There’s little idle time, save for perhaps one or two official water breaks, the Jayhawks scurrying from station to station, and, during scrimmage situations, not even recognizing out-of-bounds markers.

That is, once balls are corralled, they immediately are flipped back in play at the spot of retrieval.

“We don’t like much dead time,” third-year KU coach Self said. “Sure, there are days where it drags. It’s like that with everybody (all teams in country).

“We’ve just got to get them going at a certain speed and practicing hard, and everything else will come naturally.”

Along with the Xs and Os Self supplied 400 or so coaches – including a batch from Nebraska in town for Saturday’s KU-NU football game – important intangibles were exhibited at practices this weekend.

“The coaches just want us to play hard,” freshman guard/forward Micah Downs said of all-out effort. “We don’t take much of a break. We’re pretty much going hard the whole time.

“We’re conditioned pretty well,” he said. “Everybody is in pretty good shape. A lot of the credit for that goes to coach Hudy (Andrea, associate director of strength and conditioning), the workouts we did in the summer.

“Practice is always intense, running hard, running hard off the screens. We set a lot of screens. You go hard, it’s easier to read the screens,” Downs added.

There’s no substitute for effort.

“Every practice is hard,” freshman forward Julian Wright said. “Coach wants us to keep going hard once the game starts through the entire game.”

The first of KU’s two preseason games is just around the corner. KU will meet Fort Hays State at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Allen Fieldhouse. One can expect the unexpected regarding starters in that game.

“Coach Self doesn’t give us too many hints. He just wants us to get better,” Wright said. “The first two weeks, it’s good having question marks. Everybody is trying their hardest, giving their best.”

“I don’t know what our best teams are yet,” said Self, who does a lot of mixing and matching at practice.

“We’ve got fast, we’ve got big, we’ve got strong,” Downs said of lineup combinations. “He (Self) tries to see who works best with each other.”

KU will play a second exhibition against Pittsburg State on Nov. 14, then open for real against Idaho State on Nov. 18.

¢ Langford back home: Ex-KU guard Keith Langford, who was cut by the NBA’s Houston Rockets a couple weeks ago, will be playing this season in the NBA Developmental League.

Langford has been assigned by the league to the team in Langford’s hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. The NBA is hoping the league will serve as a true minor league this season, filtering players to the next level.

Langford is the only ex-Jayhawk on an NBDL roster at this time.