Kansas University’s senior men’s basketball players have decided that actions will speak louder than words — at least for the rest of the week.

Riding a three-game losing streak, the Jayhawks have decided to decline all media interview requests leading up to Sunday’s Big 12 Conference showdown against Oklahoma State, which will tip off at 3 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse.

The seniors, who actually wanted their silence to last until the end of the regular season, presented the request to coach Bill Self after Wednesday morning’s 6 a.m. practice.

He agreed to a media ban, but just until the conclusion of Sunday’s game.

“This is not my doing. The seniors met yesterday and told me this morning their focus has not been near as good as what it was before,” Self said. “They were going to get together and try to be as one as much as possible and not have any distractions, even minor ones. They made a commitment not to do a couple of different things, one of ’em was, ‘Let’s just think about Oklahoma State and not talk to the media.’

“I’ll respect that and hope you guys do as well.”

One media member told Self this could “sour” the media on the players.

“I think our guys have been fairly accessible. If it sours you, then it sours you. That’s what they want to do (not talk). It may sour you, but when Wayne (Simien) has 12 media requests between now and Friday, I can kind of understand where they are coming from for this three-day period of time,” Self said. “I hope you guys can respect that.”

Self briefly interrupted the four seniors during their dinner meeting Tuesday to inform them Oklahoma State had lost at Nebraska and would enter Sunday’s game with the same record as KU — 20-4 overall and 10-3 in the league.

“I could tell it gave them a breath of fresh air. Not that they were overly excited, but thought, ‘We can still take care of our business and have a shot (at league title),”’ Self said.

“From a coach’s perspective, I don’t wish for other people to get beat. I wish we’d take care of our business. We didn’t do it last week. We caught a break last night.”

As far as holding an early morning practice after Tuesday’s day off, Self said: “I can tell you this, if we played great last week, we might not have gotten up at 5 this morning, but we didn’t do it strictly as punishment. Their frame of mind this morning was fine.”

The Jayhawks, who also practiced Wednesday afternoon, were to hold film sessions and walk-through scouting reports today, then practice hard again Friday and Saturday.

“I think from a ‘legs’ standpoint, going twice in one day is better than five consecutive days,” he said.

As far as the mental outlook of the team, Self would try to work on the squad’s confidence all week.

“You don’t go from being ranked second in America to being a bad team in three days. We’re still a good team,” Self said. “We just played bad. If we had a bad day in December and spread it out over time, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Since it comes back to back, some feel the sky is falling. We’re the same team we were. We just had bad days. We have to convince our players of that which I think we can do.”

Injury report

KU coach Bill Self said he hoped to get Christian Moody (staph infection left knee) back at practice full-time by Friday and hoped the junior forward would be able to play Sunday.

“It’s amazing how valuable he is and how we have come to realize how valuable he is,” Self said.

Self said it was a bizarre circumstance for a floor burn to turn into a staph infection. But KU’s coach said this situation was not avoidable.

“It was treated immediately right after it occurred (in Texas Tech game) like any other floor burn,” Self said. “He had no swelling, no symptoms. He practiced Thursday and was fine, then on Friday it was swollen like a balloon. It’s a freak deal, and unfortunately the location was such it made it worse, right on the top of the knee. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes in athletics these things happen.”

Videoboard coming

Self is thrilled that KU will have a new videoboard in the fieldhouse next season. KU hasn’t released specifics of the center videoboard, just that it will be in place for the 2005-06 season.

“To sell it (program), we have to be able to show videos,” Self said of showing tapes to recruits. “It would be nice if we could show videos on something other than a TV.”

Self said he hoped the building, which celebrates its 50th birthday during Wednesday’s home game against Kansas State, still would be KU’s home for hoops in 50 years.

“The rate I’m going, I don’t know if I’ll be here to see it,” Self quipped. “I’d love for the fieldhouse to be around 50 more years. So much work has to be done to modernize it. Sunday it’ll be alive. You walk into the fieldhouse when nobody is there, it’s a tired building.

“It’s not bad, but needs to be fixed up. What we have in store with generous donations, you will see an even different fieldhouse feel. I think it’ll be much more vibrant beginning next year. The scoreboard and other things will make it more visual. Recruits are more visual.”

As for specifics …

“You don’t change anything. What you do is you sandblast and repaint. You leave the windows, but modernize them a bit,” Self said. “I don’t think you add air conditioning. It’s one of the beautiful things about it. You come and sweat in the building on certain days. Do some things with the locker rooms, concourse area. The hall of fame needs to be done for the university. Why not have it in the most historic building on campus? We won’t lose anything, and we’ll gain a lot.”