Giddens shines, rhymes for KU

By Ryan Wood     Mar 20, 2004

Scott McClurg/Journal-World Photo
Kansas University freshman J.R. Giddens, left, goes up against UIC's Jovan Stefanov in the second half. Giddens finished with a team-high 17 points in KU's rout of Illinois-Chicago.

Who knew that Kansas University men’s basketball guard J.R. Giddens, already a high-flying, long-range-shooting, in-your-face freshman, could drop rhymes like he drops dunks?

No, really. Ask him about Illinois-Chicago, a hard-nosed, undersized team that fell, 78-53, to the Jayhawks on Friday at Kemper Arena.

“They were small and scrappy,” he said with a grin, “but we came out happy.”

No doubt.

Especially Giddens, who scored a team-high 17 points — none of them quiet — and added four rebounds and two blocked shots. Nine of his points came on three-pointers, and four more came on spectacular fast-break dunks in the second half — the first a two-handed, double-pump throw-down, the second a one-handed tomahawk jam.

The roof almost blew off Kemper Arena, with a majority of the 17,667 fans rooting for KU and loving every minute of the second-half slaughter.

“Those are pretty fun,” Giddens said of the dunks. “Those are always pretty fun. You get to get a little flashy. I always see LeBron (James) on the highlights, and I’m like ‘Can I get one? Can I get a breakaway, please?'”

Friday, he got two.

“We defensive-rebounded the ball really well,” junior Keith Langford said. “We got our opportunities to run from that, and J.R. got some easy buckets in transition. That was really key.”

Giddens’ adrenaline — as apparent as ever on college basketball’s premier stage — seemed to work wonders in making his nagging foot injury a non-issue Friday.

As the dunks showed, his hops were fine.

He also hit three of four three-point attempts and six of eight shots from the field.

Giddens, who had been bothered by a stress fracture in his foot, said he felt good throughout the game.

He didn’t participate in Thursday’s open shoot-around, wearing a boot and watching from the KU bench.

It’s all good, now.

Of course, winning a first-round game by 25 points in front of a KU-frenzied arena is enough to get any Jayhawk feeling good.

“When you’re winning and playing hard, basketball’s fun,” Giddens said, giving up the poetry after just the one verse.

“That’s what we were doing tonight.”

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