“It wasn’t with strippers or stuff,” Wilkes, a freshman guard from Los Angeles, said with a laugh.

Recruits and exotic dancers have been in the news lately after allegations surfaced that Colorado football prospects were taken to “sex parties” on their campus visits.

“I’m kind of shocked,” said Wilkes, who added nothing like that happened at KU, UCLA, California-Berkeley or Stanford — the four places he visited. “I’ve heard of using girls to sell a program, but it’s kind of disturbing if you think about it.”

KU basketball in the Roy Williams era and now during the Bill Self regime has tried to sell a “family atmosphere” instead of a sexy one.

Parents are invited — strongly encouraged, as a matter of fact — to make the trips to campus with their sons.

“It’s a big key if you sell the parents,” KU associate head coach Norm Roberts said. “If a kid is coming from somewhere else, he may go home and say, ‘I love it there,’ but the parents have not seen it. They want to see it, too, to see if it’s a good environment, the right place for their son. And it makes for a better visit, to be honest.”

Roberts outlined a typical weekend itinerary for a high school basketball prospect’s official fall football-weekend campus visit.

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Friday: “We don’t like recruits to miss school, so generally they get here on Friday at 4 p.m. the earliest, more like 5:30 to 6 p.m.,” Roberts said. “After a quick meeting with coach, they have dinner at coach’s house that night, at 7 or so.”

KU’s current players also attend that dinner, as well as the coaches and their families and the recruit’s family members.

“Coach tells them what to expect on the visit and tells them to have a good time and get as much information as possible on the school, and after the visit we’ll talk about it all,” Roberts said.

After the dinner, the recruit spends two or three hours with his weekend host — a current Jayhawk — plus other players.

“A lot of times you find out what the kid likes to do,” Roberts said. “The first night, he is usually tired from traveling. Most of the time they end up staying in the dorm playing video games. One of the biggest things on recruiting visits is video games, having video-game contests.”

Current players are told not to take the recruit to bars or strip clubs.

“The bottom line is we want them all to have a good time,” Roberts said. “But we tell the players they cannot embarrass themselves or the school. We say, ‘You shouldn’t be drinking if you are underage, not in a bar if you are underage. Not in a nightclub if you are not old enough,’ and not to take them to those places.

“And it’s explained to recruits when they come in. You tell them, ‘You can’t do this or this because you are underage.'”

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Saturday: After breakfast, the recruit meets with an academic adviser in his field of interest and also meets with KU’s academic support personnel.

The recruit then tours campus with one KU coach and one basketball ambassador, who is a female student. The basketball ambassador program has been in place at KU, and most major colleges, for decades.

“We tour with a golf cart. A coach must drive the cart,” Roberts said. “It’s the coach, the recruit and an ambassador. If parents are here, they’ll drive in a car with a coach and ambassador, too.”

Some have criticized colleges for having female students serve as ambassadors.

“People think players hang out with ambassadors. They are with them for a tour for 45 minutes,” Roberts said. “That’s 45 minutes of the whole visit. Most of the time you are trying to sell a program it’s having recruits being with our coaches and players. We emphasize we want all our players around recruits and make them feel comfortable with everybody. We think that’s more important than having a pretty girl around.”

After the tour, the prospect sometimes plays pick-up basketball games with the Jayhawks.

“Some want to; some don’t,” Roberts said. “We tour the facilities, the weight room and meet with the strength coach. We meet with sports information people to discuss exposure in the media and how to handle interviews.”

Then it’s pregame football tailgating and attending a KU football game. After the game, there is a dinner with the coaches and players. For the remainder of the evening, the prospect hangs out with his host and the other Jayhawks.

“What I remember,” Wilkes said, “is having a barbecue. After eating we went back to the hotel, where the room was set up nice with Jayhawks and ‘Come to KU’ things. Then Keith (Langford) and Wayne (Simien) picked me up, and we hung out at the Towers. We went to a party, then they took me back to the hotel.”

Like Williams, Self is adamant that nothing illegal occurs during the visit.

“What you do,” Self said, “is definitely educate your guys. Hopefully, you can trust them and have more a feel for what’s going on with recruits’ visits with itineraries and knowing exactly what’s going on.”

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Sunday: “It could be church if the young man wants to do that,” Roberts said. “We’ll bring the recruit and his parents together for breakfast, talk about how the visit went, what they did and how they enjoyed everything, answer any other questions they have.”

Then it’s off to the airport, the visit lasting a maximum of 48 hours. The coaches talk to the current Jayhawk players to make sure they are comfortable with the prospects, then if all goes well, a commitment is forthcoming.

Self wants all recruiting at KU to be on the up and up. As such, and in response to the Colorado situation, he’s going to have the players sign documents explaining what is not allowed on visits.

“Everything that happens in college sports makes you think, ‘What do I need to talk to my team about?'” Self said. “I’ve talked to our guys about this stuff. We’ll have our players sign off on what is not allowed, that kind of stuff. Not that they’d be doing anything wrong in the past, just to make sure everybody knows.

“We changed some things after the Baylor situation; we’ll change some things after the Colorado situation. You have an itinerary. It’s best to know what’s going on at all times. And you trust your guys to do the right thing.”