Kansas City, Mo. ? Pacific point guard Miah Davis knows a lot about the man he will be guarding today — Kansas University floor general Aaron Miles.

“I’ve watched him play several times. He’s on TV all the time, on ESPN, CBS … all over,” said Davis, the Tigers’ 6-foot point guard. “He’s obviously a very good player on a very good team. It will be a challenge going up against a team like Kansas.”

Davis may not be a fixture on TV like the 6-1 Miles, but the Jayhawks’ junior point guard respects Pacific’s point nonetheless.

“He,” Miles said, “is player of the year in their conference.”

Davis, who averages 14.9 points and 3.1 assists per game, indeed is the best player in the Big West and the best player on a No. 12-seeded Tiger team that takes a 16-game win streak into today’s 3:50 p.m. game.

“Seeds do not matter this time of year,” Miles said. “They are in the tournament. They beat a very good Providence team (Friday). I think all teams are equal right now.”

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Surgeries looming: Keith Langford isn’t the only Jayhawk who will need knee surgery after the season.

KU senior power forward Jeff Graves needs arthroscopic surgery to clean out debris in his right knee.

“Probably the whole season,” Graves said, asked how long his knee has been bothering him. “It wasn’t going to affect my jumping ability that badly, so we can take care of it after the season. Sometimes I have nagging pain, but it’s not bad.”

Kansas coach Bill Self, standing, flips through papers in the team locker room as Moulaye Niang, left, head trainer Billy Cowgill and administrative assistant Sean Harrington, right, kick back. KU held a closed practice Saturday at Kemper Arena.

Asked why he never complained about his knee, Graves said: “Because that would just be another excuse. I just try not to think about it and try to help the team.”

He said he’d be out about two weeks following the arthroscopic surgery.

J.R. Giddens, meanwhile, will need no additional surgery on his left foot, in which he had a screw inserted last offseason to repair a stress fracture.

“After the season is over he’ll be out of basketball five or six weeks,” KU coach Bill Self said. “He’ll have to shut it down awhile. He won’t hurt himself more by playing, but he needs time to heal. He’s grown up dreaming of this moment, and there’s no way to keep him out of playing.”

Wayne Simien (groin) also will rest for a month or so after the season to cure his nagging injury.

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Get the towels out: Simien wishes ball boys would have mopped up the court after he hit the deck in the first half of Friday’s game.

He slipped and did the splits on the exact same spot on the very next possession, injuring his groin.

Kansas coach Bill Self meets the press before practice.

“It kind of frustrated me that something like that could have been prevented,” Simien said. “Maybe a couple of ball boys could have gotten the wet spots. In a physical game like that with guys diving on the ground, maybe they could have gotten those wet spots.”

“It’s hard every time a guy falls down to get somebody out there,” Self said. “Maybe it could have been avoided.”

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Norm might land job: KU assistant Norm Roberts is a leading candidate, perhaps THE leading candidate, to be the next Southern Methodist University head coach.

Asked about possibly losing Roberts, Self said: “We have been together a long time. He is a like a brother and best friend. He’s done such a great job he needs to better himself as well.

“I knew this day would come. If that’s what he wants to do, it’ll come whenever he wants it.”