Even when he’s signing autographs outside the dressing room after a game, Nick Collison is unpretentious.

Several minutes after his largely overlooked 24-point, 14-rebound performance in Kansas University’s 94-87 victory Wednesday over Colorado, Collison was accepting a pen here, writing his John Hancock on a program or a shirt or a piece of paper there.

Garbed in a drab set of gray warm-ups, Collison could have been mistaken for a KU student leaving intramurals if it weren’t for the fact his mug has been plastered all over the newspapers and television so often he would have to wear a sack over his head to go incognito.

As he continued his standard postgame autographing, Collison queried a passing sports writer about Drew Gooden. He had heard Gooden, who had entered KU the same year as he and Kirk Hinrich, had been traded by the Memphis Grizzlies.

Informed by the writer that Gooden had been sent to the Orlando Magic, Collison remarked: “That’s pretty good. He’ll get in the playoffs now.”

Next year at this time, Collison almost certainly will be in the NBA, too. He won’t go as high in the NBA Draft as Gooden did — Memphis made the former Jayhawk the fourth player selected last June — but Collison probably will go in the middle of the first round.

Perhaps he would go even higher if he were flashier or maybe even had a little hot dog in him, as Gooden did. Certainly Collison’s game isn’t as drab as the colorless warm-ups he had donned postgame Wednesday night, but sometimes it’s easy to take him for granted.

Collison’s performance against Colorado may, in fact, have been his second-best outing of the season, surpassed only by his 24-point, 23-rebound outing against Texas — the one that earned him a bow from that loud TV guy whose last name starts with a V.

¢Box score: get the stats¢Photos: Colorado game pix¢Hear Roy: Colorado post-game¢ 6Sports video: Jayhawks get revenge against CU, 94 -87¢ ‘Big Dub’ keys big win – Kansas 94, Colorado 87¢ Post play dooms Buffs¢ Williams to Miles: One dunk enough

It was doubly easy to overlook Collison because Wayne Simien may have had the finest 20 minutes ever logged by a KU player since Danny Manning almost single-handedly carried the 1988 Jayhawks team to the NCAA championship.

In what amounted to half a game, Simien had 21 points, 13 rebounds, three steals and two assists, very nearly what Collison did in 37 minutes.

So as the postgame spotlight shone on Simien, Collison sounded like he would have loved to have been the person shining the illumination on his teammate.

“He played great. He deserved it,” Collison said of Simien. “If he’s getting most of the attention, I don’t mind.”

It’s scary to conjecture what might have happened if Simien hadn’t been able to play. Jeff Graves, who had performed so ably during Simien’s 11-game absence, struggled against the Buffs with five points, five rebounds and three turnovers in 14 minutes.

Graves, said coach Roy Williams, has been in a funk since he was late for practice last Saturday. Turns out Graves was late for his 9:30 a.m. class on Monday, too, and that tardiness earned Graves a 45-minute date with a treadmill after Monday’s practice.

For his part, Graves said the recent tragic shooting death of a high school friend had been weighing on his mind. On the positive side, the treadmill at least helped Graves keep his weight from weighing on his mind. He has dropped 40 pounds — down to 250 — since reporting late last summer.

“At certain times I felt great,” Graves said of his Wednesday outing against the Buffs, “but a couple of other times I was embarrassed.”

At certain times, Williams felt great, too, but he wasn’t embarrassed. He was fuming.

Not often is Williams so frustrated he swats the seat of his chair — thank goodness it’s padded — as he did once. And he used three “frickin’s” for emphasis in his postgame media session while mentioning player mistakes.

Even though the Jayhawks now have reached the coveted 20-win plateau and have a one-game lead in the conference standings, Williams knows frickin’ well the toughest portion of the Jayhawks’ league schedule starts Sunday at Oklahoma.