evolution

The bad gets worse: After participating (some say instigating) a fight at a Lawrence bar during which he was stabbed, Jayhawk forward J.R. Giddens is going to transfer away from the University of Kansas.

J.R. Giddens will transfer from Kansas University, head coach Bill Self announced today.

Self, who stressed that this was a mutual decision and not a disciplinary action, said he and Giddens came to this conclusion around 8 p.m. Wednesday night. He added that he didn’t know where Giddens would be transfering to, but that he would help Giddens in finding another school.

“The last six weeks have been a difficult situation for all parties involved following the May 19 incident,” Self said. “J.R. and I have both taken enough time to remove the emotion of the decision and come to the conclusion that a fresh start for both parties would be best. We certainly appreciate his efforts the last two years and wish him the best in the future.”

Giddens, who averaged 10.1 points last year as a sophomore, was stabbed May 19 during a fight outside the Moon Bar. The Douglas County District Attorney’s office has said it would be sometime in July, at the earliest, before it decided whether the evidence warranted filing charges.

Be sure and get a load of the snotty comments left by Journal-World online readers, and snotty editorials that are sure to appear in the print version, and snotty remarks sure to be heard on every street corner in Lawrence. KU basketball fans are surely the most ungrateful fans in all of American sports. Witness what happened when Roy Williams left the school. Witness how every single player who transfers away is treated, no matter the reason for the transfer. Never mind that they were recruited to play there.

Suppose you were a high-school player of moderately-high talent or beyond, and you were approached by KU about a basketball scholarship. You’d learn that the University of Kansas is a good school, and that Lawrence can be a fun town for a young man. You’d learn that the program has a long history of success, where many players have found work in the NBA. Then, you read some back issues of the Journal-World and mention the names of people who might not quite have lived up to their inevitable hype as the Second Coming. See how they are treated by the media and the fans. Tell me again why you’d want to play there, when you can play for any of two dozen other top programs?

UPDATE [15:17]: Here’s the Kansas City Star story that immediately followed the incident. From this description, it seems that Giddens was himself armed with a knife. He is quite likely in very serious trouble. Many will say that KU doesn’t need this, and in that they are correct. Many more, however, will engage in a bit of revisionist history about his abilities, and still fail to recognize that they invite this upon themselves. Do you want the best players? At what cost?