Kansas basketball notebook

Chalmers strains knee: KU junior guard Mario Chalmers said he suffered a strained patellar tendon in his left knee when going up for a layup with 2:47 left in the first half.

He played 14 minutes the second half.

Chalmers, who wore a strap on the knee to put pressure on it to “take the pain away,” said he’d be fine after icing the knee Saturday night.

“I stretched too far,” Chalmers said of skying for a possible dunk. “I’ll be ready for tomorrow.”

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Arthur struggles again: Darrell Arthur had just seven points off 3-of-7 shooting with seven rebounds in 23 minutes. He had six points and five boards in the first round versus Nebraska.

“I’m gonna be blunt. Part of it is his fault. You can’t get into foul trouble early,” senior Russell Robinson said. “At the same time, you’ve got to get him the ball, and get him going, keep his head into it. He’s had two rough games here, but if anything, he’s able to turn it around.”

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Thirty wins and counting: KU (30-3) reached the 30-win mark for the second year in a row and eighth time in school history. KU has won 30 games in back-to-back seasons for the third time in school history.

“It’s a pretty good year when you win 30,” coach Bill Self said. “When the season started, we’d have been disappointed if you’d told us this team would not win a lot of games. It serves absolutely no purpose as a milestone. You’ve got to play well from this point forward, or 30 is not very significant.”

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Selection show today: KU, which meets Texas at 2 p.m. at Sprint Center, will learn its NCAA Tournament fate during the 5 p.m. Selection Show on CBS.

Self was asked if the winner should receive a No. 1 seed.

“If we don’t win, we won’t get one. If Texas doesn’t win, they won’t win one. I think I can go that strong,” Self said. “I don’t see how the winner tomorrow wouldn’t be under serious consideration to deserve one.

“The best team in this league is probably going to be one of the best three, four, five teams in the country. We get a chance to determine who that will be tomorrow. I’m not going to campaign for it or politick for it because nobody’s going to listen, anyway.”

Self said he thought the committee likely would have KU and Texas in an either/or scenario entering today’s action.

“I think the winner goes here and the loser goes here. I think tonight it’ll be done with,” Self said.

Of the No. 1 seed, Self said: “After the initial thing comes out and everybody jumps up and down and says, ‘Ooh, we’re a No. 1 seed,’ after that I don’t know if it means much.”

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Texas talented: Today’s foe, Texas, defeated KU, 72-69, on Feb. 11 in Austin.

“They are a physical team, a great rebounding team like A&M,” KU freshman Cole Aldrich said. “They will give us a strong fight on the boards.”

“It’ll be a great game for the conference championship. They are a great team,” senior Sasha Kaun said.

Self noted: “Physically they handled us the second half of that (first) game. They have a great team. I’m OK with us not winning that game. I didn’t particularly care for the way we didn’t win it, which was them beating us to loose balls and outhustling us on the glass and things like that. That’s what I remember of that game.

“We also got lucky D.J. (Augustin, 1-for-13) didn’t shoot well. We have clips ready (to show KU players on Saturday night). That was five weeks ago. They’ll be doing something a little bit different and having a few different tendencies.”