Veteran Oklahoma and Kansas university sports fans tend to be a little embarrassed upon noting that their athletic programs finished fifth and 10th in the 2001-02 Big 12 all-sports race.

Heck, some of us can remember when the Jayhawks and the Sooners waged terrific battles for the Big Seven and Big Eight all-sports title in the 1950s and 1960s. And Kansas batted about .500 for a while as champ and hardly ever was worse than second.

Oklahoma, of course, ruled the roost in football all those years and usually did better than KU in baseball. Better year-around weather; far more scholarships (like 12 to 4) than the likes of coach Floyd Temple ever had. But KU had potent basketball and measured up pretty well in swimming, golf and tennis.

It’s in track and cross-country, however, where Kansas swung a massive wallop. Bill Easton’s and Bob Timmons’s crews often threw three championships into the mix  indoor track, outdoor track and cross country. OU fielded some pretty fair spiked-shoe units but never measured up to the Easton-Timmons dominance.

There’s been nothing even close to that since Bill and Timmie departed. When they and stars like Wes Santee, Bill Nieder, Al Oerter, Billy Mills, Clif Cushman and Jim Ryun were on the scene, people could really get juiced up about track and field. Man, how that’s changed. The average fan anymore is inclined to declare that the only sports duller than track is field. Nowhere to go but up.

The key sports then were football, basketball, track, swimming, tennis and golf, all male.

Things now are a lot more complicated. There’s no men’s swimming or tennis; there are women’s sports such as basketball, track, volleyball, soccer, softball, golf and swimming. Lots more opportunities to succeed, of course, but also more chances to fall short. It’s tough when your athletic budget in the middle at around $22 million while mighty Texas checks in at nearly twice that.

Still, Oklahoma with its football and basketball success has to cringe at ranking fifth behind arch-rival Texas, Baylor (!), Texas A & M and once-out-of-it Kansas State. If Kansas isn’t red-faced about its 10th-place standing, it should be.

We haven’t always been so out of it, folks. There was a time when we gave the other guys all they could handle and more.

Not much of a mystery about what KU needs to do beyond basketball if it’s going to make the all-sports first-division. The starting point for Al Bohl and Co. will be football this fall. Might as well win six or seven, for starters.

 Don’t know how many told me they had no idea how close Kansas juniors Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich were to declaring for the coming pro basketball draft. You can see why they might have been considering early outs if they had evidence they would be first-round selections for the NBA.

How glad everyone is they’re staying. With them, Kansas has an excellent chance to win another conference title, make noise in the NCAA tourney and maybe even reach the Final Four. Without the Dynamic Duo, maybe a very marginal year.

What might have exerted heavy influence on Kirk and Nick is the massive list of collegians who’ve opted for the pros along with all the non-college types planning to seek draft spots. Throw in that towering Chinese guy (who by law has to give half whatever salary he gets to his government) and things could get pretty iffy.

When the list of prospects is as long as it is, you can’t be sure who’ll do what, or what trades might occur. I’m still shaking my head over Michael Jordan’s opting for high schooler Kwame Brown over Duke’s proven Shane Battier for the Washington Wizards.

As for KU’s Drew Gooden, prognosticators indicate he could go all the way from No. 3 to 11 or 12, depending on imponderables like that Chinese giant. Complicating Gooden’s situation is that Duke’s 6-9 Mike Dunleavy came out later and could go ahead of Drew. Some analysts say Gooden won’t go below No. 5, others are not as generous.

Depending on your team’s needs, if you had your choice, would you go for Gooden, who’s more athletic, or Dunleavy, who’s a better shooter and much better ball-handler? Dunleavy will never get after offensive rebounds the way Gooden does, but he has some other skills.

Every time I check the list of prospects for this year’s NBA draft, college, foreign, high school, free agent, whatever, I’m amazed that a lot of them figure they even have a chance. But everybody’s looking for a Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett with talent but no college experience, so how many Kwame Browns will stagger in and upset the applecart for guys like Gooden or Missouri’s Kareem Rush?

 Pet peeve on nicknames. They’re baseball’s San Diego Padres but the electronic throats and headline writers refer to them as the Pads, like the stuff you put under carpets. They ought to be the Pods, as with peas. You don’t call the Dallas Mavericks the Mauves.

Then there are football’s New England Patriots. Mindless dolts call them the Pats, as in butter. Heck, they should be the Pates, as in “The Seven Keys to Baldpate.”

Now I’m sure you’re gonna lose a lot of sleep over all that.