Bill Self gives a thumbs-up to his first Kansas University men’s basketball slate.

“This is a good schedule,” Self said Monday of a plan that includes nonconference home games against Michigan State (Nov. 25), Villanova (Jan. 2) and Richmond (Jan. 22), a pseudo-home game against Oregon (Dec. 13) in Kansas City’s Kemper Arena, plus games at Texas Christian (Dec. 1), against Stanford (Dec. 6) in the Wooden Classic in Anaheim, Calif., and against UC Santa Barbara and Nevada (Dec. 20-21) at the Wolf Pack Classic in Reno, Nev.

“It’s a good RPI schedule,” Self said, referring to the ratings system used by NCAA Tournament Committee members. All of the matchups except for the Villanova and Richmond games were set up by the previous regime.

“When we arrived here, it was obvious that we inherited a very challenging schedule, especially with the number of tough games away from home,” Self said. “We wanted to fill our last two games with quality opponents that the fans would enjoy and that would bring national exposure to Lawrence, and we think we did that with the addition of Villanova and Richmond.”

Self said the nonconference road games were not automatic wins.

“Not only are we playing several nationally prominent programs,” Self said, “but we are playing some people that are much better than people may know — teams that don’t play on TV nearly as often. Playing away from home is always a challenge. We’re playing some teams — Nevada, Santa Barbara, TCU — if you don’t bring your A-game away from home you’ll leave town sad.”

The KU-TCU game will start at the unusually late time of 10 p.m. to accommodate ESPN2. The network has three slots at 6 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., and KU caught the late slot for the first time in school history.

“That’s the only slot ESPN had,” Self said. “It’s their game and the only slot they had. I don’t like playing that late on a school night, but we’ll definitely play and be back by 2 in the morning.”

As far as the league slate, KU will play one Big Monday game at home — Feb. 2 versus Missouri and three on the road — Jan. 25 at Colorado, Feb. 9 at Oklahoma State and Feb. 23 at Texas.

2003-04 Kansas basketball schedulePrintable version

“I’d rather play three Big Mondays at home. As a coach, naturally we’d rather play them all at home,” Self said. “I think there will be years we have more at home than on the road. Over time it’ll probably balance out, like officials’ calls.”

KU will close the season March 7 at Missouri — the third straight year KU has closed at MU. Published reports have indicated Missouri had asked to have KU as the opponent for the last game in Hearnes Center.

“If they requested it, it’s a backhanded compliment to Kansas,” Self said.

“Hey, we are going to play them sometime there, so it really doesn’t matter when. Whenever two teams like Kansas and Missouri face off, it’s always emotional. When the teams play the stakes are usually high. Throw in the fact it’s their Senior Day and that last game in Hearnes, that’s enough to get fans standing in line two hours before the doors open.”

Self thinks when all is said and done, “that Sunday afternoon will probably be as emotional and intense as any game played.”

KU will play a pair of in-state Div. II schools again this season — Pittsburg State Nov. 11 in an exhibition game and Fort Hays State Dec. 10.

Self said he would continue to play at least one in-state Div. II school in the preseason and perhaps in the regular season, too.

“Whether or not we play one in the regular season from this year forward, I’ll study it,” Self said. “Some things are being done now legislatively where we could play two in the exhibition season. Two in the exhibition season could be better for everyone involved. We will study that.”

Self favors playing games in his recruits’ hometowns. This year KU returns to the Los Angeles area for Omar Wilkes and Nevada for David Padgett.

“Yes, we will do that, but we will definitely not do that as freshmen,” said Self, who prefers to wait until the players become veterans before bringing them home for games.

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Price likes visit: Like Alexander Kaun, blue-chipper A.J. Price had a stellar time on his official recruiting trip to KU last weekend. The 6-foot-1 point guard from Amityville, N.Y., who will visit Syracuse, UConn and St. John’s in coming weeks, told Shay Wildeboor of rivals.com he learned a lot in Saturday’s pick-up game with current Jayhawks.

“It gave me an idea of how they play. I can definitely see myself playing at Kansas in the future,” Price said. “Everybody thinks that I won’t leave home when I make a decision about a school, but that isn’t necessarily true. I brought my dad and uncle on the trip so they could get a better feel for the academic side of Kansas.”

Though “Kansas has set the bar very high,” he will make his other visits.

Self is expected to make an in-home visit to Price’s house in Amityville tonight and the home of Kaun’s legal guardian Wednesday. The coaches will be on the road the rest of this month making in-home visits.

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Schedule tidbits: KU plays eight teams that competed in last year’s NCAAs: Colorado, Michigan State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Stanford and Texas. … KU will not return the trip to Richmond. KU will return the trip to Villanova and Michigan State in ’04-05, playing MSU in East Lansing, Mich., and ‘Nova at First Union Center in Philadelphia, home of the 76ers. … The Jayhawks are guaranteed to appear on national television at least 14 times — at least nine times on ESPN, at least two on CBS, at least twice on ESPN2 and at least once on ABC.