In 174 minutes last season, C.J. Giles committed 44 personal fouls, had 10 turnovers, and one assist. Giles, the 6-foot-11 sophomore power forward, might want to improve that ratio this season.

That shouldn’t be a problem since early indications are he’s improved every aspect of his game.

Giles said he had beefed up to 245 pounds, which should help him hold his position underneath. He runs the floor with the swiftness of a perimeter player and has developed shooting range to 15 feet.

C.J.’s father, Chester Giles, was three times the assist man as his son in his first season (1978-79) at KU. Chester’s three assists came in 133 minutes during his junior season, his first in Lawrence after transferring from Independence Community College.

Chester’s first season was marred by injuries, and he averaged 1.6 points and 1.5 rebounds, numbers that improved to 4.1 and 3.7 in his senior year.

“I really don’t know much about it,” C.J. said of his father’s KU career. “He never talks about it. I just know about when he played at Independence. He doesn’t want to talk about his career, really. It’s kind of funny.”

So it wasn’t a case of a father’s brainwashing landing his son at his alma mater.

“When I told him about it, he put it my hands, let it be my choice,” C.J. said. “When I told him I was coming here, he said he loved the tradition, the atmosphere, everything about it.”

Finding quality big men is harder than ever, considering how quickly the talented ones jump to the pros. In Giles, the Jayhawks have a considerable talent who has played so little basketball he improves by the day.

His quickness enables him to be a good help defender who blocks a lot of shots. His speed enables him to get back on defense so that the guards can guard the three-point line instead of leaving that open because they have to protect the post in transition.

How well Giles translates his talent into productive performance will go a long way toward determining how long the Jayhawks’ season lasts.

Coach Bill Self’s plans for the Jayhawks to pick up the pace from a year ago agree with Giles.

“We’ll definitely run more,” Giles said. “I was running in high school, playing with Lodrick and Rodrick, the Stewart twins, and Nate Robinson, who’s in the NBA now. That’s what taught me to run. Every time we got the ball they were gone, so I had to keep up with them.”

Self at times will play Giles and Sasha Kaun together. They often guard each other in practice. Giles assessed their differences.

“I think I can run better,” he said. “I’m a lot more versatile than he is. I can face up and shoot. Sasha is lot more bangy. He’s more of a real post type of guy. He can finish around the basket better than I can.”

Self has a number of potential combinations to choose from this season. From a pure talent standpoint, the best fivesome would have Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, Micah Downs, Julian Wright and Giles on the floor together.

“The perfect world is nine,” Self said of how many men he’d like to have in his rotation. “If you’re playing three big guys and one perimeter guy who can play big or little, I think the perfect world is eight. Probably nine with us. And it will be hard to get to nine.

“We’ll play two bigs and three little guys some, one big, two wings and two little guys. I think one of the challenges will be to play a point guard, and three tall wings with a center.”

A point guard, three tall wings and a center would be the Chalmers, Rush, Downs, Wright and Giles lineup.

Sounds like a winner.