OKLAHOMA CITY ? When they talk about March Madness seeding, they’re not talking about sowing what you reap.

“I kind of chuckled at coach (Roy) Williams,” Utah State’s Stew Morrill said Wednesday night. “I totally understood his concern about not being a No. 1 seed. I always thought if you win the Big 12, you should be a No. 1.

“And if they had been a No. 1 seed, we wouldn’t be playing them right now.”

No. 15 seed Utah State doesn’t stack up very well going into today’s 8:40 p.m. first-round West Regional clash with the No. 2 seed Jayhawks in the NCAA Tournament.

The Aggies’ 24-8 record looks good on paper, but Utah State played in the tepid Big West Conference. Moreover, USU didn’t even win the league’s regular-season championship — the Aggies finished third behind Cal Santa Barbara and Cal Irvine, but won the Big West tournament for an automatic berth.

Kansas averages more than 80 points a game; Utah State 66.8.

“The biggest key for us,” said Desmond Penigar, the Ags’ leading scorer at 15.4 points a game, “is to stop their transition game. If we stop their transition game, we have a chance.”

Kansas has seven losses — six against NCAA Tournament qualifiers — and most teams that had success against the Jayhawks did it from three-point range, either by shooting a glossy percentage or by accumulating treys in bulk.

Asked about the Aggies’ perimeter shooting, Morrill conceded: “That hasn’t been a strength for us.”

Kansas' Nick Collison passes the ball during a fastbreak drill. The Jayhawks worked out Wednesday at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City in preparation for their NCAA Tournament opener tonight against Utah State.

Indeed, Utah State ranked last in the Big West in three-pointers made (4.0 per game) and attempted (11.6).

The Aggies aren’t particularly adept making things happen on defense — they rank next to last in the Big West in steals, for example — so they slow it down, hoping to make opponents play at their pace.

“If we play their type of game, we don’t have much of a chance,” said Spencer Nelson, a 6-foot-7 sophomore who is the only other Aggie averaging double-figure scoring (10.2).

Morrill hopes he sees as little of Kansas’ transition game tonight as possible.

“They just fly up and down court on mades and misses,” the USU coach said. “Some teams just run on misses. They run on every possession. And when they force a turnover, they get a layup.”

Utah State does have one strength — free-throw shooting. The Aggies’ team percentage from the stripe is an impressive 71.1 percent.

“We’ve been able to make more free throws than our opponents have shot and get to the line a great deal,” Morrill said. “If we can get to the line, that certainly helps.”

A 15-point underdog, the Aggies know anything can happen.

“A lot of dreams and a lot of miracles come true,” said Penigar, a 6-7 senior. “Who knows what will happen tomorrow?”

Utah State coach Stew Morrill watches practice.