Giddens no longer ‘clueless’

By Gary Bedore     Dec 4, 2003

J.R. Giddens is a much better basketball player today than he was, say, six weeks ago.

“I came in here clueless,” said Giddens, Kansas University’s freshman guard who dominated Oklahoma high school basketball the past four years primarily on athletic ability alone.

“Now I’m halfway clueless,” he added with a big grin.

The 6-foot-5 Giddens — he completed his rapid climb by making his first start Monday at Texas Christian — had looked completely lost at his first official college practice Oct. 18.

“J.R. probably has forgotten the first day. It’s OK. It wasn’t a great day,” KU coach Bill Self said.

Actually, Giddens might never forget that humbling first day.

“Everybody stole the ball from me,” Giddens said. “I couldn’t run anything right. I couldn’t execute anything. My shot wasn’t falling. I was tired. I was frustrated. I thought coach was like, ‘J.R. stinks, and he’s not going to play at all.'”

Self, who in 11 years as a coach has seen plenty of McDonald’s All-Americans like Giddens struggle early while making the transition to the college game, wasn’t going to throw in the towel on the ultra-athletic player.

“J.R. wants to be a player,” Self said. “He watches tape, spends a ton of time up in the office. He has learned an awful lot real fast. He is starting to get it.”

Giddens said film study had helped a lot.

“I go up there and watch all the mistakes I’m making and try to learn from that,” Giddens said. “I’ll look at the tape sometimes and I’ll be like, ‘Man, why did I do that?’ I’ll have a couple of bonehead plays a game.

“Watching film helps me cut down on those.”

So does talking to some of his more experienced teammates.

“Even though Mike Lee is out (with broken collarbone), he still helps me. He is the sixth man, the angel,” Giddens said. “He tells me what I need to do and what I’m doing wrong. My teammates guide me and push me and help me.”

Giddens scored 12 points off 5-of-7 shooting in an 85-66 win over TCU after combining for 13 points in his first two games, wins over UT Chattanooga and Michigan State.

“I tried to act cool, but I was so nervous. I had a lot of butterflies,” Giddens said. “I was like, ‘I’m actually starting for the No. 1 team in the country.'”

He will start again Saturday against Stanford (3 p.m., The Pond in Anaheim, Calif.).

“Now I’ve been out there and experienced it. I’ve had time to gather myself, settle down and just play,” Giddens said. “I want to take shots, but I’ve got to think first, ‘Is that going to be best for the team or is it just because I want some (points)?’ Sometimes I want to just grab the rebound and push it and make something happen like I did in high school. But it might be better getting in Aaron’s hands so we reverse the ball and run the high-low for ‘Dub’ (Wayne Simien).”

Self will be running plenty of plays for Giddens in his career.

“Everything is so fresh to him, so new to him, he is really doing a great job,” KU’s coach said.

  • Langford’s high school jersey retired: Keith Langford had his No. 5 jersey retired Tuesday night at halftime of alma mater North Crowley High’s 81-56 victory over Coppell High in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas.

“It was fun. It was a nice crowd. A lot of people I went to school with were there. I got to see my brother play a varsity game for the first time and they won. It was great,” Langford said.

Kevin Langford — a 6-8 senior considering UCLA, California and some other schools — had 17 points in the victory.

“It was probably a day I needed, getting to spend some time with my family,” KU’s Langford said.

  • Recruiting: Tuesday, Self watched KU signee Darnell Jackson of Midwest City (Okla.) High scored six points and grab 13 rebounds in a 61-60 season-opening loss to Putnam City.

Putnam City was led by the son of former Jayhawk Carl Henry, shooting guard C.J. Henry, who scored 33 points off 13-of-28 shooting, including a 25-foot game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer. Henry, who has Kansas on his list of college possibilities, hit five of 15 threes. He also is a standout baseball player and might turn pro after high school.

  • Toughness: Self at his weekly press conference, was asked about his reputation as having tough teams.

“Since we started coaching and everything, I’ve done some crazy things. Thank goodness administrators didn’t find out we were doing ’em, as we went along,” Self quipped about ways to make his teams tougher.

“I just despise excuses. I’ve had teams complain how tired they were. I said, ‘If you are so tired, we’ll practice twice tomorrow, the day before a Big 10 game.’ The mind can convince the body to do about anything. The game is so much mental, more so than physical.”

PREV POST

KU to give students free bowl tickets

NEXT POST

4963Giddens no longer ‘clueless’