Not dunking doughnuts, but dunking the basketball.

“Aaron told me before the game, when we were at dinner, he said, ‘I dunk when I want to,'” Kansas sophomore shooting guard Michael Lee said of his buddy, sophomore point guard Aaron Miles, who had botched a couple of dunk tries, but had yet to convert a slam during his 46-game KU career.

“I said, ‘Man, you don’t dunk when you want to.’ He came out today and he wanted to dunk it. He finally got one after years of trying,” Lee added, ribbing Miles in a happy locker room after the Jayhawks’ 80-67 victory over the University of California.

The 6-foot-1 Miles, who put down a simple one-handed dunk after plucking a steal in the first half, offered a quick rebuttal while listening to Lee’s comments.

“In high school, I dunked all the time, every time I had a fast break,” Miles told Lee. “In high school, I dunked ALL the time,” he repeated, laughing.

“Yeah, we’ve seen you dunk. Today you were a pretty good game-time dunker,” said Lee, like Miles a former high school standout at Portland’s Jefferson High.

Sophomore forward Wayne Simien, who is known for his vicious dunks, also has been known to harass Miles about his lack of slams entering the Cal game.

“We give him a hard time about missing dunks. He finally got one down today,” Simien said.

Miles didn’t only dunk Saturday. He scored 16 points off 7-of-10 shooting and dished 11 assists against four turnovers improving his season totals to 76 assists against 35 turnovers.

Several of Saturday’s assists resulted in inside buckets for Simien and Nick Collison, who scored 17 and 16 points, respectively.

“Precise, man,” Simien said of Miles’ passing ability. “As usual, he did a great job distributing the ball.”

The Jayhawks (7-3) were adept at sharing the basketball, finishing with 22 assists on its 31 baskets.

“We all passed the ball well,” Miles said. “That was our downfall at the beginning of the year. We are all trying to get back to sharing the rock a lot more. A lot of times early in the year we had one-on-one play. Now we are sharing the rock.”

The Jayhawks, who will take a four-game winning streak into Thursday’s game against UNC Asheville (7 p.m., Allen Fieldhouse), are looking like a well-oiled machine offensively.

“Our team is playing so much better than we did early in the year,” Collison said. “At the beginning of the year we were rushing it, taking horrible shots.

“The biggest thing is we are playing better as a team. I think we saw clearly after the Oregon game (a 84-78 loss that dropped KU to 3-3) we had problems not being patient, taking bad shots. It’s night and day the difference offensively from the beginning of the year to now.”

The Jayhawks also appear to be a much more confident team.

On Saturday, KU embarked on an 8-0 surge after a 22-point lead had dipped to eight.

“The confidence showed when they cut it to eight and the crowd got into it,” KU coach Roy Williams said. “After that, we scored on five of our next six possessions and got some stops and it went from eight to 16 quickly.

“We are getting more confidence. Better play helps your confidence, no question,” Williams added.

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Clinic on Tuesday: KU’s players will hold their annual holiday clinic for youths from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday at Allen Fieldhouse. The clinic, which is for boys and girls in grades 3-8, includes three hours of instruction from KU players and coaches, followed by a 60-minute autograph session. Registration is from 11 a.m. to noon in the south end of the fieldhouse. The cost is $55 and includes a T-shirt, calendar and ticket to Thursday’s KU-UNC Asheville game.