King Article says Giddens incited Friday night fight
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.
* Have the Phog Blog come to you! * Subscribe to Comments
27 Responses to “King Article says Giddens incited Friday night fight”
Leave a Reply
Comment Policy:Be polite.You must be logged in to post a comment.
May 27th, 2005 at 8:52 am
Did anyone else start laughing out loud when they read about the two guys from Astros who just happened to pull up right as this was going down? That was HYSTERICAL!!!
The key to this whole thing is going to be what the police find from the phone records.
May 27th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
I mostly agree with the sentiments expressed here, a couple of key points:
1) Malcom X was a Spike Lee joint, not an Oliver Stone flick. (Thus at least 15% more historically accurate.)
2) While I agree with the believability issues cited here, we’re being naive if we don’t at least acknolwedge that SOME of this is very true, and very damaging. For example, if Giles was inovlved, that’s REALLY bad. Like worse than J.R. Also, I read this and was totally incredulous about certain aspects of it (the guy’s girlfriend brings him a knife, and then goes back into the bar? WTF?). Also, the main cooberating witness for Jeremiah is a 34 year old townie from Topeka.
Yet, by all the accounts in here, Giddens had a chance to leave, not fight. Now, if this dude was skulking in the parking lot and didn’t try to avoid a confrontation — which I think is highly possible — we still have a situation where at least three current or former KU ballers were beating down this guy. And I’d also like to know why KU basketball players are rolling with people who are convicted of attempted murder. That should be, perhaps, more alarming to Coach Self than the fact that Giddens got into a bar fight. Because let’s not overblow this: It was a bar fight. Dozens of frat boys and hotheads get into them every weekend. The differences here are 1) A knife became involved and 2) A basketball player was involved.
A barfight — should you be kicked out of school for a bar fight? That’s the question, I think. In this case, the cascading effects of Giddens’ offenses might warrant a suspension or kicking him off the team.
What this isn’t, I don’t think, is akin to other scandals such as Ricky Clemons. For one thing, alcohol clearly fueled this. For another thing other improprieties didn’t seem to go with this. And this wasn’t a girl J.R. beat up — it was a self proclaimed “gang” member from Olathe, of all places.
And Whitlock is just nuts to compare Jeremiah to Malcolm X.
OUT
May 27th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Right on Jeff! That’s funny. Whitlock must be trying to regain lost credibility since he was accused of being a KU homer on his radio show. He’s trained in the classic “Newsweek” journalistic school… “We don’t report the news we just create it!”
May 27th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Reading this article is like reading a freaking police report. You have to take everything for about half of what its worth. I don’t believe for one second that JR just came up to this guy for no reason and starting asking him if he had a problem. He was being a drunk jacka$$ before JR ever came up to him. “Bucknell” and “brick” came out of his mouth alot. The security guards threw him out for being generally disruptive (I also won’t believe what they say because they favor the basketball players because them coming to the bar helps business). He WAITED outside for them. That girl didn’t come out and hand him a knife. He already had it on him, or he went and got it after he left the bar. They came out and he continued berating them.
This does not excuse JR. He needs to be big enough to let that crap roll off him. He needs to be the bigger person. But alcohol played the best for both of them, they yelled at each other, and someone threw the first punch. Who I don’t know. It matters but is not everything. In the end he had a crew with him and didnt need to get into a fight. JR certainly wasn’t defending himself from anything but some idiot yelling at him.
What is Malcol…I mean Mr. gangbanger going to say? I stabbed JR with a knife and committed an aggravated battery? Especially with having some criminal history he might be looking at some prison. Multiple counts of aggravated assault and some other batteries look possible as well.
This whole thing is a MESS….I was really upset to hear CJ was involved as well.
May 27th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Just as I suspected the Associated Press has gotten ahold of King’s and Whitlock’s stories and is now reporting them as fact as well. Basically they’re reporting on someone else’s reporting with no regard for finding out what actually happened. Sorry J.R. from now on you’re going to be perceived as guilty no matter what the facts are.
May 27th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
I love how everyone is saying that the story is not fact and is akin to the bad reporting in Newsweek because it is negative about KU basketball. So, what is worse: that this happened or sweeping it under the rug like nothing happened? There is a high chance that he was an active participant. Furthermore, alcohol is no excuse. If you kill someone in an accident because you were drunk do you get to say “Oh, but alcohol was involved so I cannot be held responsible.” Of course you cannot, so magically because he plays basketball here he can. Giddens has had his head filled with all this garbage about him being above everything because he is a great basketball player, which he is. He needs it grow up at some point and take some responsibility. Learn something from the seniors that just graduated.
P.S.
Does Giddens become so much more credible because he is a basketball player. If it were not for that fact he would have faced some sort of charges for the Walmart incident.
May 27th, 2005 at 10:19 pm
Was saddened to hear of the recent tragedy for the mediocre KU basketball team and for the losses for the less-than-mediocre KU baseball team. NOT! Oh yes, great Phog, could you put another link for the Border War so we could see first-hand that Mizzou won again after winning the first year 32.5-8.5 and losing last year by 3 points! Kind of makes you want to chant, Rock Choke, Jawhawk!
May 27th, 2005 at 10:25 pm
First Bucknell and now this. Things keep going south for KU. Will it stop, we can only hope NOT!
May 28th, 2005 at 10:44 am
This whole fiasco is starting to read like a whodunit. A previous commentator said something about the phone records being key…that might be exactly right. Seems like there should also be more eye-witness accounts than what’s on record so far. Bill Self must be seething right about now.
May 31st, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Bill Self may be seething, but he’ll never show it. He’s too professional for that.
I think the way this hurts KU the most is in the recruiting realm. If you listen to comments by potential recruits they talk a lot about relationships they are developing with current KU basketball players, and almost all of them seem to love JR (e.g. Cole Aldrich). Now if you’re JR and Bill Self, what do you do to save those relationships?
One thing Roy always did that I think was good for recruiting was how he always stood up for the KU basketball player, regardless of the circumstances. Remember all the ’stuff’ Lester Earl got into? Roy always had his back, even when the media and the fans did not. If you were a future player, wouldn’t you want a coach who wouldn’t turn against you, even if you made a really bad mistake?
John, you’re a dork. This has nothing to do with Mizzou. Stop bringing Mizzou into this, no matter how much bar fights and stabbings feel like a part of Mizzou.
Thanks AJ for the props on the phone records comment. It’s one of the only solid pieces of evidence available to actually help understand what happened.
June 1st, 2005 at 6:26 pm
This is so sad, Jayhawks fans dont know how bad they are going to be soon, or at least worse than Mizzou. They will find out soon enough and will be crying for Bill Self to get fired.
Go Mizzou!
June 1st, 2005 at 6:27 pm
BTW, Great job Mizzou owning the Border War!!
June 2nd, 2005 at 7:54 am
Thanks Villa for adding nothing to this topic.
June 2nd, 2005 at 10:58 am
That Villa is quite the silver-tongued devil isn’t he… must be a Mizzou J-school grad.
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:10 pm
You never know, Villa could be from the “Whitlock School for Advanced Analytics”. Villa, if you think about it, is a lot like Abraham Lincoln, similar to how Creswell fits the mold of Malcolm X.
June 2nd, 2005 at 5:16 pm
Hey villa, is this also lobos? If so, I know where you live. Criticizing KU when your whole athletics department is corrupt. You have got to be kidding me. This was an isolated incident, not a scandel like Misery has had in the past. Talk about choke, lets talk about losing to your rival when shutting down your own crib. Let’s talk about the futures of both teams also. Who do you have returning next year, and who are your recruits? Hmm… never heard of them.
June 7th, 2005 at 5:39 pm
Phil, dont talk because you obviously haven’t done your homework. You guys have a better recruting class, fine, but that doesn’t mean squat. Mizzou has a way deeper team than you as well. You lost your whole freakin team man!!! How do you expect to be better. We may lose Kliezam we might not. Plus, we were way younger last year and you guys we way older, so that means we get better and you get worse, hey and we still beat you last year!! Mizzou is going to get better, no question and again, if Bill Self cant win one tournament game with that team that he had last year, what do you expect him to do next year? I understand Quin Snyder has had some problems coaching, but the players didn’t perform as well as they could have either, plus the NCAA invetigations really damaged our potentially amazing year, when Rickey Paulding and AJ were seniors.
O yea, our recruting class. How about Leo Criswell, he is good and he has potential, and didn’t we steal one of your recruits, yeah, DeAndre Thomas. I love how KU fans were so excited about him when he was about to go to KU and now that signed with Mizzou they try to act like he’s bad. Typical KU fans.
GO TIGERS!!
June 8th, 2005 at 8:52 am
Villa -
About doing your homework…
A couple things to help you out with your points… just little things to give your ideas a little more clout. First, the player you’re probably going to lose to the draft is Linas Kleiza, not “Kliezam”. He is expected to go about #6 in the 2nd round (click the link for a mock draft).
http://www.nbadraft.net/index.asp
Next, it’s recruiting, not “recruting”… Being able to spell recruiting helps when making points about recruiting.
Then, oh “yea” (you probably meant “yeah”), Leo Criswell. Rivals.com ranks him as the #112 recruit for his class. Wow, that IS exciting. You got someone that KU wouldn’t even bother looking at! KU landed three McDonald’s All Americans, one is 6-8 like Criswell (eerily close to Creswell…), except ours shoots the three ball…
DeAndre, if he was smart, would have been a nice off the bench guy at KU. Now he is actually going to become a worse player by going to MU and being coached by Quin. It’s actually a little sad. But based on his comments about KU and Illinois after he chose MU, he deserves MU.
You forgot to mention your other recruits, Keaton Grant (3 star) and Matt Lawrence (no stars). Probably because they’re going to be crappy too. Quin is quite the recruiter.
Villa, you can pretend that you’re going to support MU and like your basketball team all you want right now, but once the season starts, and KU is outperforming and MU is underperforming, you’ll go back to KU bashing and trying to mention MU basketball as little a possible. It happens more and more each year, at least since Quin came to town.
Good luck with your “deep” team next year…
June 8th, 2005 at 11:29 am
Now I know Villa is a Missouri J-school grad!!!
June 8th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
Villa, as far as your comments on us expecting to be better, I don’t think that there is a true KU fan that follows the team that thinks we are going to be better. We will take our lumps through the season. But at least it is not every season that this happens. Is MU always in a rebuilding year? By the way, good recruits (or recrutes as you put it) that you mentioned. Neither one was as good as Kleiza, so there is most of that offensive firepower that MU has been known to have. And please don’t rip on Self’s coaching. It seems every year is “just a bad year” for the mighty Quin. Has he ever developed a player besides AJ? Saying that the players didn’t perform as good as they should have? The coach doesn’t perform as good as he should either. He was supposed to be the second coming being a Dukie and all. He’s a dookie alright.
June 8th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
Phil - the only thing I take exception to on your comment is that no true KU fan can believe we’ll be any better. I think we won’t have nearly as good of a start, but my gut tells me that we’ll have a heck of a better finish (I’m not just talking about the NCAA Tourney). The beginning of this season, with all the newbies and with what’s going on with Giddens could be pretty bad though…
June 8th, 2005 at 10:48 pm
Losers!!! This site is hilarious, hick KU fans trying to teach me how to spell!!! Do you guys even go to school, I thought you worked on your farms all day!! LMAO!!!
Do you losers fail to notice that I don’t spend my life on this site and dont need to spell check my message, its called a typo, wow! I guess I really hit the spot because Jeff started bashing my grammar first instead of things acually related to basketball.
You will learn your lesson soon enough.
BTW, why would I need to bash KU? The stats have proven enough. Mizzou is leading the all time Border War Cup 2-1, so as of now, WE OWN YOU!!! LICK MY TOES!
June 9th, 2005 at 8:30 am
Who is this guy?
A typo happens once… you misspelled recruiting both times you tried, which indicates a lack of ability to spell the word correctly. This probably means that you’re dumb.
I started with your spelling just to warm up on how “smart” your comment was… is your reading comprehension bad enough that you couldn’t get through the rest of the comment?
From your last comment: “Do you losers fail to notice that I don’t spend my life on this site…” - Villa, you probably spend more time on this site than the average Jayhawk. Advice: try the spell-check.
Border War Cup? Who cares? What does that have to do with the two college sports 99% of people actually care about - men’s b-ball & football? The Border War Cup is like a consolation prize to make you feel better. I guess it’s working. You’ll never see me brag about KU winning an arbitrary Border War Cup.
Hicks? Seriously Villa, how many teeth do you have left?
Lick your toes? Did you seriously write that? Considering soap probably hasn’t made contact with either of your feet for years, I think I speak for the phog nation when I say, we’ll pass.
I can’t wait to learn my lessons!
June 9th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
Anyway…. so, JR was stabbed… stories are conflicting… yadda yadda…
June 17th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
I love it when people correct spelling errors on message boards. It is like trying to prove that you are in fact smarter than the previous poster. Lets put some things in true perspective.
1. The pieces in the KC paper were designed to sell newspapers, and are not completely impartial. However, Whitlock has interviewed nearly all people that were eyewitnesses and has a fairly good fix on what took place.
2. The were one former and two current KU basketball players involved in an incident that at the very least involved in second degree assault. First degree assault is can be just threatening to hurt someone. Anytime you actually attempt to punch, kick or strike another human being you have commited assault. Not charging these individuals with any crime when witnesses were there is ridiculous….if they were ordinary citizens they would have been in jail the same night.
3. Attempting to link this to the Clemons incident is like comparing apples to oranges. However, it just shows that KU is recruiting the same kind of thugs that MU is. Dont try to deny it…..winning is the most important thing, and to ignore this kind of behavior and slap him on the wrist only reinforces that this kind of behavior is accepted at your university, and lets your other star student athletes know that they can do whatever they want with no consequences.
4. As for basketball next year. You have a nice recruiting class, but McDonalds all ameericans dont pan out all the time….look at Travon Bryant here at MU. Look at Giddens career thus far. DeAndre did pass on KU to come to MU, so don’t disregard that. I’m not a big Quin Snyder fan, and don’t have big expectation for next year, but let me say this. If Self does the right thing morally and dismisses Giddens…….and suspends Giles for his involvement, then your team revolves around freshmen with big egos. Good luck! That is unless your superstar Niang raised his game by 1000%, because someone with his skills would never hit the floor in Columbia.
June 21st, 2005 at 10:57 am
DeAndre Thomas did not pass on KU. Self gave the open scholarship to Moody. Thomas then settled for Mizzou to try and get a little payback. It worked really well for Travon Bryant.
June 21st, 2005 at 11:41 am
It wasn’t even an open scholarship. Basically DeAndre showed what a complete a—— he is. When Self told him “Hey, we like your skills but we don’t have a scholarship right now” he pretty much said “Then take one away from someone and give it to me because I’m better than anyone you have.” You just can’t have somebody like that on your team. Snyder believes he can take punks like that and make a team out of them, but basketball doesn’t work that way. Everyone has to submit to the system in order for the team to achieve it’s potential. That’s why Snyder has to go. I’m sorry, I don’t care for Mizzou but it’s like watching a suffering animal. Just put it out of it’s misery. Please.