Mayer: Morningstar perfect for KU

By Bill Mayer     Jun 18, 2005

There’s decent evidence that Free State High’s Brady Morningstar will spend a year at a New Hampshire prep school, then return to where I’m convinced he belongs – on the Kansas University basketball roster.

For all his talents, Brady doesn’t yet have enough meat on his bones. It’s said he’s a 6-foot-3 by 165-170-pound package, but I think some scale-master has been a bit generous.

Right now, Morningstar could go to any number of smaller schools and become an instant sensation. That would be a waste. A fine kid with his abilities and his solid Lawrence background deserves to showcase himself at a school like KU.

Given another year to refine his skills and get a little bulkier without losing any of his ability to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, he’ll be a valuable addition to the Kansas program, ready to produce immediately as a freshman.

Further, coach Bill Self will have had a year to refine the promising crew he’ll have the coming season and Morningstar can become another jewel in the crown.

All along when there was talk about another 2005-06 scholarship opening at KU, I was wishing they’d find some way to give it to Brady, raw-boned though he may be. But chances are with all the talent on hand and the promise of the newcomers, Brady’d have faced a red-shirt year. He’d have learned a lot about Bill Self’s system and the people in it, but it would not have been the same experience and seasoning he will get at a prep school with other able-bodied kids sharing collegiate, or pro, ambitions.

The competition provided by the New Hampton, N.H., experience will be invaluable for the nifty Firebird product, who averaged 19 points the past season as a Free State senior. One of the greatest things about Brady is that in an age when there are so many ham-handed bricklayers in basketball, the kid can really shoot, and hit, from anywhere. He has remarkable soaring ability, can dunk if the prospect presents itself and already is blessed with slide-and-glide instincts a lot of kids never develop.

His daddy, Roger “The Goose” Morningstar, is a former star on a Jayhawk Final Four team (1974), and Brady the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Roger, at 6-6, averaged 11.7 points and 4.8 rebounds in his two seasons at KU after prepping in junior college. The family has been successful in business here, and it will be great for them to follow Brady as a Jayhawk. Could be the kid will become even more prominent in Crimson and Blue annals than his pop.

I haven’t heard anything official, but I’m sensing this is the direction being taken. Considering how many recent KU players have been so pathetic as crunch-time shooters, it will be sensational to have a smooth, agile, alert ball-handler who can score points from anywhere – and who wants the ball in a pinch.

I’ve long felt that any time KU takes a local high school kid, including walk-ons like Stephen Vinson, it helps its relationship with Lawrence. That applies to football, or any other sport, male or female. The last LHS four-year basketball contributor was Chris Piper, the first guy coach Larry Brown signed, then made take a red-shirt year, in 1983-84. Larry had a good feeling about taking promising local kids. Chris gave Brown full justification from 1985 through 1988 after starring on a Lawrence state-title team.

OK, you can say Danny Manning was another LHS gem mined by Brown. Not quite. Danny’s dad, Ed, was a Brown assistant, and Danny played only a year at Lawrence High after “the package deal” involving a shift from North Carolina. But bottom-line, LHS can claim it sent both Piper and Manning to KU, and it turns out that wasn’t a bad pair to draw to.

My feeling is that KU ought never allow even marginal athletes of any sex in any sport to go elsewhere if it can possibly get them. One of the cardinal sins of the university for years has been to take Lawrence too much for granted, in many categories, when it would be so simple to make that extra gesture of respect and appreciation. The tattered town-gown relationship right now needs all the bolstering and refurbishing it can get. A process that will put a local kid the quality of Brady Morningstar on the campus, better late than never, is well-conceived – particularly when the youngster has the healing potential of Brady.

¢ There have been some sensational National Basketball Assn. playoff games this year but the fan interest seems to have lagged, apparently because of too many “unknowns” like foreign players. Teams like San Antonio and Detroit with their Kansas links via Gregg Popovich, Larry Brown and R.C. Buford play the game the way purists believe it should be but there must be too many other distractions to keep followers hypnotized. There are bona fide stars galore but no Wilt Chamberlain-Bill Russell confrontations, no Magic Johnson-Larry Bird legends and no Michael Jordan to work miracles. The miserable floppola by the selfish pros at the latest Olympics hasn’t helped the NBA image, and there is concern about future attention.

All the more reason for the owners, players, union and such to find some way to prevent a lockout strike for next season, whether it lasts a week, a month or the whole slate. Pro hockey wiped out a year, and people didn’t even seem to notice. Again, too many other things to do and see. If the NBA calls its quits, even for a while, will anyone really care a lot? How sad if Kansas’s Wayne Simien should get shortchanged by some lousy strike.

NBA attention ebbs and flows. The late George Mikan did much to establish the league in the early days. But it was faltering. Along came the Russell-Chamberlain combat to really put things on the map. Then the likes of Johnson-Bird, then Jordan kept the lines moving productively. The tide seems to ebbing again, despite some brilliant playing and coaching. For whatever reason, the San Antonio-Detroit faceoff isn’t matching up to the Michael Jackson circus, the runaway bride or some of these outlandish reality charades on television. “Desperate Housewives” and “Alias” have been eating basketball’s lunch.

Does the NBA dare risk a year of absence in the face of such dwindling interest? Again, look at what happened to hockey.

Mayer: Young squad to test Kansas coach Self

By Bill Mayer     Jun 11, 2005

Some basketball teams are overcoached and undertaught, as in the NBA. Others are visa versa, as with some micromanaged college clubs.

Kansas University’s Bill Self is going to have to do perhaps the best job of his career in both categories if his Jayhawks are to offer any semblance of contention for Big 12 Conference honors. Along with all that, Self and his staff will have to mother-hen, baby-sit and 12-steps counsel a lot of their charges, even if the controversial J.R. Giddens is not around.

The way Self has been talking, J.R. just might not be. There are lots of issues to address, hard-nosed and serious, and I don’t think the coach is going to be lenient. He sure as hell shouldn’t be, all things considered. Yet during the ongoing babble about who did what and with which and to whom in that Moon Bar debacle, nobody formally addressed one rather vital issue about Giddens: Will he be academically eligible to start the coming season?

J.R.’s out tomcatting around in the wee hours of a day he supposedly has a final exam. That’s worrisome enough, but then he gets a knife slash on his calf that will keep him in clinical shape for several more weeks. He’s not enrolled, at least yet, for summer school – when athletes often fill chinks in their academic armor.

Were his grades good enough before the leg problem that he could compensate for the final in question, or will he have to enter school later in the summer to rectify the books?

Giddens’s silliness and immaturity will make him the target for horrendous abuse from road crowds – should he be kept on the roster. Imagine what those sleazy Antlers at Missouri will cook up. If J.R. got harpooned about the high school Wal-Mart incident, imagine what opponents will come up with after the “Do you know who I am?” utterance J.R. seems to have used. Such doesn’t help a youthful, rebuilding team.

Present or absent, Giddens should not be allowed to become the centerpiece for the coming season. Especially if he keeps shooting bricks. There are a lot of notable and deserving young men we should focus on, guys who’ve earned the right for favorable attention.

The youth and inexperience of this ’05-’06 outfit will be overwhelming, outstanding though the talent might be. Self and Co. have to teach them, coach and cajole them and blend them into an outfit that will be at least a spoiler if not a conquerer in a league where Texas and Oklahoma loom mighty large.

We have not begun to see all the wondrous things that sophomores Sasha Kaun, Russell Robinson, C.J. Giles and and Darnell Jackson have to offer. I want to see Robinson get a full-fledged chance to blossom. Then there will be such promising freshman additions as 6-4 Mario Chalmers, 6-10 Julian Wright and 6-8 Micah Downs. There are seven guys right there who, with the proper tutelage and blending, could win titles in a lot of leagues.

There’s size, versatility and there should be the kind of eagerness that will make these guys coachable and perceptive.

Young, sure. But bear in mind what Michigan’s Fab Five did as freshmen and sophomores, reaching the NCAA title game two years in a row. It’s far-fetched, but it could happen. Self, in my book, is a better coach than Michigan’s Steve Fisher was, or is.

The veteran Christian Moody, as a 6-foot-8 senior, can help give this club the kind of stability and consistency that can get it into the league and NCAA hunt and keep it there. Already we’ve set an eight-man rotation that hundreds of coaches would envy. And if fifth-year senior Jeff Hawkins stops delivering promises, promises and promises as he has up to now, and produces an all-around game a veteran with his background should, there’ll be added benefits.

I’m almost happy for Moulaye Niang, who has had to give up the game because of a bad back. Senior though he might be, he couldn’t see much chance to get off the bench; he’ll be spared embarrassment as a coaching aide. As for the itinerant Alex Galindo, his departure from this promising group is his loss.

What about Jeremy Case, the sharpshooting Oklahoma City kid who’ll be a junior? Toss him in, and you have a doggone impressive 10-man outfit. That doesn’t even include 6-4 Southern Cal transfer Rodrick Stewart, who falls eligible in December after sitting out the NCAA-required year.

Coach Self and his staff will have to work long and hard to develop this group, particularly the real green ones. We can only hope they get to concentrate on coaching the game and the more traditional issues rather than more late-hour frivolity matters which Giddens has visited upon them. So far, it seems that any other Jayhawks who might have been around for the Moon Bar Massacre can remain in good graces.

We can only hope nobody else decides he’s above the rules of the common herd. Self has not sounded the least bit sympathetic about the fact Giddens besmirched the squad and the university with his after-hours activities the past season.

If J.R. is retained, he’s going to be on a short leash with a bread-and-water social diet and warned to “be good or be gone.” One malevolent hiccup and he’s history.

If Giddens is not willing to grow up and measure up, he shouldn’t be allowed to detract from a team that has tremendous promise. With Self and his people trying to overcome the Bucknell Bummer and make noise in the Big 12, there’ll be a lot better chance for these kids measure up to their wondrous promise if they have no more distractions and don’t encounter any “stage daddies” of the nature that helped send David Padgett packing.

With a little luck and minimum outside interference, Kansas could have a surprisingly good season.

On a personal note, a letter-writer got his nose out of joint earlier this year when I compared the four senior starters for the 1952 NCAA and Olympic title team to those of the overrated 2004-05 four-year crew. My point was that the old guys were clearly better and that to compare the other ’52 starter, the inimitable All-American Dean Kelley, to last season’s fifth starter, J.R. Giddens, was obscene.

In view of recent developments, I second that motion, popular or not.

Mayer: Simien, May best of Williams’ former players in upcoming NBA Draft

By Bill Mayer     May 29, 2005

OK, you’re Roy Williams and you have eight guys you coached, well, seven, who could be considered for the coming professional basketball draft. What do you tell the ivory hunters when they ask whether North Carolina’s Sean May or Kansas University’s Wayne Simien is the better pick?

Both are about the same size, have similar skills and played in winning programs. Both have missed significant parts of college seasons because of injury but seem to be pretty durable at this point. Simien may be the better pure shooter, particularly from the free-throw line, but May might have a slight edge as a defender. They list May at 6-foot-8 and about 260 pounds and Simien at 6-9, maybe 255, though some scouts say he’s more like 6-7. That will be settled at the tryout camps, of course, where the talent-sifters learn everything but the consistency of their navel lint, providing they have an “insy.”

Williams can face this year’s draft, and the coming rebuilding season, in a bit more relaxed mood since he finally wears that NCAA title ring … The Ego Has Landed. A lot of pressure is off “the best coach never, until now, to win an NCAA title.” But he’s constantly bombarded with questions about pro prospects he’s coached. Roy’s bound to have some special affection for May since Sean helped him get that title that meant so much. But he also deeply admires Simien because of all the adversity Wayne’s overcome to rate as high as No. 10 when the NBA guys make their grabs.

Bear in mind, too, that when Williams bolted for the North Carolina job after Wayne’s sophomore season, in a moment of disappointment, Wayne remarked that he “gave my right arm for that man.” Maybe Roy might figure he owes the kid something a little special under the circumstances. As I recall, Wayne was due in New York for major shoulder surgery when the Williams departure developed. There were rumors at the time that Roy didn’t pay enough attention to how Wayne was doing, because of all the transition hubbub. Compensation-time?

Things are a lot better now. Wayne and Mom and Dad Simien are at peace with what has transpired. Knowing the premium Roy places on loyalty, he’ll doubtless help Simien every way he can, which is a lot. Yet there still might be a slight edge for Sean May.

North Carolina’s three other NBA prospects rate far higher on the chart than KU’s Keith Langford, Aaron Miles and Michael Lee. Williams will feel no pressure in the recommendations here, and shouldn’t. The 6-4 Rashad McCants clearly has more potential than the 6-4 Langford; UNC’s Raymond Felton is a better, more versatile point guard than Miles; KU’s 6-3 Lee for all his dedication and spirit can’t in any way measure up to Carolina freshman Marvin Williams, a 6-10 wunderkind some think is the best of all the Carolina departees. Langford and Miles might do well to be second-round selections.

Marvin Williams doggone near went NBA right out of high school and people around Chapel Hill, including teammates, rave about what he can do. Dean Smith is always chided for being the only coach who could hold Michael Jordan to 20 points a game (as a collegian in a team framework). Roy Williams used Marvin Williams as his fifth or sixth man, got tremendous results and by now has let all the scouts know just how good this kid can be. But Old Roy favors veterans, so Marvin had to pay his dues as a yearling. A kid with lesser character and such great talent would have bristled; Marvin, with a devoted mother who has been his guiding light, fully enjoyed winning a title ring in just one year.

And word is he’ll be an even better NBA player than Carmelo Anthony, who won an NCAA title as a yearling at the expense of Kansas. We’ll see, but the point is that Roy Williams didn’t have to struggle to promote Marvin, whom some think he’s at least a No. 3 in the draft.

So where does all this leave KU’s and Leavenworth’s Simien? At one time, there was evidence he might go as high as fifth in the draft, which would mean a guaranteed contract for three years and about a $10 million package. Then the Carolina guys and a lot of other collegians began to leap into the pot, there was talk about some phenomenal talent in foreign countries. Certainly the NBA is loaded with non-Americans of tremendous caliber and word is more are on the way, along with all the college guys who are bolting early.

Wayne has appeared to be backsliding, to No. 10 or lower. All loyalty and KU blue-bleeding aside, which guy would you pick first as an NBA coach and manager – Wayne Simien or Sean May?

After Roy went home to Carolina, there were difficult times with the self-centered McCants, the first of the Tar Heels to announce an early out. The two finally seemed to congeal, and Roy reportedly told McCants that when he chose to go pro, Roy would back him to the hilt and be there for the draft. That was long before the 2004-05 season and before the Heels captured the NCAA trophy. And before it was certain that three other Tar Heels would be up for grabs.

The guess is that Williams will be at the draft site to give moral support to his talented quartet. Will Simien attend, on the basis that some team has told him they’ll take him high; will he and Roy Williams be hugging if that’s done? Who gets hugged first, Sean May or Wayne Simien?

I’ve never rooted harder for a KU product in the pro draft than I will for Wayne Simien. In him you get not only a fine basketball prospect but the kind of kid who will add class to any roster. Wouldn’t it be great if the Chicago Bulls would take him, reunite him with Kirk Hinrich and then blend him into a team that would make the playoffs again next year?

But there’s good reason to worry that might not happen, not because the Bulls wouldn’t be good enough but because there’s talk of a total lockdown by the owners for 2005-06. If this proves as disastrous for basketball as it did for hockey, the draft could soon be inside-page news. Can the players, the union and the owners really be that doltish? Ask the hockey people how dumb you can get.

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