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SPORTS
KANSAN.COM
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Cheick Diallo shines in Kansas basketball debut
SCOTT CHASEN
@SChasenKU
The day Kansas big man Cheick Diallo had been waiting for was finally here. It had been 21 days since the Jayhawks played their first official game and far longer since the team was featured in the World University Games this summer in South Korea. For all of it, Diallo was sidelined because of an investigation into his eligibility.
Game after game he waited to play, until his day finally arrived, but even on that day.
he'd have to do a little more waiting.
"I was waiting for this game for so long."
CHEICK DIALLO freshman big man
It wasn't until the 12:57 mark in the first half that Kansas coach Bill Self finally put in his top rated freshman, who agonized over each of the
423 seconds that came off the clock before he made his debut.
"I was so scared and nervous at the same time," Diallo said. "[Last night] I was thinking about this game — what I was going to do ... I was waiting for this game for so long."
As Dialo walked to the scorer's table to check in, the crowd of 16.300 let out a collective roar, the likes of which had not been heard in Allen Fieldhouse since last season. Chants of "Cheick Dialo" broke out across the crowd.
quieting down only when
pay resulted and resurfaced at the next dead ball. It was almost as if — alongside Di
allo -- the Kansas crowd was letting out its collective frustrations with the entire process that had held him out for nearby a month, as a raucous, rabid electricity filled the air.
Duke ... but this place is just really really special"
"The atmosphere was just tough to prepare for," Loyola (Md.) coach Orlando Smith said after the game. "Our guys have been to Syracuse before; we've been to West Virginia; we've been to
That atmosphere led to some nerves for Diallo. Playing in his first game at the collegiate level, Diallo dribbled off his foot a couple of times; he whiffed on a couple of blocks before finally connecting on one — the lone highlight of his five minutes and 28 seconds of playing time in the first half.
"At the beginning of the game I don't know what I was doing." Diallo said. "I turned the ball over so easily."
However, as the game went on, things slowed down for Diallo, who was able to show flashes of the talent that has excited many around the country.
"When he first got out there, he had jitters," senior forward Perry Ellis said. "But once he got in the flow of the game he was fine. I think that's the key thing" - just getting up and down [the court] a couple of times"
In the second half, Diallo quickly went to work, slamming the ball home off a behind-the-back pass from junior guard Wayne Selden Jr. With the proverbial seal on the basket broken, Diallo poured in 13 points over the last 15 minutes of the game, none off which were more empathic than his "hand behind the head" tomahawk slam with five minutes to go.
"Yeah I thought that was cute," Self said with a smile.
"I told him after, 'Cheick, v don't do that.'"
And the dunk didn't just catch Self off guard, it even surprised some of Diallo's teammates.
"I didn't see it coming; I didn't know what to expect," Selden added. "I just glad he made it because when a freshman gets on a fast break, you never know what can happen."
However, Diallo was a little more confident in his ability to finish the play, noting it wasn't the first time he had pulled off that specific dunk before.
"I used to do that at my high school," Diallo said. "At the Jordan Brand Classic, I did it too."
The freshman finished the game with 13 points, six rebounds and three blocks, as the Jayhawks went on to win by 33.
But there was one number that stood out more than the others: 16 — the number of minutes Diallo played in the game, and in a greater sense, the number of minutes he he has now played in his college basketball career.
And after playing in his first game, Diallo noted he had one thing left to do before the experience was complete.
"Tonight was the [night]. I had to prove to everybody I could play," Diallo raid. "Now, I'm so excited ... I can't wait to call my dad tomorrow."
Freshman forward Cheick Diallo gets on the ground to battle for the ball against Loyola.
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