Kevin Pritchard added 20 points, one under his career high.
“I just get excited coming back to my home state,” Pritchard said. “A lot of fans in the stands I knew.”
