There hasn’t been a lot of standing around at Kansas University’s preseason basketball practices.

“I do think we are playing a little bit faster than we have,” said KU coach Bill Self, who has 17 players to shuffle in and out during scrimmage situations.

“It’s easy (to run) when you are playing against yourself. It will be much more difficult when other teams do certain things to try to slow you down and combat what you are trying to do.”

The Jayhawks, who practiced for 21â2 hours Friday – Day 14 of the 2007-08 season – have practiced well for the most part, Self indicated.

“Practice has been up and down, but today was definitely a very good day. Guys were fresh after a day off,” he said.

“We are doing some good things. We are trying hard, but we foul too much. We are pretty careless with the ball. That’s probably fairly normal this time of year.”

He hopes to get a lot accomplished in practices preceding Thursday’s exhibition opener against Pittsburg State (7 p.m., Allen Fieldhouse).

“We have a few things in,” Self said of offensive and defensive sets. “I’m sure Pitt State will do some things we haven’t practiced against or had time to study. They probably will make us look bad from time to time, but I know our guys will be excited to play. Even though we have only been practicing for two weeks, I think they are tired of butting heads with each other.”

Self said KU’s four freshmen, Cole Aldrich, Tyrel Reed, Conner Teahan and Chase Buford, “are doing OK. They are not doing great, but not poorly. They are behind. We have so many returning guys, we are going at a pretty fast rate. Those freshmen are still trying to figure out what we did on Day Seven. Here we are on Day 14 and moving into some different areas. They are going to be good players. The game is a little fast for them right now.”

Self said the freshmen all likely would play in the Pitt State game. One guy who won’t is junior Brandon Rush, who, following June 1 ACL surgery, is able to practice, but not yet with contact.

¢ Poll released: KU is ranked No. 4 in the country in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ preseason poll, which was released Friday.

Former KU coach Roy Williams’ North Carolina Tar Heels enter as No. 1, followed by UCLA and Memphis. The Tar Heels received 739 points, five more than the Bruins, eight more than the Tigers and 70 more than the Jayhawks.

UCLA received 12 first-place votes from the voting panel consisting of 31 Division I head coaches, to North Carolina’s 10. Memphis had eight first-place votes, and KU one.

KU has entered the coaches’ preseason poll ranked seventh or better seven times in the last eight seasons, including the 2004-05 season when the Jayhawks were ranked first.

KU will play four teams in the poll – No. 17 Arizona on Nov. 25 in Allen Fieldhouse as well as games at No. 14 Texas A&M, No. 16 Texas and No. 18 Southern Cal. Kansas State barely missed the poll at No. 26.

The poll came out just as KU coach Self envisioned. On Oct. 9 he said the Jayhawks would be ranked “somewhere in the preseason top five with North Carolina, Memphis, UCLA and Louisville.” He said Georgetown also likely would be in the mix. Louisville is ranked sixth and the Hoyas fifth.

“I don’t think we’ll play to that early. We could, but we will not have a chance to be one of those elite teams until we have our full complement of guys,” Self said, referring to Rush’s early-season absence.

Amazingly, two-time defending national champion Florida and national runner-up Ohio State are unranked. It’s the first time both national finalists have gone unranked the following season.