The Jayhawks practiced two hours Thanksgiving morning at Valley High School and had an hour-and-a-half shootaround and scouting-report session late Thursday afternoon at Orleans Arena before eating a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at the Marriott Renaissance hotel. : Sasha Kaun was able to practice hard and is again expected to play tonight against Ball State. : The Jayhawks were to relax on Thursday night after seeing magicians Penn and Teller perform Wednesday. Darnell Jackson was pulled out of the audience with other audience members as part of one magic trick.

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North Carolina, Louisville, Brigham Young and Creighton will play in next year’s Invitational at Orleans Arena. Kentucky and UCLA are tentatively scheduled to play in Las Vegas in 2008.

The Las Vegas Holiday Classic, set for Dec. 22 and 23 at the Orleans, will include Kansas State, Southern California, Wichita State and New Mexico. Slated for next year’s Classic are Alabama, Purdue, Iowa State and Mississippi State.

“We think we can be the No. 1 college basketball tournament in the country,” promoter Chris Spencer told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Since the rule changed, I’ve had a lot of teams express interest in playing in our events.”