Former University of Kansas small forward/NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce, whose jersey No. 34 hangs in the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse, is planning on attending Saturday’s Big 12 battle between KU and BYU.
He made that announcement this week on former Boston Celtics teammate Kevin Garnett’s “KG Certified Showtime Basketball” podcast.
“I’m excited to get back there. (It’s) first time in a long time. It’s been a minute since I’ve been back,” said Pierce. He told Garnett he will attend the 3:30 p.m. Central time tip, with his oldest daughter. “I’m ingrained in the history. It’s time to get tapped back in,” Pierce added.
Pierce — he played at KU from the 1995-96 season through the 1997-98 campaign before entering the NBA Draft — said he hasn’t been back to Lawrence since playing in the Legends of the Phog alumni game in September of 2011.
Prior to that he had returned to Lawrence for his jersey retirement ceremony in January of 2003.
“I even called Mario Chalmers to say, ‘Man, meet me there,’’’ Pierce added of the former KU and NBA guard. “Hopefully he’ll come because he’s part of a national championship that he won. He’s a legend there in Lawrence, Kansas. If you’ve got us both in the building it will be pretty dope.”
Pierce, who won an NBA title with the Boston Celtics (in 2008) as the highlight of his 19-year pro career, said he was most looking forward to “walking on campus, going to practice, being in Allen Fieldhouse. It’s my first time back in that building in over 10 years: ‘Home of the Phog’ they call it.
“I’m telling you … when you walk into that building it’s got so much tradition. I don’t even know how to explain it. But for me, in NBA terms, it’d be the Boston Garden of college. You’ve got the floor, the bleachers. They’ve got a sign at the top that says, ‘Beware of the Phog.’ The building is named after Phog Allen. They’ve got the banners of former players’ numbers up (in south rafters),” he explained.
Pierce mentioned to Garnett that his record in the fieldhouse was “48-0 (actually 44-0). When I go back, it’s going to be 49-0,” he added, hoping for a win over BYU. “I never lost. I don’t know what it feels like in that building.”
In explaining how loud it gets in Allen he recalled a riveting comeback win.
In November of 1995 … “We played UCLA the year after they won the national title. They were beating the (bleep) out of us. It was almost an L,” he recalled.
“We rallied so bad. It might have been the loudest I ever heard a gym.”
KU trailed by 15 points at halftime, rallying for an 85-70 victory over UCLA, a school located just down the road from his childhood home of Inglewood, California.
“If I replay some of those games on YouTube … some of those games with Dick Vitale in there, oh man,” Pierce said. “When you talk about the energy of a building, being a real sixth man, it’s even hard to describe it.”
Continuing to reflect on his playing days at KU, Pierce said: “Just say the game was Saturday like this game coming up Saturday. I’d be going to class on a Thursday. There’d be students out there camped out because they want to be the first ones in there (on game day when doors open).
“They’d be camped out, sleeping. I might be signing some autographs on campus. Tickets are hard to come by. You are the star out there because there’s no NBA. There’s the Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas Jayhawks.”
Garnett seemed to enjoy listening to the 48-year-old Pierce’s recollections of college.
“When I was there we were No. 1 in the nation.” Pierce said. “Bill Self … he’s got two national championships. He’s been there 23 years. He’s won two (champion)ships. There’s so much history there.”
Pierce’s former KU teammate, Jacque Vaughn, is a first-year assistant on Self’s coaching staff. Pierce and Vaughn, of course, played for Roy Williams at KU.
“It was so loud in there, you can’t call out the coverage so we had defensive signals with Jacque. He’d put this up and we’d be in man; this up zone. Two fists means something. Two hands means something. It was a defensive signal every time,” Pierce said. “Jacque is there now as a coach.”
Of course Pierce timed his visit for a huge game between No. 14 KU (15-5, 5-2 Big 12) and No. 13 BYU (17-3, 5-2). KU’s Darryn Peterson and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, both freshmen, are battling it out to see which player will be No. 1 in the 2026 NBA Draft.
“This is going to be the game of the year,” Pierce said, noting he had not yet met Peterson.
Asked by Garnett if the matchup — which comes in Game No. 1,000 in fieldhouse history — could influence what scouts think of the two players, Pierce said: “I think so. When you have big prime time games with two prospects you get to see them both in the same room live. There can be an assessment: ‘Hey, all right, this guy showed.’ The anticipation, the buildup … you want your players to rise to the moment, (be) the best dude, who will rise to the moment?
“If AJ can come out and have 40 or if Peterson comes out and gives ‘em a good 40, you are going to be like, ‘OK, he rose to the occasion.’ That means he’s got what we have seen in him. There are visuals of long arms, hands, being athletic. In a big game if you see it, it’s something not in your measurables. It’s ‘OK I saw this today. He rose to the occasion.’’’
Pierce continued: “That’s why the NCAA (tournament) boosts a lot of people’s stock. When people have a basic year then go to the tournament and it takes off, you see a lot of players that went high (in draft) because of that tournament. It told you something you didn’t notice before. Now you are on a bigger stage and you perform.”
Pierce said he couldn’t recall a huge 1-on-1 player matchup that he was involved with in his three years at KU.
“Nothing like this. These are 1 and 2 (in the draft; Pierce went 10th overall in 1998 Draft). I played against Chauncey (Billups, third in 1997 Draft). He was tough. Probably the best player (he was matched up against) was Michael Dickerson of Arizona in the tournament. He was a projected lottery pick (who went 14th in 1998 Draft). These two are different, one and two. We’re going to see,” he stated of which player would emerge as best in the draft.