“The Pass” that rocked Allen Fieldhouse on Thursday night didn’t exactly take the country by storm.
Forward Christian Moody’s no-look pass from the post back over his head to a wide-open J.R. Giddens — who swished a three-pointer in the second half of Kansas University’s 94-73 win over TCU — was ranked ninth on ESPN’s daily top 10 list of sports highlights.
“I’m just glad for it to be on there,” Moody said Friday.
The junior walk-on from Asheville, N.C., who tonight will start his sixth game of the season when KU (5-0) takes on Louisiana-Lafayette (3-3) — tipoff is 7 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse — has resisted the temptation to brag about his assist.
Others have been raving about the dish for him.
“That was a great one. I’m sure Christian’s is right there at the top,” said coach Bill Self, who only could think of one or two other passes that might have been better in his 12 years as a head coach.
“I had a kid at Illinois one time, Frank Williams, on an ESPN game against Iowa. They threw a pass over the wrong shoulder. He’s running, turns around, catches it with one hand and while he’s catching it never looks and throws it back to the trailer for a dunk to (Brian) Cook. It may be the best one I’ve seen,” Self said.
Last year, Aaron Miles fired a long, bullet bounce pass to Moody, who caught the ball and in full stride cashed a layup at Colorado. Miles, by the way, also had a three-quarter-court lob pass to a streaking J.R. Giddens for another layup last year at home versus the Buffs.
“When you talk about pure passes,” Self said, “Aaron’s pass (to Moody) against Colorado was one of the best passes.”
Miles thinks Moody’s dish to Giddens was better than any of his highlight-film assists.
“His was a great overall team play,” Miles said. “If you look at it, Keith (Langford) passes to Wayne (Simien), who drew the double team. As soon as the double team came, Wayne dropped off to Moody, and Moody’s reaction to J.R. … it was a great play.”
Moody wound up with 10 points and 10 rebounds for his first career double-double.
Self said after the game he might switch things up in the near future and toss one of his freshman into a starting role. It doesn’t figure to be tonight with Self, like everybody else, enjoying Moody mania.
“To be candid, I’d almost like to try something else,” Self said, “not because of Christian not deserving it, but because I don’t want to try it at Kentucky (Jan. 9). I don’t want to try it in Big 12 play. If we do try some things, it won’t be permanent things. It’d be trying to get a better feel of where we are before conference play.”
Freshman C.J. Giles had four points off 2-of-6 shooting with five boards in 13 minutes Thursday.
“C.J. is a really talented kid. I’ve not given him a chance to play a ton of minutes,” Self said. “He needs to play more minutes. Even when he screws up, he still is around the ball. He had five points in 13 minutes. The guy left out was Sasha (two minutes) because Christian was so good. Trust me, I didn’t go into the game thinking Christian would play 27 minutes. He played really good basketball last night in a lot of ways.”
Not good enough to nab the national cable channel’s play of the day, which went to Tracy McGrady, who scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds of Houston’s 81-80 win over San Antonio.
“No. 1 deserved to be No. 1,” Self said. “He (McGrady) scores 13 points in 35 seconds. That may be the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.
“He was on pace to score over 1,100 points in the game,” Self quipped.
Darnell Jackson, who suffered a concussion Monday at practice, is expected to play tonight.
“I’m ready to get back in the mix,” Jackson said Friday. “We were running a shell drill. Sasha came up with an elbow and hit me in the temple.”
He wasn’t frustrated watching from the sidelines Thursday.
Who: Kansas vs. Louisiana-LafayetteWhen: 7 tonightWhere: Allen FieldhouseTV: ch. 13, 38 (cable 15); replay 10:30 p.m. on Sunflower Broadband ch. 6 |
“It felt good sitting out there and watching everybody have fun,” Jackson said. “I wanted to be part of it, maybe next time.”
Simien, who came down wrong on a foot late in the game, was fine Friday and also figures to play.