Wayne Simien isn’t Wally Pipp, and Jeff Graves isn’t Lou Gehrig, yet I couldn’t help but make that seemingly off-the-wall association on Wednesday night.
Maybe the baseball analogy popped into my head because Royals first baseman Mike Sweeney was in Allen Fieldhouse watching Kansas University bat around several times in waxing Wyoming, 98-70.
Anyway, practically every baseball fan knows that Pipp was the Yankees’ first baseman who was forced out of a game because of an injury and replaced by Gehrig, who went on to play 2,130 consecutive games.
Pipp never started another game for the Yanks, and since then any player who couldn’t reclaim his starting job after being injured has been, according to baseball lexicon, “Pipped.”
So with Simien out with a dislocated shoulder and Graves playing his best basketball in a Kansas uniform — a career-high 14 points plus 10 rebounds against the Cowboys — is it possible Simien has been Pipped?
Am I wrong or am I right?
“No,” KU coach Roy Williams said when the question was posed to him, “I don’t think that’s right.”
Neither does Graves. The 6-foot-9 junior college transfer says he has no illusions about remaining a starter once Simien is given a clean bill of health, perhaps as soon as next week.
“I’ve accepted it,” Graves said. “There’s no ‘I’ in team. I hope he does come back.”
Still, in the big picture, it’s clear Simien’s injury, suffered less than two weeks ago, has been a boon to Graves because the additional court time has enhanced his adjustment to big-time college basketball.
Graves was having a difficult time adapting to his bit role here after playing the lead at Iowa Western CC. It’s tough to play a potted plant when you’ve been performing the role of Macbeth night in and night out.
“I was telling people it was hard,” Graves said.
All the extra time Graves has spent on the floor during Simien’s enforced absence should be a blessing when the Jayhawks ride the inevitable emotional and physical roller coaster through the dog days of February.
By now we know Graves’ strength is rebounding. His offense is OK, but perhaps it just suffers in comparison to the myriad post moves of teammate Nick Collison.
If Collison has any more moves around the basket than he displayed against Wyoming, I can’t imagine what they would be. Collison was wheeling and dunking, reversing and laying it in with either hand. Once he even drained a running right-handed baby hook.
Did we see the entire Collison repertoire on Wednesday night?
Not even he knows for sure.
“Post moves aren’t something I think about,” he said. “It’s all just a series of pivots. Sometimes it really feels good, like tonight. Other days, it feels awkward and unnatural.”
Rarely has Collison looked awkward and unnatural this season. The 6-9 senior has shaken his foul woes of the past and is playing the best basketball of his life. In fact, he is a leading contender for Big 12 Conference Player of the Year. So far, anyway, he is having a much better year than Oklahoma’s Hollis Price, the preseason choice for that prestigious honor.
But heck, this is just mid-January, and it’s a long, long way until the madness of March.
Williams joins 400 club – Kansas 98, Wyoming 70
6Sports video: Kansas rips through Wyoming
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