Kansas University basketball coach Bill Self, Minnesota’s Tubby Smith, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and other members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches Board of Directors wore white hard hats Tuesday as they toured the soon-to-be completed College Basketball Experience in downtown Kansas City, Mo.

“I was blown away at how nice it will be. It’s really nice,” Self said Tuesday night.

“I heard some people saying it’ll be as nice a venue as there is … period.”

The College Basketball Experience, which cost an estimated $20 million, houses both the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame and interactive fan area.

It’s connected via hallway to the new $276 million Sprint Center. Both venues will open in October.

“It’s a uniquely shaped building that, by all accounts, will be great for basketball,” Self said. “We’re really looking forward to playing there (against Ohio on Dec. 15 and at the 2008 Big 12 tournament).

As far as the NABC meeting, the coaches discussed, “several major issues that are always discussed. We talk about ways we might better the game, housekeeping issues if that’s the right word,” Self said.

The coaches yearly discuss issues such as the controversial Academic Progress Rate and ways to convince the NCAA to increase practice time with their players over the summer months.

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Taylor update: Tyshawn Taylor, a 6-foot-3, 160-pound senior point guard from St. Anthony High in Jersey City, N.J., tells Rivals.com he has scheduled three of five campus visits.

Taylor, who will hold an in-home meeting with KU coach Bill Self on Sept. 12, will travel to Virginia Tech on Sept. 14, Georgia Tech on Oct. 11 and Virginia on Oct. 20. He also will visit KU and Marquette at yet-to-be-determined dates.

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Keller likes KSU: Dominique Keller, a 6-7, 225-pound sophomore forward from Lee (Texas) Community College, will visit UNLV on Sept. 14 and Kansas State on Oct. 5. He also is considering KU, West Virginia, Texas A&M and Charlotte. He played high school ball at Memorial High in Port Arthur, Texas.

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Keeping up with Jones: Kevin Jones, a 6-7 senior from Mt. Vernon (N.Y.) High, still has a lengthy list of schools including KU, Ohio State, West Virginia, UMass, Indiana, Michigan, Georgetown, UConn, Miami, Virginia, Seton Hall, Rutgers and St. John’s.

“It’s going to definitely be style of play, the relationship with the coach, and that the staff really loves my brother,” Kevin’s brother, Gerald, told Rivals.com.

Jones, who came on strong late in the summer for the Westchester Hawks AAU program, currently is not in Rivals.com’s top 150.

“It has been kind of tough with all the new schools,” Kevin Jones told the Louisville Courier-Journal. “But right now, all of the schools are the same. There’s no leader. I just have to try and find out what school will be the best fit for me.”