“When you practice this way, obviously you will play this way,” Self said after the Jayhawks’ 61-60 loss to UMass, a team that entered with two victories against six losses.

For some reason, the entire month of December has been a poor practice month for the Jayhawks, who, Self says, have been stale since an 87-60 victory over Kent State on Dec. 1.

“Being honest, I really like our team, but we will not become a great team until we become a better practice team,” Self said of the Jayhawks (7-2) , who will have a week of practice to get ready for Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. home game against Temple (5-3).

“We’ve been inconsistent at practice. That’s why you have inconsistent stretches in games. Young teams sometimes go in practice thinking, ‘How long are we going to go today?’ rather than looking at it as an opportunity to get better. If the mind-set is, ‘How long are we going to go today?’ we’ve already lost that day. If we are able to manage time, I can’t see why college kids wouldn’t be excited to come to work every day if their work is something they say they love more than anything else.”

Self hasn’t mentioned any poor practice players by name. He did say the reason Matt Kleinmann earned a recent start against Jackson State was because he had practiced better than KU’s three freshmen big men — the Morris twins, plus Quintrell Thomas.

Marcus and Markieff Morris sat for long stretches in Saturday’s loss in Kansas City. They combined for four points and six rebounds while playing 25 total minutes.

“Talk to them every day,” KU junior leader Sherron Collins said, asked what he needed to do to get the twins playing to their potential. “Coach has talked to them about practicing, working hard. I’ve got to find a way. It’s my job. I’ve got to do it.”

Sophomore Cole Aldrich said Self, “Says the same thing every day: ‘Don’t take possessions off.’ It’s tough to really learn it as a freshman. I didn’t quite learn it until even a month from now or two months from now. We can’t use that excuse, that we are young. We are playing at Kansas. We’ve got to fight through whether we have eight freshmen or we have one freshman and eight seniors.”

Self stressed all age groups are to blame.

“We can’t just put it on the young kids. There’s not many old guys out there, but the experience we have is guilty of it also,” Self said. “We have to become a better practice team over time, and we’ll play better over time.”

The bottom line is Self pretty expects all-out effort on every possession at practice, which translates into solid play on each possession during games.

Two freshmen — Tyshawn Taylor and Marcus Morris — say they are beginning to understand the message.

“I need to go hard out there at practice,” Morris said, adding that he also “needs to look over the scouting report more.”

“I think as a team we need to go hard at practice, be stronger and be more as a team,” Morris added.

Taylor noted: “We’ve not been practicing with a lot of intensity. Some of us have, not all of us. Myself, I haven’t. We’ve got a game next week. We’ve got to pick it up at practice.”

The Jayhawks will practice plenty this week, but also be preoccupied with final exams.

“The two most important weeks of the year with these kids are the upcoming week and a week in May,” Self said. “We need to practice, but we need to practice right and get better through that. We have probably as tough a nonconference stretch as anybody has in the country in the next four weeks.”

Saturday’s foe, Temple, stunned No. 8 Tennessee, 88-72, on Saturday. After that, it’s off to Arizona on Dec. 23. The Wildcats shocked No. 4 Gonzaga, 69-64. KU will play Albany on Dec. 30, Tennessee on Jan. 3 and Siena on Jan. 6 before traveling to Michigan State to conclude the nonconference slate Jan. 10.

Then comes the Big 12 season.

“”We’ve got a ton to work on. It will be a long week,” Aldrich said. “We’ve got finals. This is not the way we wanted to go into finals week.”

lJiminy Christmas: Temple University All-America candidate Dionte Christmas was named Atlantic 10 Conference co-player of the week Sunday. It is the ninth A-10 player-of-the-week honor of his career, the most by a Temple player and tying him with Marcus Camby (UMass, 1994-96) for third-most in league history. Christmas, 6-5 senior guard from Philadelphia, scored 35 points in the Owls’ victory over Tennessee. He hit 12 of 22 shots, including seven of 14 threes. The two-time Atlantic 10 scoring champion had 30 points after halftime. He averages 21.0 points a game and has made 3.6 threes per contest.