Aaron Miles for all his basketball skills often gets overlooked when all-star teams are selected. He deserves better. Maybe the best way for Aaron to challenge for all-league and All-America honors the coming season is to pay close attention to guys starring on non-American teams in the Olympics.

By now, it’s no secret: These “foreigners” can shoot the ball, and not just for lay-ins and three-pointers. They can knock it down from 10 to 15 feet out, the way Oklahoma State’s John Lucas broke hearts last season. Americans, so enamored with highlight films showing treys, dunks and shuck-and-jive dribble showoffs, have stopped learning how to keep the “basket” in basketball.

Sad thing is, Aaron is a lot better mid-range scoring prospect than a lot of folks, sometimes even including himself, realize. He can handle the ball, run a break, serve up assists out his wazoo, but still could be a more potent pointsmith. In this respect, Lucas is ahead of Miles. Unless Aaron catches fire and gets the green light from coach Bill Self, Lucas will make the top teams, and Miles again will be runner-up or worse.

Maybe some relief from freshman Russell Robinson will allow Miles to catch his breath more often so he won’t be worn out that his appreciable shooting potential suffers.

After watching the Americans clank so many good shots at Athens, I half-expected coach Larry Brown to call a team meeting, show up with a hoop and a basketball and introduce both to his players. Such as: “Now, this is a basket, guys, and this is a ball. The name of the game is basketball, which means you still have to put this ball through the hole more than the enemy.” Maybe he did that before the game with Spain.

Man, our guys blew a lot of chances while the Puerto Ricans, Lithuanians, Argentinians ripped the nets with devastating effect. How many free throws were blown by our bricklayers at key moments? Is this the Roy Williams influence? Ol’ Roy never liked to talk about it, but his teams’ free-throwing could be fatal, as in NCAA play.

We keep hearing how athletic our American players are and how they can run and jump like track stars. That’s true. But if white men can’t jump, how come we have such a tough time against these foreign teams which throw up stifling zone defenses, play cohesive team ball and, most important, shoot well from everywhere? So you can jump over the moon. If you can’t figure a way to put the orange into the can, what good is soaring to nosebleed levels? The foreigners don’t seem as compelled to making the 11 o’clock highlight reels as they are dedicated to working together for buckets.

No reason Americans can’t do the same. It’s just that they periodically forget what got them to the picnic of world dominance. Worst of all, they’re developing a growing cult of nonshooters.

Back to the coming Kansas team. Miles isn’t the only Jayhawk whose improved shooting can turn this into a Final Four campaign.

Keith Langford, another senior, needs to achieve a mid-range scoring comfort zone. He has the touch and the moves. Senior Michael Lee has poked in timely treys, but no reason he can’t penetrate more and pop from 10 and 15. Practice, practice, practice.

Few big men are as blessed with the shooting deftness of senior Wayne Simien. True, he’s supposed to rule the paint and convert the crippies. But no reason he can’t step out more and drop in swishers. He’s done it from mid-range a lot of times, and with newcomers like Sasha Kaun and Darnell Jackson to back him up inside, Wayne might enjoy a few 10- to 12-foot feasts between now and March.

Sophomore J.R. Giddens keeps getting mentioned as a probable early jump to the pros after this season. He’s gangbusters on the dunk and can be a threat from three-point range. But he also needs to be a lot better on defense, same as Langford. If J.R.really wants NBA people to take notice, how about proving he can also drive, pull up and poke in shorter shots? He has a decent enough touch if he’ll develop that and spend less time concocting hot-doggery for the scouts.

Another aspect a lot of would-be pros overlook is that if they’re so doggone good at driving and slashing, how deadly are they as free-throwers? You draw fouls, you have to hit charities — one of the few venues in sports where you can score points with absolutely no physical harassment from an opponent.

Talk all you want about Giddens leaving early, but he has to prove a lot before he’s a first-round pick. He can run and jump and look flashy, but so can all those NBA millionaires who often wandered listlessly in Athens. They still call it basketball. When you don’t cover, don’t share the ball, don’t protect the ball and don’t shoot respectably, you might as well be at the high jump pit (where, by the way, a white guy from Sweden outjumped everybody in these Olympics).

• Call it senility, and some will, but I haven’t seen one track and field outfit at the 2004 Olympics that comes near being as classy as those UCLA blue jerseys and hot pink pants, with tasteful trim, that Kansas athletes used to wear. It was a perfect combination; I’ll never understand why there’s been such a shift to those weird salamander suits they’re wearing, streamlining be damned.
• Recent mention of Kansas footballers who went on to become doctors triggered a lot of additions, like the late Lyn Smith, Bobby Conn, Chet Strehlow, H.C. Palmer, Bud Bixler and Lawrence’s own all-stater, Merle Hodges. The list goes on and on and is tremendously impressive. Hodges, by the way, started that 1953 KU game against TCU where Bill Nieder got a knee wrecked, as a center and linebacker. Bill was hurt as a sub. Merle played only 1953 at KU because his grades were so good he was waived into med school. Several coaches didn’t believe his academics could be so high and actually checked up when he reported his average. Now semi-retired at age 70, Merle has had a fine Doc Hodges career in Salina and gets back here a lot.