You’ll never hear Sherron Collins — who came off the bench his first two seasons at Kansas University — complain about playing too many minutes in any single game.

“It’s fun to go 40, especially in a game like that where it’s competitive and there’s something on the line and we have to get stops and there’s a grind to it,” the 5-foot-11, 200-pound junior point guard said Thursday.

He was reflecting on playing 40 of 45 minutes in Tuesday’s 89-81 overtime loss to Syracuse in the finals of the CBE Classic.

“I was pretty tired, got a little gassed, but no excuses,” said Collins, who led KU in scoring for the fourth straight game with 21 points, but also committed three second-half turnovers and missed a 15-foot fadeaway jump shot to close regulation.

“It didn’t have an effect on what I did,” he added of fatigue. “I just made a couple bonehead plays. I didn’t keep my poise as much as I should.”

Collins — he’ll welcome as many minutes as possible during today’s 7 p.m. nonconference home clash against Coppin State — said more than anything he regrets exhibiting bad body language late in the Syracuse game. It’s why he accepted total blame for the loss in a postgame interview session.

“It’s my team. I’m captain of the team, the leader. Speaking for myself, I got frustrated. Once I get frustrated, I let it show. I can’t do that. When I get frustrated it goes to the rest of the team,” Collins said. “I can’t let them see me do that, especially a young group like that.”

Freshman guard Tyshawn Taylor, who scored a career-high 17 points in 36 minutes, could tell Collins was steamed at himself during the second half and part of overtime.

“I was trying to say something to him on the bench. He was in a zone. He was just ready to play. He wanted to win so bad,” Taylor said. “I felt like he tried to take the game over by himself. He was a little frustrated.”

Like Collins, Taylor said he grew fatigued near the end of the long game.

“I was so tired,” he said. “I played a lot the game before (25 minutes on Monday in victory over Washington). Coming out in the overtime is when it really got me.”

Of course, like Collins, he welcomes all the playing time he can get.

“I mean it probably would have been fun if we would have won,” Taylor said of the extended minutes. “It wasn’t that fun because we lost.”

KU coach Bill Self said Collins probably learned a valuable lesson in working a career-high 40 minutes Tuesday. His previous high was 34 in the national title game versus Memphis, also overtime.

“I think he learned you’ve got to pick your spots when you get fatigued,” Self said. “Although he won’t admit to this, one of his greatest strengths and trademarks is he’s stubborn, like most good players. When things weren’t going well, he really wanted to show he could turn it around.

“Sometimes when things aren’t going well, it’s best to just make sure we have a good possession.

“This is all new. He has confidence in the other guys, but he doesn’t have more confidence in them than he does in himself. He’s used to playing with those older kids (last season). If he’s going through a rut, obviously he could defer. He probably doesn’t feel he can defer too much, which is not all bad. We can all learn from the other night. He’s played pretty well so far, but he had a rough three or four minutes.”

Collins — team leader that he is — says he is gaining confidence in his younger teammates all the time.

“Tyshawn came to light. The twins came to light. It shows we are going to be all right,” he said. “We were up 11, 13 at times. Once we get a team down, we have to put our foot on them and stop letting them breathe. We’ve got to take that from that game.”

— Assistant sports editor Gary Bedore can be reached at 832-7186.