Jeff Boschee has been swishing three-pointers for Kansas University for a long, long time.

“A lot of people probably think I’ve been here since Wilt Chamberlain was here,” quipped Boschee, KU’s four-year starter from Valley City, N.D.

Kansas senior Jeff Boschee, seen here sans hair against Kansas State during his sophomore season, will play his final game at Allen Fieldhouse on Wednesday also against KSU.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pounder, who actually has been here since 1998, not the 1950s, will be playing his final home game as a Jayhawk on Wednesday against Kansas State.

Tip is 7:05 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse.

“College goes by fast,” said Boschee, the top three-point shooter in KU history with 308 threes made in 780 attempts for a shooting percentage of .395. “It seems like yesterday I was playing Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament.”

It wasn’t yesterday, but March 14, 1999, when the Jayhawks fell to the Wildcats, 92-88, in a second-round NCAA Tournament game in New Orleans. The overtime defeat capped a freshman year in which Boschee averaged 10.9 points a game for the 21-10 Jayhawks, who won the Big 12 tournament.

He’s been part of 98 wins against 29 losses for a .772 winning percentage yet his only other conference championship has come in this, his senior season.

Boschee, who averaged 10.0 points a game his sophomore season and 11.1 his junior campaign, has hit for 13.8 points a game this year and played some rugged defense for the Jayhawks, who take a 25-2 overall record and 14-0 Big 12 mark into Senior Night.

It’s been a storybook career for Boschee, who fulfilled a dream by signing with Kansas before his senior year at Valley City High.

“My whole life I watched Kansas basketball,” Boschee said. “I noticed the way the team played extremely hard and with class and the way coach (Roy) Williams presented himself. I pretty much had my heart set on Kansas since I first heard coach Williams was watching me at Nike camp the summer before my senior year.

“My brother (Mike, an assistant coach at Gustavus Adolphus in Saint Peter, Minn.) came up to me at the camp and said, ‘Do you know coach Williams is here?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know.’ He said, ‘You know who he is watching?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You.’

“From that time I knew I wanted to come here. My heart was set on coming here.”

So he was somewhat of an easy sell for Williams, who received a commitment from Boschee in August 1998.

“I committed before I took any official visits,” said Boschee, who picked KU over Arizona and Minnesota.

Boschee the first McDonald’s All-American in North Dakota history arrived in Lawrence with a razor blade and shiny scalp. For two seasons, he shaved his head before every game.

“A lot of people thought I was cocky the perception of the bald head. I’d get harassing e-mails,” Boschee said. “People assume if he’s good at something with a bald head, he’s cocky.”

Was he guilty as charged?

“As a freshman I was a little more I don’t want to say arrogant, maybe confident in myself,” Boschee said with a smile. “I have matured to not let my emotions flare. Against Kentucky I stuck my tongue out at Wayne Turner after hitting a three. I’ve not done anything like that since. (KU fifth-year senior) Jeff Carey and I joke around at practice. We feel so old. I’ll just say I’ve matured.”

He’s followed the advice of his brother, a former North Dakota player who taught Boschee the ins and outs of basketball.

“My brother always told me to act like I’ve been there before,” Boschee said about celebrating success. “I try to be as modest as I can.”

The actual reason he went without hair for so long is superstition.

“It was a good luck thing,” Boschee said. “During the season I shaved it before every game. In the offseason I’d go a week or two weeks. I got sick of it after my sophomore year and grew it out.”

He has become a favorite among female fans since growing hair and sculpting it with gel. They scream when he walks out of the tunnel and beg him to sign autographs after games. There are several Boschee fan clubs on the Internet, boasting mostly female members.

“I do get random phone calls, things like that,” Boschee said. “My girlfriend gets mad at me. I can’t help it. Usually I have roommates tell them I’m not there. If I get on the phone I’ll hang up. Older ones want to talk. Sometimes my roommates will talk to them.”

Female classmates and even older women sought his attention as far back as high school.

“After the state tournament a lady asked me to sign her chest and asked me to sign her butt, which I didn’t do,” Boschee said. “I love signing autographs for little kids, things like that. I love that part of it. I just don’t like the phone calls. It’s stupid of me to have my phone number out there and available.”

Boschee needs no distractions. He’s focused more than ever this season as has been shown by his ability to hit the big shot and make the key play.

Boschee hit four three pointers at Iowa State, including one with under a minute left to give KU the lead for good in an 88-81 victory. He hit two threes in overtime to pace KU past Texas, 110-103. On Sunday, his two consecutive threes at Nebraska cut a 68-59 deficit to three points midway through the second half of KU’s 88-87 victory.

“Jeff has been huge for us this year. We’d probably have lost two or three more games without him hitting big shots,” junior Nick Collison said. “He’s getting the ball and letting it go. He’s underrated defensively and a great leader too.”

A leader? The quiet Boschee?

“When he says something people listen because he’s always giving 100 percent of himself,” Collison said. “In the past we’ve had guys when they tried to lead they tried to do too much. When they said something you could tell it wasn’t 100 percent genuine. When Jeff says something, everybody listens.”

Everybody will be listening Wednesday when Boschee gives his senior speech. Williams will let seniors Boschee, Carey, Brett Ballard, Todd Kappelmann, Lewis Harrison and Chris Zerbe speak to the crowd after the game.

“I don’t want to give too long a speech,” Boschee said, noting he will probably get emotional, since he is more similar to his mom than his dad.

“I had never seen my father cry until he dropped me off when I was a freshman here,” he added. “I got it (emotion) from my mom’s side.”

l

Coach’s quandary: Williams traditionally starts all his seniors on Senior Night. But this year there are six seniors. So what’s a coach to do?

Williams said there’s a chance he’ll try to start all six, like he did in 1997 against Kansas State. That year he had seniors Jerod Haase, Jacque Vaughn, Scot Pollard, B.J. Williams, Joel Branstrom and Steve Ransom take the floor for the opening tip.

An official motioned to Williams to remove one player. Williams did and went with five, not six, seniors.

“It’s something I’ve given a little thought to,” the coach said Monday on his Hawk Talk radio show. “Right now I’m not sure. I had a great official involved with us in ’97. He allowed me to put six guys out there before the game, then calmly came over and said, ‘You can only start five.’ I said, ‘I guess I better pull one off.’ That way we had all six on the court at the start of the game.

“The referee did the right thing. By rule he could not allow me to start six. Maybe I’ll find a nice referee to allow us to do that kind of thing. If not, I have to come up with an ingenious kind of plan. If not we’ll cheat for a while.”