Kansas City, Mo ? The first half of the 20-day summer evaluation period proved profitable for first-year Kansas University men’s basketball coach Bill Self.

Self, in fact, filled one-third of KU’s incoming hoops recruiting class by receiving a verbal commitment from Midwest City, Okla., power forward Darnell Jackson after Nike camp July 11.

“We’re always thrilled to get guys in the fold and to get guys to jump on board because good players help recruit other good players,” Self said Monday before a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors.

Today, Self travels to Las Vegas for the “Big Time” tournament, which kicks off the last 10 days of the July recruiting evaluation period.

“It’s always good to if you can get one early or two early,” he said in general of commitments. “It lets you catch your breath a bit.”

That’s what KU’s coach tried to do the last four days, an NCAA-mandated break between 10-day sessions in which coaches can scour the country’s all-star camps in search of players.

Self and his assistants attended tournaments in Indiana, Texas, New Jersey and South Carolina the first 10 days of the period, and will stop in Florida and Las Vegas, among other places, during the next 10 days.

“We didn’t rest much,” Self said of the four-day break. “We went to Dodge City Friday (for speaking engagement) and today are here in Kansas City. Saturday and Sunday was good to spend time with the family.

“I do like the break. It’s a time to get reorganized,” Self said. “You can re-group and make phone calls that are critical to find out where you stand, and hopefully find that out so that may affect who you go see and how you address the last 10 days of the period.”

So, where does KU stand in its attempts to fill a three-man recruiting class?

“We obviously have the one commitment and have a couple more on paper that we can offer,” Self said, unable to talk about specific players in accordance with NCAA rules. “I think it’s going pretty well. I think we are in pretty good shape with a lot of good players, but you never know in recruiting.

¢ Self: Rules easily broken

“Recruiting is such an inexact science. A lot of times you get kids you don’t deserve and don’t get kids you’ve done the best job recruiting.”

Self — he was hired at KU in late April — entered the summer hoping to “make up a lot of ground” in the pursuit of several players who have been sought by other schools a long time.

The Jayhawk coaches have legitimate shots at corralling blue-chip players A.J. Price (6-1, Amityville, N.Y.), Alexander Kaun (6-11, Melbourne, Fla.), Malik Hairston (6-6, Detroit), Russell Robinson (6-2, New York), A.J. Ratliff (6-2, Indianapolis), Jason Rich (6-4, Orlando, Fla.) to name a few.

“We can’t talk about individuals, but the nervous thing about taking the job at the time we took it is the rules are now set up where recruits will commit earlier and earlier because they can visit sooner,” Self said.

“So we actually took the job after some of the guys we’re recruiting had actually visited other places. That’s the thing that makes the coaching change more difficult from a recruiting standpoint than in the past couple years. This year we’re using July to try and catch up and think we’re doing all we can to get caught up.”

Recruits Kaun, Price and Ratliff have said they wanted to make several campus visits before choosing schools this fall. The week-long signing period doesn’t start until the second week of November.

“As time goes on, your (recruiting) pool is narrowing,” Self said. “Forty guys on the board now become 30 which could become 20 and it starts getting cut down. This is the time of year it’s going to get cut down whether you want it getting cut down or not.

“You could be eliminated at this point in time and not want to be. The name of the game is not getting commitments early, but getting the best possible recruits and we’re doing all we can to make that happen.”