OKLAHOMA CITY ? Before its boy’s basketball team played Friday night, John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City announced the nominees for its spring sports homecoming court. One of the nominees for king, a 6-foot-5 basketball player dressed in warmup clothing and a headband, escorted two candidates for queen onto the court. No sooner had his name been announced than the taunting began.
“Wal-Mart! Wal-Mart!”
J.R. Giddens, a senior forward at John Marshall, hears this from opposing fans every game. He’s likely to hear more of it next year, when he joins the Kansas men’s basketball team as one of coach Roy Williams’ top recruits. But he said he was ready for it.
“I love the fans taunting me,” Giddens said after scoring 20 points and snagging 15 rebounds in John Marshall’s 81-50 blowout of Star Spencer High School. “It gets me all hyped up, just thinking they’ve got to go out of their way to taunt me.”
Giddens is a sought-after recruit for the Jayhawks. ESPN.com ranks him 17th on its list of this year’s top 100 high school seniors. The Rivals 100 list places him 41st. His high school coach, John Martin, likens him to former Oklahoma State standout Desmond Mason, now a member of the Seattle Supersonics.
But when Giddens was charged with grand larceny for attempting to steal from an Oklahoma City Wal-Mart Supercenter in December, he left himself open to prosecution and added verbal abuse at John Marshall games.
On Friday, Giddens fed off the abuse. As the buzzer sounded at the end of the first quarter, Giddens nailed his third three-point shot, a 25-foot bomb that gave him 13 points and his team a 29-7 lead over Star Spencer High School.
When he came back onto the court for the second quarter, Giddens looked up at a now-quiet section of Star Spencer fans — the same ones who had been taunting him — and cupped his hand over his ear. Then, he moved his finger across his throat in the classic throat-slashing gesture. Message delivered.
“I take that as an advantage on the court, and it gets me hyped,” Giddens said. “I want to look up at them like, `I don’t hear nothing now,’ you know?”
Giddens is confident on the floor, and he’s just as confident that he’ll fit in Williams’ up-tempo offensive attack.
“I think the style of basketball at Kansas suits me because I’m athletic and can use my athleticism in the open court,” Giddens said.
Martin said Giddens still had to mature physically but would find playing time at Kansas.
“That’s what every coach in the nation is looking for: an athletic shooter,” Martin said. “So, he’ll fit in up there. Plus, he’s coachable.”
After his arrest, some Jayhawk fans wondered how Giddens would fit in under Williams, a coach known for recruiting players with clean records.
Giddens was arrested at about 3 a.m. Dec. 19 with three others, including his uncle, Rickke Green. According to a police report, security cameras recorded a Wal-Mart cashier pretending to scan merchandise. The report said the cashier deactivated the sensors and rang up only a compact disc worth $14.88. According to the report, Giddens was caught on camera loading items into a shopping cart.
The 17-year-old Giddens was later charged as a juvenile with grand larceny. Last month, attorneys settled his case. At that time, his lawyer, David Ogle, said the solution would not jeopardize Giddens’ basketball career.
Giddens’ mother, Dianna, previously said Giddens had not known an illegal act had taken place that night. Last weekend, she said her family agreed not to talk further about the incident.
Williams stood by Giddens, but one Jayhawk fan close to the situation didn’t want to see that happen. Terry Webb, training coordinator at the Wal-Mart where the arrest occurred, is a Kansas graduate.
“I think coach Roy should take his scholarship away,” Webb said. “We are the third-winningest program in the nation, and we didn’t get that way by taking on people that aren’t up to our standards.”
One of Webb’s co-workers, sales associate Kara Hubbard, said she thought Giddens should get another opportunity.
“We all make mistakes,” Hubbard said. “He’s 17, he’s young, he has a future. I think they should give him leeway.”
Williams gave Giddens leeway, and Giddens said he planned on using it to better himself.
“You’ve got to live with the stuff that you did,” Giddens said. “I used it as a learning experience, and I’d say it changed my life, but you’ve got to move on. Time to grow up.”
