There’s a good chance Kansas University’s men’s basketball team will be playing two games in signee Russell Robinson’s back yard in November.

The Jayhawks are ticketed to participate in an expanded Coaches Vs. Cancer Tournament in New York — home of 6-foot-2 Rice High School combo guard Robinson, if the NCAA’s appeal of a judge’s decision to allow schools to play in exempt tournaments every year is rejected.

A decision is expected by March 15, the Jayhawks quite eager to accept an official invitation to the 16-team Coaches Vs. Cancer event.

“We’ve been told a very small percentage of these cases are ever turned around in court, maybe five to six percent, so we are hopeful we’ll be able to play in the Coaches Vs. Cancer event,” KU senior associate athletic director Larry Keating said.

Four teams — KU, Duke, California and possibly Syracuse or UConn — are expected to be the hosts of four, four-team mini-tournaments Nov. 11-12, with the winners advancing to the semifinal and final rounds Nov. 18-19 at Madison Square Garden.

One of the three teams in the tourney at Allen Fieldhouse would be Vermont, the other two yet to be determined.

Kansas could conceivably play Cal twice next year, with the two teams slated to clash in the Feist Shootout at Kemper Arena.

“We would be on opposite sides of the bracket so at worst we’d meet in the finals,” Keating said of KU and Cal.

Kansas is slated to play in the 2005 Maui Invitational in Hawaii. It’s believed Arizona, Arkansas, DePaul, Maryland, Michigan State and UConn will join KU and Chaminade in that tourney.

The Jayhawks will likely play in the 2006 Preseason NIT (two games at home, two in New York) and the 2007 Guardians Classic (two games at home, two at Kemper Arena).

“In a perfect world we’d have a presence on the West Coast yearly and back East, hopefully the Garden,” KU coach Bill Self said of future schedules. “We’ll try to play home games with more traditional powers. We’ve got to generate more revenue with home games. Playing six nonconfernce games out of 12 you can’t generate a lot of revenue.”

KU next season will play Villanova in Philadelphia, Michigan State in East Lansing, Mich., and possibly Tennessee Chattanooga in Tennessee. The Jayhawks will entertain Nevada and TCU at Allen Fieldhouse.

Negotiations are ongoing for five other home games, two against traditional powers in home-and-home series. Keating did not reveal possible foes for those games.

“The schedule this year was not a bad schedule, but I think we will do some things differently in the future,” Self said. “We’ve got to get more home games to generate more revenue and that’s the way to do it.

“We gave up two games to go to Reno to play a tournament and got nothing in return by playing Santa Barbara. Reno comes back to our place.”

He likes games like the Richmond game, except for the fact KU lost.

“It was a non-return game but still you are playing an Atlantic Ten-type team,” Self said. “It’s not like scheduling somebody whose RPI is 200 or 250. Those games are good. We need to play three to four traditional-power games, like next year we go to Villanova and MIchigan State, and we need to have Villanova-, Michigan State-type teams coming to Allen and get on that cycle.”

Self said he would continue to try to schedule games in hometowns of his recruits, but would like to play those games in a player’s junior or senior year, not freshman year.

This season, frosh forward David Padgett returned home for a victory against Santa Barbara and a loss to Nevada in Reno, Nev.

“I can understand why that was scheduled. I can certainly understand why you’d throw that carrot out there (in recruiting). He’s certainly worth it,” Self said. “I just think it’d be better as a junior.”

• Mathew Holladay safe: Former KU assistant coach Joe Holladay’s son, Mathew, a member of Army’s 173rd Airbourne Brigade, is out of danger after spending the last 10 months in Iraq.

Mathew Holladay, a 1999 graduate of West Point, has been stationed to Vicenza, Italy, and will return to the United States in March.

He hasn’t seen his parents in two years.

“He really wants to come home to an NCAA Tournament game,” Holladay, a North Carolina assistant, told the Durham, N.C., newspaper. “I said, ‘We’ll do our best, you do your part and we’ll try to do ours.”’

• Recruiting update: KU apparently has started to recruit Tyrone Jackson, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound sophomore shooting guard from Fresno City College in Calif.

Jackson, who scored 50 points in one game and 48 in another, tells Shay Wildeboor of rivals.com he’s also considering Arizona State, UConn, Maryland, Louisville, Memphis and others.

The Jayhawks, who have filled their scholarship allotment of three for next year, are continuing to recruit players in case anybody turns pro or leaves the program.

Jamont Gordon, a 6-foot-4, 215-pound junior from Nashville, Tenn., has a top-three list of KU, Tennessee and Kentucky and he wants to visit all three schools.