I’m not a Moon Bar junkie. Let me get that out there right now.

When the establishment at 821 Iowa opened during my college days at Kansas University, I didn’t bother going there. I had my other hangouts — It’s Brothers, Abe & Jake’s Landing and the old Yacht Club, to name a few.

I went to those places because I enjoyed and was comfortable with the crowd, which often included a lot of KU athletes from all sports. I had become acquainted with many of them while writing for The University Daily Kansan, and hanging out with them away from the playing field was a good time for me.

During my days at Mount Oread, which wrapped up all too fast in 2003, the Moon Bar never, ever was on “the list” — the unwritten charter of cool night spots where KU athletes mingle.

Trust me, there is such a list, and it changes with the seasons, without warning. After years of being the No. 1 hangout for KU athletes, the old Yacht Club was abandoned for whatever reason, and was relatively empty for months before it closed in 2002. It re-opened later with a new theme.

That in mind, I can see how the Moon Bar’s audience can change at the snap of the fingers, like it apparently did. Many hangouts experience such sweeping makeovers.

For a while, I remember the Moon Bar as a karaoke bar, and private karaoke rooms still are in place all around the outer walls of the main room of the bar, which has booths on your right as you walk in, a long bar in the back, and a couple of pool tables in the middle of the room.

I never went there when it was known as a karaoke hangout, and I’m pretty sure most KU athletes didn’t bother, either. My first time at the Moon Bar wasn’t until a couple of months ago, in fact, and I was surprised at how off-base my assumption of the place was.

People weren’t there for karaoke. All around the place were fliers promoting live DJ’s coming on certain nights. Almost all the bartenders were good-looking college-aged women. I asked a well-connected buddy about one woman working the night I was there, and he informed me that he knew her, and she was in tight with the basketball players. I also learned the bar owner also knows the Jayhawk hoopsters pretty well.

That certainly would explain why more than a half-dozen current and former basketball players were present on the early morning of May 19, when J.R. Giddens was slashed in the calf with a four-inch knife, severing an artery, sidelining him for more than two months and raising a ton of questions that will have 1,000 different answers, depending on whom you ask.

My perspective is unique. I help document the actions of these guys on the court for a living, but I also attended KU the same time a lot of these players did, and being a single 23-year-old, I still go out in Lawrence often and see these guys while I’m out.

The Moon Bar wouldn’t have been on my short list if I was asked where the basketball players like to go, but considering the conversation I had with my buddy when I was there this spring, it’s not too surprising. A lot of college students frequent hangouts if someone they know is behind the counter serving the drinks.

Without knowing all the facts, what developed in the early-morning hours of May 19 is disappointing — and that about sums it up.

No matter what went down, who provoked whom and who started what, you can’t convince anyone involved that the brawl outside of The Moon Bar that night was worth the hassle it has caused so many people since.