This article is going to cause the sharks around JR Giddens to circle. If you haven’t read it, and you like JR, and you lack the ability to read critically, you might not want to read it. If you have read it and you don’t like JR, this is not the place to come and heap more pain on him, because you can’t read critically. Or if you plan to put on your Black Panther glasses like Jason Whitlock did today and compare the man who knifed JR Giddens, Jeremiah Creswell, to Malcom X, well, there might be a special place for you with white halls, chubby nurses and soothing music. Seriously:

Let me make this clear: Jeremiah Creswell isn’t an angel. Life without a father, life with little money, life with little direction has turned him cold and defiant.

But his humanity hasn’t been erased. His gangster posturing doesn’t justify a mob swarming and attacking him. It doesn’t mean he’s a pathological liar. It doesn’t mean he’s incapable of experiencing and giving love. His friends praise him for his attentiveness and affection toward his son. Jeremiah’s life has no less value than yours or mine. He’s capable of change.

What crime or immorality has Jeremiah Creswell committed that Malcolm X didn’t?> It probably seems odd or farfetched to compare Jeremiah to X. But at one time in his life, the legendary black leader was viewed no differently than Creswell.

Let’s see here…Malcolm X was a bit of a hellian…Jeremiah Creswell is a convicted felon and wannabe gangsta…it’s perfect. Too bad for Whitlock, whom I generally enjoy, that there have been a hundred million other punk ass kids since Malcolm X who didn’t join the Nation of Islam, start a revolution, get assassinated and have an Oliver Stone movie made about them.

There’s one reason why this article reads the way it does, and that’s because you’re hearing one side of the story. Have I any doubt that JR was in the wrong place doing the wrong thing and shares some blame for what happened? None at all.

But this story doesn’t make sense. Think about it: 12 men, among them extremely large basketball players are pounding on one tiny guy with “bricks” and “glass” and other “foreign objects”. This quote, in particular stands out:

“They were hitting him with bricks and all kinds of foreign objects,” Flores said. “And they were doing it from (close) range. There was blood all over him. It was a total annihilation. I was really disappointed.”

Creswell was treated with 12 staples for a gash on his head, but that’s not bad enough for what is described quite melodramatically, by not one or two but three convicted felons in this article. 10-12 big dudes, among them a convicted attempted murderer, by all accounts all drunk, should have killed Creswell if they were using bricks and bottles how I imagine they would be used in a fight. The human body just isn’t made for that sort of punishment.

I knew a guy in high school who got in a drunken fight one night. He and a couple of his buddies started beating on another kid…somebody grabbed a tire iron and before they knew what happened, the kid died. That was three people.

Ten could do a lot more damage. I’m just not buying this story for that and a number of reasons. Don’t get me wrong. I would be fine with it if Bill Self booted JR from the team for putting himself in this situation, despite the fact that I like JR a lot. But when all the facts come out, and that may not happen, today’s Star account is not the story that will emerge.

I think what will likely happen is that JR will suffer a suspension of perhaps five games, and hopefully he’ll have learned a lesson about where not to be and about with whom he should hang. If the story is even partially true, which I suspect it is, Creswell is lucky to be alive, and JR is lucky to be only worried about healing his leg.

Fresh from the Lawrence Journal World:

Giddens injured in fight outside bar

(Web posted Thursday at 10:34 a.m.) Kansas University shooting guard J.R. Giddens was injured in a fight early this morning in the parking lot of the Moon Bar, 821 Iowa. Lawrence police said Giddens was treated at Lawrence Memorial Hospital for a laceration to his leg. The wound was characterized as “non life threatening.”

You can bleed out pretty quickly from the leg, what with the large arteries and such. I hope JR is ok.

Wisdom doesn’t grow on trees. Nor does it seem to run in the Rush family. I suppose I should reserve judgment until the deed is done, but here’s hoping that he has better luck than JaRon:

Brandon Rush, a 6-foot-6 athletic swingman at Mount Zion Academy (N.C.), will declare for the NBA Draft.

Rush’s mother, Glenda, confirmed the decision with CBS SportsLine.com and said her son will make an announcement before Saturday’s deadline.

He is the younger brother of Charlotte Bobcats guard Kareem Rush and former NBA player JaRon Rush. Brandon is from Kansas City and spent this past season at Mount Zion.

Rush has not committed to a college and has until June 21 to withdraw from the NBA Draft — as long as he doesn’t sign with an agent.

A happy ending and a happy beginning?

“It’s their pro team in Lawrence,” added Lewis, who averaged 27.5 points and 9.7 rebounds a game his junior season for 26-12 Rummel High. “It’s Kansas basketball. It’s what they live for. I like that, playing before a packed house every night. Who wouldn’t want it?”

Indeed. I always find it strange when the kids who visit in the Spring say such things about Kansas Basketball. I understand why Russell Robinson joined me on the field in October of 2003 as we beat Missouri in football - it was a glorious day to watch college football and Lawrence had to look a lot different from what he may have expected.

Because for our coastal betters, most of whom view Kansas as a sort of dusty plain attacked daily by tornadoes, a visit to Lawrence is like a strange dream. It’s hilly, diverse and stocked with just just enough down-home country goodness to be comfortable and just enough sophistication that you won’t get too many strange looks if you don a black turtleneck anytime you wax ambivalent about the guilty pleasure of eating foie gras. The weather’s nice in the Spring, flat out crappy in the Summer and sometimes epic in the Fall.

And then there’s the basketball, when a fifth of Lawrence’s population throbs inside the hallowed halls of Allen Fieldhouse. If Dwight Lewis is impressed with KU now, his mind will boggle the first time he walks through the tunnel into the loving screams of 17,000.

“I’m a two guard, but in Coach Self’s offense, all three guards are interchangeable,” said Lewis, giving us yet another view of Self’s little/big system. Lewis added, “”I think I can be an impact guy right from the start.” His high school coach agrees:

“He definitely will be a contributor early on. He’s a scorer,” said Rummel coach Steve Alfonso, who compares Lewis to former Villanova player Kerry Kittles, who also hails from Louisiana. “His best asset is he has a great mid-range game. He can handle the ball and pull up quick.”

Lewis is said to be a great off the dribble shooter - a penetrate and shoot kind of guy. Watch him rise up the rankings throughout the Summer. Parade considers him one of the top 6 juniors in the country, or so one might judge by their inclusion of Dwight in their this year’s All-America team. If the past is any indication, he’ll be playing in the McDonald’s game next year - so about 11 months from now, come back for a highlight video…

Welcome back Dwight.

According to the Lawrence Journal World, Dwight Lewis has committed to KU, and this time, he’s serious.

Dwight Lews[sic], a 6-foot-5 guard from Louisiana, has committed to Kansas. Lewis, who chose KU over LSU, said he was blown away by his visit to campus and loved the atmosphere in Lawrence surrounding basketball. He said his decision was final and he would make no other visits.

Welcome back Dwight Lewis. Please hang around a little longer this time .

Update: After thinking about it a little further, I have decided to remove the Quin Snyder photo. From what I’ve been able to put together, Quin was likely in town for the Jazz Festival with his wife, and had a few drinks on Bourbon Street before running into some Jayhawks out for a bachelor party. While I’m always keen to have a little good spirited fun at the expense of Mizzou (something that won’t change any time soon, I might add), I felt that the picture was perhaps a little too easy to take out of context, and that I really don’t wish Quin or his family any grief.

If I have caused any grief to Quin or his family as a result of my posting the image, I am truly sorry. If I’ve severely disappointed KU fans who enjoy a good-natured poke at Quin in a humble moment, I apologize for the disappointment - I just thought it better to play it safe and retreat a bit.

The more I know about the situation, the less it seems like a Eustachy moment, and the more I feel like I wouldn’t want a date with my wife published across the internet for all to see.

What’s more, in talking to a buddy about the KU-MU rivalry of old, and the way in which KU treated Norm very well when he was honored at the Fieldhouse a few years back, and the way in which Roy and Norm worked together for the Coaches versus Cancer program, I just got the feeling that I didn’t mind a spirited rivalry, but there’s no reason it has to be personal. Maybe posting the picture wasn’t personal - I certainly didn’t intend it that way. I was actually encouraged by a Bucknell-hat wearing Mizzou fan (no kidding). Anyway, it’s getting late, so I gotta sign off. Apologies for all the drama - I’ll try not to post anything that I’ll later feel inclined to remove.

-The Phog

I like what I’ve read about KU in the last few weeks - it’s only served to reinforce some of my opinions about next year’s team. Andy Katz writes today about JR in an article all Jayhawk fans should read. And to the rats who harassed JR on his www.facebook.com account - grow up, or harass me instead. It’s the fashionable thing to do these days, it seems.

He must now. Giddens is the central figure in one of the most important reloading situations in Kansas history. Self took over a veteran, loaded Jayhawks team and went to the Elite Eight in his first season after Roy Williams left. The Jayhawks were expected to meet North Carolina in an Elite Eight matchup in the Syracuse Regional this past March but were ambushed by the Bison.

“Bucknell was better than us on that day,” Giddens said. “But since the season has ended, we’ve been closer as a team. I’ve got a lot of respect for the seniors, and I’m not saying we’re going to be better. We’re going to have a good, young team next season.”

Perhaps I’m reading between the lines here, but it seems to me that there was a lot of dissension on last year’s team, and that dissension led to our playing less than the sum of our parts. I’m guessing that next year the team will be on the same page, and that we’ll actually play a little better than the sum of our parts, especially towards the end of the year.

The likely top eight next season will be Giddens on the wing with freshmen Micah Downs and Mario Chalmers, freshman Julian Wright in the middle, and then, in some order, senior forward Christian Moody, sophomores Russell Robinson (a guard) and Sasha Kaun, C.J. Giles and Darnell Jackson (big men) as well as rising senior guard Jeff Hawkins. The three freshmen are all considered to be impact players. Self has been assured that Wright won’t be flirting with the NBA draft.

“We need [Giddens] to have a great year, not only from a playing standpoint but a leadership standpoint,” Self said. “He needs to come through in a big way and I think he will.”

How has this manifested itself already?

“It started the first day the season was over, in the weight room and in individual improvement,” Self said. “J.R. deferred to the older guys last season and that was OK, but now it’s basically on him.”

Next year will be a much more enjoyable year, from start to finish, a few agonizing stupid losses notwithstanding.