When it comes to setting their meeting schedule, Douglas County commissioners don’t play games.

They’d rather watch.

Commissioners routinely cancel their regular Wednesday night meetings when they conflict with Kansas University men’s basketball games at Allen Fieldhouse, and this week offers no exception.

When Baylor tips off against KU at 7 p.m. Wednesday, the commission’s meeting room at the county courthouse will be as silent as Johnny’s Tavern after a KU 19-point loss to Nebraska.

“One of my alma maters is playing my other alma mater,” said county administrator Craig Weinaug, who received his political science degree from Baylor in 1974 and a master’s degree in public administration from KU two years later. “This is the one game a year I have tickets to. One of my alma maters will win, and I hope it’s KU.

“I’m afraid that losing three Big 12 games in a row would not be good.”

Commissioners say it only makes sense to adjust their governmental schedules around the Jayhawks, as much to meet their own schedules as to serve the public’s.

County Commissioner Bob Johnson, who’s had KU season tickets for nearly 30 years, doesn’t want to miss his chance to watch the games from his seat a few rows from the visitors’ bench. But more than that, he figures that few people pass on a chance to see the Jayhawks — either in person or on TV — to watch himself and his fellow commissioners approve meeting minutes, sign off on purchases and ponder resolutions.

“We don’t have anything that’s so critical that it has to be on a Wednesday night,” Johnson said. “We simply plan ahead. Unless there is anything that has to be done, we’d rather go to the basketball game.”

Government officials long have kept KU schedules as screen savers on their computers, knowing that to schedule a meeting during a KU game is to virtually assure lackluster participation. A few years back, a meeting designed to accept input about a proposed parks project in Lawrence lacked a vital component — anyone from the public — because the meeting conflicted with an early-round NCAA Tournament game.

At least KU won, something that Weinaug and Johnson are counting on again for this week.