America’s Team may not be a tag that applies to Kansas University men’s basketball — at least not yet, but no question the Jayhawks are Lawrence’s Team.

I’ve heard from several city residents since KU began its run to the NCAA Final Four, and I thought you might be intrigued.

Charles Gruber noticed Nick Collison held up the same number on a piece of paper in Anaheim, Calif., that Danny Manning wore on a shoe during the Jayhawks’ unexpected run to the 1988 NCAA Championship. The number is 23 — the jersey digits worn by two KU players whose seasons ended early because of injuries.

The contemporary No. 23 belongs to Wayne Simien, who, along with Collison, provided KU with one of the most potent 1-2 inside punches in the country until Simien suffered that freak dislocated shoulder in early January.

In 1988, No. 23 was worn by Archie Marshall, a starting forward who was lost for the season in late December because of a knee injury. Manning dedicated the rest of that Cinderella season to Marshall, much like Collison is remembering Simien, who underwent corrective surgery last week in New York.

Marshall was replaced by Chris Piper, a solid rebounder and defender, but not much of a scorer. Simien has been replaced by Jeff Graves, a solid rebounder and defender, but not much of a scorer.

That’s for pointing out the similarity, Charles.

Next is Sarah Casad, who brought me a copy of her written reflections on the 1988 championship season.

Here are some excerpts of her recollection of the Jayhawks’ stunning 83-79 victory over Oklahoma, a team that had defeated Kansas twice during the regular season:

“The game itself turned out to be a total classic, the definitive basketball game of all time. I have stored our video between two other classics — “Don Giovanni” and “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” Should (husband) Bob and I live to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, I shall want that tape to be shown at the party.”

Of the post-game celebration she joined on campus, Casad wrote: “Groups of friends and neighbors would cluster to yell and cheer and chat and then move on. I wondered whether the liberation of Paris was like this.”

If Kansas is playing Monday night and the Jayhawks win, the post-game scene on Mount Oread might be more like the liberation of Paris and the crumbling of the Berlin Wall combined.

On to John Weltmer, who came up with an obscure statistic involving sophomore Keith Langford. Weltmer.

has pored through stats down through the years and discerned Langford has the highest scoring average for any player ranked third on a KU team in scoring. With a 15.6 points per game average, Langford is behind Nick Collison (18.6) and Kirk Hinrich (17.3).

Moreover, Weltmer reports that Collison, Hinrich and Langford need only 21 total points to be the top scoring trio in school history. They would surpass the 1998 triumvirate of Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce and Billy Thomas.

In addition, Collison and Hinrich need 34 points to become the second-highest scoring duo behind LaFrentz and Pierce. Currently second on the list are last year’s duo of Drew Gooden and Collison.

Thanks, John, for proving records are indeed made to be broken.

Finally, on to Bill James. Yes, THAT Bill James. Baseball’s famed statistics guru is also a KU men’s basketball fan, so much so, in fact, that he has some simple formulas — nothing as complicated as his win shares in baseball — to determine a basketball player’s value.

James, for instance, likes to add a player’s secondary strengths — assists, steals and blocked shots — and compare them to turnovers. In that compilation, four of KU’s five starters have positive ratios of at least 2 to 1. Guard Aaron Miles is the leader at 2.8 to 1, followed by Hinrich 2.6, Collison 2.2 and Langford 2.0. Jeff Graves’ numbers are 1.6 to 1. Simien, the man Graves replaced, finished at 1.45 in his limited duty.

In using the formula, James labels Iowa State’s Jake Sullivan as perhaps the Big 12 Conference’s most overrated player. Sullivan averaged 17.0 points a game, but his positive-negative ratio is just 1.27 to 1. Sullivan had more turnovers than assists and only 19 steals in 31 games.

Still, Bill, all things considered, I think I would rather have Sullivan on my basketball team than Neifi Perez on my baseball team.