Knock on wood

Kansas University coach Bill Self had a nightmare of sorts while snoozing on the team bus.

“I was thinking coming up here, what if a team got food poisoning or what if the team caught the flu bug at an inappropriate time?” he said. “Anything could happen. This is the time of year you can’t afford anything bad to happen. Do you go hard at practice at the risk of turning an ankle or something? You can’t worry about it too much, but you’ve got to be conscious of those types of things.”

Self said nobody currently has the flu.

“We’re good,” Self said, assuredly heading to knock on wood before taking the elevator up to his hotel room.

One vs. 16

No No. 1 seed ever has lost to a 16. Somebody asked Self Tuesday if he thought it would ever happen.

“Absolutely. Hopefully it’ll be postponed awhile,” he said. “It will definitely occur at some point in time.”

Is his team feeling any pressure as a one for the second straight year?

“We have not talked about that. I guess potentially that could be the case. The way we’ve approached it is we’re a one seed but that doesn’t mean much. Now just go out and play to our seed,” Self said. “The biggest thing is to enjoy the process. I think you’d be foolish to take it so seriously you can’t have fun, because this is the highlight of every college player’s career, playing in the tournament. There may be a little extra pressure. I don’t think our guys will feel that.”

Releford overseas

KU signee Travis Releford will compete for Team USA at the Albert Schweitzer international tournament March 22-29 in Mannheim, Germany. Releford is a 6-5 guard from Roeland Park Miege.