Newcomer Niang gentle giant

By Jim Baker     Oct 11, 2002

Editor’s note: Kansas has two scholarship freshman this year in Jeff Graves and Moulaye Niang. Here’s a look at the two new scholarship players.\

It’s OK to call 6-foot-9, 205-pound Kansas University basketball newcomer Moulaye Niang “lean.”

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Not “mean,” however.

“I’m always nice,” says Niang, Kansas University’s freshman center from Senegal by way of El Cajon Calif.’s Christian High. “It’s my problem. I don’t know why. It’s the way I’ve been educated and my parents. I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings.”

Not to worry, though, KU fans.

The stringbean pivot says he’s learned to carry a not-so-timid mentality onto the court.

“On court it’s business. You handle your business, I handle mine,” noted Niang, who averaged 16.2 points and 9.8 rebounds his senior season. “The toughest person wins on the court.”

That’s a lesson KU’s only other signee Jeff Graves learned in junior college. Graves, who is known as a banger, earned first-team All-America honors after averaging 16.8 points amd 8.1 boards for 22-9 Iowa Western Community College.

He knows how to use his bulky 6-foot-9, 280-pound body when he’s healthy. However Graves was involved in a car accident in September after reporting to KU out of shape and enters the season as a major question mark.

“He’s a little different from any player you’ve had at Kansas, just because he is so big,” said Iowa Western coach Jim Morris. “He has a big ol’ barrel chest. He reminds me a little of Tractor Traylor obviously not that big, but big.”

The 6-8, 284-pound Traylor, who played for the Charlotte Hornets last year, weighed 300 pounds during his college days at Michigan. Graves reported to KU at 293.

Graves grew up in Lee’s Summit, Mo., where he played both high school football and basketball.

He has known about Kansas a long time, having attended coach Roy Williams’ Kansas basketball camp nine years ago. At the time, Graves never dreamed he’d someday become one of Williams’ prized recruits.

“Coach Williams’ camp is where I learned the basics,” said Graves. “That camp helped my coordination and defense, too,” added Graves, who picked KU over Missouri, Long Beach State, Illinois, Florida State and Iowa State.

Graves was all-state in basketball and honorable mention all-state in football his senior year of high school.

He was recruited only by Long Beach State in basketball, while Nebraska, Kansas State, Kansas and others tried to get the lineman to sign a football agreement.

“I didn’t like getting hit in the knees,” Graves said of his decision to give up football.

A dazzling 65.7 percent shooter from the field, Graves hit 59.3 percent of his free throws. He was under 50 percent his freshman season.

“He was ‘Shaq attack’ for a while,” Morris said, comparing Graves to the Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal, who, like Graves, gets double- and triple-teamed and hacked and sometimes struggles to convert. “His rotation was good. The problem was follow-through. He’d short-arm it. Once he stayed at the line and kept his hand up, he was fine.

“He won us a lot of games,” Morris said, noting Graves was one of six Iowa Western players to average double-digit scoring. “He anchored that middle for us. He’s a first-team All-American.”

KU Men’s Roster1 Jeff Hawkins , G, Fr.-RS, 5-11, 175, Kansas City, Kan. (Sumner Academy)4 Nick Collison F, Sr., 6-9, 255, Iowa Falls, Iowa (Iowa Falls HS)5 Keith Langford, G, Soph., 6-4, 205, Fort Worth, Texas (North Crowley HS)10 Kirk Hinrich G, Sr., 6-3, 190, Sioux City, Iowa (Sioux City West HS)11 Aaron Miles, G, Soph., 6-1 175, Portland, Ore. (Jefferson HS)20 Stephen Vinson, G, Fr., 6-2, 185, Lawrence (Lawrence HS)23 Wayne Simien, F, Soph., 6-9, 255 Leavenworth (Leavenworth HS)25 Michael Lee, G, Soph., 6-3, 215, Portland, Ore. (Jefferson HS)33 Bryant Nash, F, Jr., 6-6, 205, Carrollton, Texas (Turner HS)34 Christian Moody, F, Fr., 6-7 205, Asheville, N.C. (T.C. Roberson HS)42 Jeff Graves, F, Jr., 6-9 275, Lee’s Summit, Mo. (Iowa Western CC)55 Moulaye Niang, F, Fr., 6-10, 215 El Cajon, Calif. (Christian HS)Coaching StaffRoy Williams, head coach (North Carolina 1972)Joe Holladay, assistant coach (Oklahoma 1969)Ben Miller, assistant coach (Luther 1991)Steve Robinson, assistant coach (Radford, 1981)Jerod Haase, administrative assistant (Kansas 1997)C.B. McGrath, administrative assistant (Kansas 1998)

Niang, meanwhile, grew up playing soccer in Senegal. The former soccer standout loves to run and saw a lot of that in KU last season.

KU averaged 90.9 points per game and scored 100 or more points in 12 games.

“They get the ball inside to the big men. They run the floor,” said Niang, who hit 53 percent of his shots for 20-9 Christian High.

“That is a big part of my game. I run all day long.”

The first-team all county selection showed a nice touch both inside off a jump hook and outside off a conventional jumper last season.

“Moulaye didn’t shoot a lot of threes, but shot and made a significant number of shots from 15 or so feet,” Christian High coach Curtis Hofmeister said.

“He’s ahead defensively of where he is offensively. He is improving offensively, but has a lot of work to do before he is a Final Four-type player. He’s a terrific defensive player. He must improve his strength. He is competitive and quick enough, one of the quickest kids in the country at his size.”

Niang has played basketball for eight years.

“I think I played better than last year,” he said. “I am a little bit stronger and more patient. We played against really good teams and that has helped me a lot. I still need to get bigger. Right now I’m working on my body. I have worked with a personal trainer for two weeks and have put on five pounds.

Niang is a great student. Niang, a business major, had a near-perfect 3.92 grade point average and was named captain of the San Diego Union-Tribune’s all-academic team.

“The coaches and teachers told me, ‘If you do your homework here (in U.S.) you will at least get a B,”‘ Niang said. “I kept doing my homework every night. When you do homework and well on tests, you can always get a low A or at least a B,” he said.

Hofmeister said he’ll never forget working with a player like Niang.

“He’s a great kid who does work very hard,” he said.

“Some people look at Moulaye non-basketball players and say, ‘He’s so big, why didn’t he score 30 a game?’ He’s just not there yet. With the work ethic and athleticism he has, surround him with good players he will get there.”

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