Salina ? As Bill Self waited to tee off Wednesday morning at Salina Country Club, part of his mind was a couple of hours away in Lawrence.

And with good reason. After participating in the annual Kansas Alumni Association golf outing and picnic in Salina, it was back on a plane to KU for Self, who in the afternoon was scheduled to meet with his 2006-07 KU basketball team.

“Everybody’s in, and everybody’s excited,” Self said. “I know that I’m very excited about the prospects of this season. On paper, it should be a fun year. Although you don’t play the games on paper, I know everybody’s fired up.”

The Jayhawks will be among a handful of national preseason favorites by the time they open against Northern Arizona on Nov. 11 in Allen Fieldhouse.

Even the disappointment of last March’s first-round exit from the NCAA Tournament could not obscure the fact that by the end of the 2005-06 campaign, the young Jayhawks had matured into a formidable team.

Before a loss to Bradley in the NCAAs, they had rebounded from a shaky start to claim a share of the Big 12 regular-season title and knock off co-champ Texas to win the league tournament.

“We know we’ve got to play better in the (NCAA) tournament,” Self said. “That goes without saying. But I was really proud of this past year’s team. We had a great year. Those kids played so far beyond their age.”

Starting three freshmen – Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers and Julian Wright – along with sophomores Russell Robinson and Sasha Kaun, the Jayhawks won 15 of 16 games down the stretch before the ill-fated loss to Bradley.

“I believe experience was a factor down the stretch, and certainly that should not be the case (this year), although we’ll still be one of the youngest teams in the country,” Self said. “We certainly expect this to be a big season for us.”

Self has added a pair of high-profile recruits in point guard Sherron Collins and forward Darrell Arthur.

“We will have the most experienced young team around,” Self said. “When you think about it, our top seven scorers were freshmen and sophomores, and at least two of our key players this year will be incoming freshmen. We’re still going to be unbelievably young, but the guys are talented, and they’re good listeners right now, and hopefully they’ll have the same mind-set that they had this past year.”

Self’s biggest problem could be keeping everybody happy while searching for a combination that not only will carry the Jayhawks to the top of the Big 12, but also deep into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years.

“Chemistry will be as important a thing as anything we have going besides health,” Self said. “Because we’ve got good players and we’ve got depth, but how much they like each other will be probably the biggest keys we have. We’re going to be able to go eight or nine deep. Hopefully we have enough guys that, if something unforeseen happens, it won’t devastate us.”

The team is athletic.

“We’ll be able to really pressure for 40 minutes and we will be able to hopefully have a lot of interchangeable parts,” Self said.

“We can maybe have a come-from-behind, catch-up team that may be very effective, and maybe even a team that would be an end-of-game, clutch-situation type team. We’ll have some different options.”

Self at the Salina outing addressed traveling with a KU contingent to Baltimore to meet with NCAA officials to discuss a series of self-reported infractions by KU athletic teams.

“I do think I needed to be there,” he said. “Because any of these programs that had any issues, regardless of time frame, was represented.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss anything that happened, but the biggest thing is that Lew (Perkins, athletic director) and the chancellor have done a great job in showing the concern that our university has in the area of compliance and doing things the right way.”