RICO GATHERS ARRESTED AT WALMART.



  • He’s probably the best rebounder in the country. I’m sure the local authorities will slap his wrist. He might miss a couple of exhibition games. Who was our incoming Freshman that also did the same thing at Walmart before coming to KU? Seemed to have happened 10 to 15 years ago.





  • @wrwlumpy oh what was his name? Roy recruit, freshman Self’s first year. 3?point shooter and dunker, got knifed outside a bar and transferred to NM. Drafted by the Celts. I know all this and can’t remember his name. Yes, Walmart trouble the summer before he came.



  • Giddens



  • @wrwlumpy This is unfortunate. I happen to like Gathers. Seems like a pretty good kid on the court. And when you’re stealing $171 of stuff from Walmart… well, doesn’t that settle it that Scott Drew runs a clean program? Kudos for that. The last few years I’ve come to appreciate Drew a lot more.

    Yes, stealing isn’t cool. But this could be a lot worse. I hope this doesn’t derail him.



  • @Crimsonorblue22 I was thinking Giddens too. He turned out to be a thug. I also remember his altercation that resulted in him getting stabbed in the leg. Self then cut ties. He then went to New Mexico St.



  • @truehawk93

    A lot of misinformation about Giddens. If you read Beyond the Phog by Bill Simmons, you get a very different view of him.



  • @JayHawkFanToo Oh sure…you mean this piece from the book?

    (http://www2.kusports.com/news/2011/sep/28/beyond-phog-excerpt-jr-giddens-dreams-dashed/)

    It was early in Self’s coaching career. However, when a kid gets stabbed, it makes you ask questions. It seems JR knew exactly what happened and had a hard time dealing with the facts. It seems he was an innocent kid that got in the way of a knife fight. Then, he was mistreated. Why am I typing this? It’s moot. He was expelled and kicked off the team by a major university, and an experienced head coach. I’m sure Self thought long and hard before making that unfortunate decision.



  • @truehawk93

    Giddens was not the only BBall player at the Moon bar when the incident happened, he just happened to the be one that got stabbed and run off the team. When I think of all the stupid things I did when I was 19, I thank the Lord that I did not end up like many others and I had people in my life that had patience and provided guidance…not that I was bad kid, just a natural born rebel.



  • @JayHawkFanToo you still need guidance!🍑🍑🍑🍑🌳🌳🌳🌳



  • Gathers stole two pillows, a water dispenser, tote bag and trash can? What was he doing, disposing of a body?

    Did he really think he was going to pull that off?

    So he throws his senior season up in the air over $171 worth of stuff he could have bought at a garage sale for $20?

    This is just one more reason why coaches need to put BRAINS on their list of attributes needed in a recruit!

    I understand being young and dumb… but these guys have all worked hard to get where they are and have a carrot of big bucks awaiting in the NBA if they play it right.



  • @truehawk93 JR Giddens getting run was similar to Self running Tharpe a few years later. Giddens had become a total liability on the court and Self got the convenient excuse to boot him without looking bad. Once the ball got to Giddens, you knew he was jacking up a 3 and he was only a 33% 3 point shooter his sophomore year.



  • I can already see our home game with Baylor this year…

    Gathers at the FT line and the student section all brought pillows to throw up in the air!



  • @drgnslayr that would be ksu, I don’t think we allow that at AFH. Jmo



  • @Crimsonorblue22 Thanks to you and @RockChalkinTexas for being the guiding maternal influence of all of us over-zealous frat boys on this site.



  • @wrwlumpy Happy Friday to you! Think UT is glad some of the media is now drawn to Baylor?

    I can’t speak for @Crimsonorblue22 but in the words of Curly “I resemble those remarks.”

    3stooges.jpeg



  • @wrwlumpy Omg, that’s just plain idiocy. Oh well, glad he isnt a Jayhawk.



  • @drgnslayr HA! Thats so funny! Yah, that needs to happen.



  • What’s the big deal? Doesn’t everybody shoplift? <smirk>



  • @drgnslayr

    So he throws his senior season up in the air over $171 worth of stuff he could have bought at a garage sale for $20?

    PHOF!



  • @jaybate-1.0

    If he was going to steal, he should have gone for the Tempurpedic pillows. They cost around $100 a piece. 🙂

    Then, if he ever gets famous in the league, he could do a commercial for them saying they are “worth stealing.”



  • @drgnslayr I highly doubt that, Walmart doesn’t sell anything worth $100. 😉



  • @Texas-Hawk-10

    The Walmarts in my area carry quite a few high end products; if they don’t have it you can order it and pick it up at the store in a couple of days. Very few thinsg that you cannot order at Walmart anymore…at least in my area (Johnson County, Kansas)…



  • @KUSTEVE The only time I’ve ever really considered shoplifting is EVERY time I go to Walmart. I don’t really like waiting in line for 6 hours because they have 3 cashiers for 1500 customers.



  • @nuleafjhawk

    One way to rationalize it all is to consider how many manufacturing jobs Walmart has stolen from the American workforce and handed them over to China.

    I’ve never shopped there… at “Chinamart!”



  • @JayHawkFanToo I thought that passage (in Gidden’s own words…) was very chilling, and Self’s direct rebuttal (the part in italics, where the author called up Self in 2011 for his response) was by far the most uncomfortable part of that 400+ page book. Since its all player stories in their own words, its a very cool read. Players from 2000-2010.

    My first thought was that Self chose the hapless JRGiddens to make an old-school “example” out of, to show its Self’s way, or the highway…I had hoped at the time (2004-05) that Self came, and Giddens was hard to corral, that maybe the Oklahoman coach would give fellow Okie JRGiddens some slack, but actually, I think Self expected MORE out of JR, especially since Self had Mr.Oklahoma Bball distinction himself once-upon-a-time. Mickey-D or not, JRGiddens simply should have known better. Which, I know, is only too easy to say with hindsight.

    I do appreciate the fatherly way in which Self handled Darnell Jackson’s situation, as well as Mario Little. It could be that Self simply uses his personal “take” on a kid, and if he’s a good kid, he’ll work with him.

    Finally, regarding Tharpe, I was 3feet away from Self when during the Q & A anything-goes-session with us fantasy camp guys in April, he was asked about Mason and Tharpe. His reply was “Mason was supposed to be this good as a freshman, but he was influenced by Tharpe, who tried to ‘not make coach mad’, and thus wasn’t a good influence on and off the court”. (He didn’t give specific examples). Then continued on: “…No, Naadir was a good player, but he simply had to go. From a leadership standpoint, he HAD to go…”. To me the selfie picture incident seemed a minor part of Tharpe’s dismissal, and the TEAM leader thing seemed almost more important. True, the selfie is an example of poor off-court decisions, but I got the distinct impression Self was really after aggressive on-court leadership dynamics.

    Bringing in Nic Moore from SMU, may simply be a direct-injection way to download the “proper” mindset into Mason and Graham, and Selden…

    This, to me, is a HUGE glimpse into Self’s mindset. People, all cynicism and sarcasm about early exits aside, I found it very appropriate what level of vision and focus Self has into what he wants. I don’t know why I am astonished by that. The other aspect of this that is very cool, is that Self obviously talked to Larry Brown, and now you have Larry Brown’s + Self’s input on what could make these jayhawks better, and you have “Nic Moore”, some 5’9 dude, coming to help us. Brown+Self have concocted this idea to help KU, so I’m real curious to see it play out. Personally, I thought we were absolutely fine with Mason + Graham and Selden just needed the draft-stock-matchstick under one of his farts, & he’d be back to his DWade-kills-FL impersonations…

    I also see Sherron saying Mason reminds him of himself. And I notice EJ was in town 3 days ago running with the boys, and Mason dropped 31pts.

    Again, I understand any cynicism and sarcasm that’s been thrown Self’s way, especially with these last 2 youngster-riddled teams, but he most definitely is working the problem. And natural progression to an upperclassmen-laden, experienced team is about to tip the balance back into a “strong” Self squad…imho…(we’ll see, right?)



  • @ralster

    Excellent post as always and a very insightful view into the program and more specifically into Coach Self himself.

    I am with you on the Giddens issue; when I read that chapter of the book it was definitely disconcerting and left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess we might never know what really transpired behind close doors but I could not help but feel sorry for Giddens who genuinely thought let down by KU.

    In many ways coaches are the first real role models many of the less privileged kids have in their lives and as such, perhaps coaches, much like real parents, have a moral obligation to stand by the kids in the good times and particularly the bad…up to a point, of course. Given that there was the possibility that he might never play again, maybe he should have been suspended from the program for one year and given the opportunity to get his life in order. Of course this is easy for me to say since I don’t have all the facts and I am not making the decision, which goes to show how hard the HC position really is, both on and off the court.



  • @ralster

    “Bringing in Nic Moore from SMU, may simply be a direct-injection way to download the “proper” mindset into Mason and Graham, and Selden…”

    I have been imagining bringing Nic in is more to show our PGs how to lead. I like how you included Selden, too. I think Self is using WUG 100% for our upcoming season development with less emphasis on winning WUG. Glad he is taking that approach because it is rare when a coach gets summer ball with most of his team and it includes real games and all of it means nothing or as much as you want it to. Perfect test and teaching situation.



  • @JayHawkFanToo Yep, I really truly felt sorry for JRGiddens, the way he told his version of the story 7yrs later (in 2011). When he said Self wouldn’t even let his teammates go see him in the hospital, I felt uneasy about that. But Self’s rebuttal shows he’s stuck to his guns as well, saying JR had chance(s) to come clean and give all the facts of the incident, but apparently didn’t.

    So, as you perfectly put it, we’ll never know the full account of what happened at “da club”, or what was said behind closed doors. I also saw some team disarray in those last RoysBoys, and their BucknellBummer, and we also knew they were fighting against Self and his system (Langford admitted exactly that in summer 2008.), and maybe Self took aim for more than 1 reason on vocal, boisterous, J.R.Giddens, who unwittingly provided an opportunity, then compounded his error by not coming clean.

    Self also fired CJGile out of the cannon so hard, he landed back on the West coast. There clearly was some background difference in the “assault” that CJ did, vs the “assault” that Mario Little did. Circumstances evidently made the difference in how he handled the 2 situations.



  • @ralster JR was called a thug on one of the threads a few days ago. Do you agree with this characterization?



  • Ultimately what it boils down to is, until we have the ability to get inside the heads of HCBS and his players, all we can do is take what he said/he said and speculate. It gives us something to post and read about until the season starts.

    And I think the story on Rico mentioned that employees were suspicious of him on some past trips to the store, so the talley may actually be more than the $171 they have proof of. But that’s pure speculation on my part.



  • @sfbahawk Ya know, to be fair, I don’t think I’ll know enough about JRGiddens to be able to assess his true character. So to call him a “thug” is hard for me to do (he may or may not have been during his KU years). My connotation of thug is a person who will try to get away with whatever he wants, regardless if it is illegal or not, and may have violent tendencies. Usually I equate this to criminals/drug dealers, etc.

    Now there’s plenty of wannabe’s out there who simply want that “street tough” cred, and will sometimes get caught trying to do something to build said “cred”, which usually means they aren’t very good at it. Giddens got busted shoplifting in OKC before he ever got to KU, then there’s the knife/barfight thing…

    Another example of “wannabe” would be Allen Iverson, with all the painful “gun-toting” bad PR he gave himself trying to represent that same “street tough” cred. What a joke I thought in the 90s, and still think it today. But always a new crop of kids every year trying to “show” they are tough.

    Bottom line: My observational “guess” is that JRGiddens was a pretender. He had no reason to be a thug, nor was he any good at it, which tells me he wasn’t for real. I think whatever went down at the bar, he got scared with the facts, didn’t tell daddySelf the whole truth, and paid a price.

    Apparently it took a year of rehab for his leg to fully recover. I felt sad for him. We rooted for him. For a while, he wore our jersey very well.


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