“It’s like the NFL,” said Self, whose Jayhawks will meet Pittsburg State in a practice game at 7:05 tonight at Allen Fieldhouse. “The NFL has four or five exhibition games. I don’t think anybody gets too hung up on what the scores are in those things. You are just trying to learn about your team.”

Tonight’s exhibition comes a week after KU rallied from a 10-point, second-half deficit in a narrow 91-87 exhibition victory over EA Sports, but Self insisted his Jayhawks wouldn’t try to win by, say, 50 or more points against the Division Two Gorillas.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Self said. “Our goal is to get better. I like for our guys to play when the collar is tight a bit. I didn’t know in an exhibition game the idea was to make sure everyone left totally happy with the point differential.

“I thought the idea was to get your team better. We can draw from that (EA Sports) game in the future because we were behind. I wouldn’t have wanted to lose the game, but it was a positive — a great game to get the players’ attention.”

Self said the Jayhawks had practiced well since last Tuesday’s preseason opener.

“To be honest, I think we’re a lot better team than we were a week ago,” Self said. “We are not ready to play a regular-season game, but we are much farther along. We are right now this week where I wish we were last week.”

One of the standouts of last week’s game — 5-foot-11 guard Jeff Hawkins — likely will start tonight.

“He’s shown at practice he can do a lot of different things,” Self said of the Kansas Citian. “He’s going to play. He’s got to be in our rotation and get some minutes. We desperately need from that position somebody to get the ball in the basket, somebody who can stretch the defense, somebody other teams have to guard and can’t dive down (on big men) so hard. He shoots it as well as anybody we have — at least behind the arc.”

Hawkins likely will start with junior guards Aaron Miles and Keith Langford, who missed last week’s game because of a sore right knee.

“I want to have that feeling of getting my name called out,” Langford said. “I just want to be on the court with my uniform on, running up and down, scoring a few buckets and a dunk or two and have fun.”

Self hadn’t decided which two big men would get the starting call tonight and, more importantly, during the regular season.

Candidates are Jeff Graves, Wayne Simien and David Padgett.

“With Jeff, Wayne and David, if I was those guys I could care less who started,” Self said. “They are all going to play the same amount of minutes no matter what. We’ve got three starters inside, but only two will run out there for introductions. We may not start maybe our most effective guy. We could possibly not start a David. If everybody is going to play equal minutes, he might be better at the end of the game than the start of the game.

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“There are a lot of scenarios. It makes me nervous starting Jeff. What does Jeff usually do when the game starts? Foul. Now you’ve got a big guy playing out a foul situation early. We’ll play it by feel.”

Self said freshman guard J.R. Giddens, who struggled in early workouts and played just seven minutes Tuesday, had several strong practices since the EA game.

“J.R.’s minutes will continually go up as he continues to progress,” Self said. “He’s not where he needs to be. He knows that. He’s gained a lot this past week.”

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Masked man: Graves, who has a hairline fracture in his nose, has been wearing a protective mask at practice the last several days.

“He will wear the mask at practice the next couple of weeks,” said Self, noting the senior forward probably wouldn’t wear the mask tonight. “It makes it real hard to catch and see.

“I’m trying my hardest to adjust to it,” Graves said of the mask, which has two white plastic straps in the front and a black band in the back. “It’s a hazard to see. It does work. I’ve gotten smacked in the face and it’s prevented it (further damage to nose).”

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In-state games to continue: This marks the 12th straight year KU will play an in-state NCAA Div. II team and the fourth straight year to play a Div. II team in the preseason and one in the regular season.

Self would like to play Div. II schools in the preseason only.

“I hope the rule changes to not allow you to play exhibition games against non-four-year institutions,” Self said, noting there is legislation on the table to prevent Div. I schools from playing all-star or AAU teams.

“Then you can play both exhibitions against Div. II programs. In the future we will continue to play Div. II programs, but I don’t know that we will continue to play two of them if we can’t play both as exhibitions. I think this is a great exhibition game. From their perspective they would rather play them as exhibition games than regular season, too. They don’t count on your won-loss record.”

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Hard knocks: Hawkins might want to consider taking up football as a career someday. He showed Monday he can survive a hard hit when he blindly ran into Graves (6-9, 255-pounds), who was setting a screen.

Hawkins went down hard and banged the back of his head on the court. Hawkins was able to resume practicing after about 10 minutes. Padgett also whacked his head on the court during a scrimmage situation and had to watch the remainder of the workout from the sideline.

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Early signing date nears: KU is expected to sign three high school players Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period. They are: Alexander “Sasha” Kaun, 6-11 from Russia, who attends Florida Air Academy in Melbourne, Fla.; Russell Robinson, 6-1 from New York; and Darnell Jackson, 6-9 from Midwest City, Okla.

Malik Hairston, 6-5 from Detroit, who has visited KU, says he will sign in the spring. He is also considering Ohio State, Michigan, Arizona, Oklahoma and UCLA. Ohio State is the leader.

“Michigan, Ohio State and Kansas are the schools that I really like,” Hairston told Shay Wildeboor of rivals.com.

KU is out of scholarships, but conceivably could over-sign for a player of Hairston’s caliber. Self has said he wouldn’t be against oversigning in theory because of the volatility of college rosters.