Roy Williams has said many times he does not want a new arena for Kansas men’s basketball.

But KU’s 14th-year coach is always in favor of facility improvements  like the installation of a new scoreboard/videoboard in 47-year-old Allen Fieldhouse.

“In the Basketball Margin of Excellence, I pledged some money to try to get a group of engineers, scientists  people in that world  to come in and tell us what we can do,” Williams said recently. “I’m hopeful we’ve got the ball moving towards having those experts come in to study the fieldhouse quite extensively as soon as the season is over with.”

Preliminary studies indicate the fieldhouse roof will support a scoreboard/videoboard weighing between 20,000 and 25,000 pounds. The current scoreboard weighs 12,000 pounds. Final studies will be taken after the last game of the 2001-02 season.

“The good news is Allen Fieldhouse is a tight building and we will not need a huge board,” KU facilities director Darren Cook said. “The videoboard people say that weight range (20,000-25,000 pounds) is realistic. If you notice in some of the new bigger arenas, the scoreboards are gigantic, which would be out of our weight range.”

The project is high on athletics director Al Bohl’s wish list.

“It’s not just a new scoreboard, but a new scoreboard and new sound system,” Bohl said.

“Where it stands right now, we in (associate athletics director) Richard Konzem’s office are actually working with some of the engineers here on campus (on specifications).”

As far as money involved …

“Part of it is we are in the midst of a KU First campaign and we’re going to try to raise $500 million for the entire university,” Bohl said. “Fifty million of that is in athletics. We’re raising $8 million for a new strength center and we have a new scoreboard/sound system as part of it that we have price tagged at about $2.5 million. We’re in the process of going about that and trying to get the funding for it.

“It isn’t anywhere near where we can put a deadline or timeline on it yet,” Bohl added. “Coach made a gift to get it all started.”

Videoboards are able to run replays during games and jazz up pregame introductions.

“I would love to see us have something like that,” Bohl said, asked about the crystal-clear videoboard at Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, N.D., where KU played the University of North Dakota in December. “That’s a nice one they have up there.”

The videoboard kept the fans entertained the entire game.

“The thing I’ll remember most of our trip to North Dakota was the 13-hour bus ride (home), the reception Jeff (Boschee) got and the highlight board,” Williams said. “Before the game, they had highlights of their plays and a scene from the Wizard of Oz. When it was over, they had her (Dorothy) saying, ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore.’ It’s the greatest thing I’ve seen. Our guys really enjoyed it.”

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More on CU incident: Williams said he will apologize to Colorado’s coaches and players for the behavior of some KU fans who taunted the Buffs after Saturday’s victory at Allen Fieldhouse.

One fan heckled CU freshman David Harrison even after Harrison shook the fan’s hand outside CU’s locker room.

Will KU ban the fan from future games if he’s identified?

“I don’t want to get into any type of thing we would do to someone,” Bohl said. “It should be very clear that the University of Kansas is a place where we pride ourselves in doing the right things.

“We want to beat everybody we play, but do it in a classy way. No one is going to condone any behavior like that. What we want to do is send a signal loud and clear for our fans that what we should all be expecting is great sportsmanship.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t have fun with it and do some of the things that make people realize that they are playing in Allen Fieldhouse and you better, ‘Beware of the Phog.’ Let’s do it classy and with sportsmanship.

“We want to make sure Colorado recognizes we don’t appreciate that type of behavior and we’re not going to condone it.

“That’s what I admire about Roy. Roy wanted to beat Colorado, but wanted to win in a classy way, the right way with good sportsmanship. When someone in our building does something like that, we want to pursue it and make sure we educate people in a way that we are not like that at Kansas. I am proud of Darren Cook and his people who were right on top of it.”

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This and that: Next up for KU is Texas Tech. Tip for Saturday’s game is 3:05 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse. … Entering Wednesday’s league games, KU ranks first in the Big 12 in scoring offense (91.1), scoring margin (16.8), field goal percentage (51.3), three-point field goal percentage (40.9), rebounding margin (8.9), assists (20.55) and blocks (4.86). Drew Gooden leads the league in scoring (20.6) and rebounding (11.4).