Somewhere between Los Angeles and Chicago, 39,000 feet above snow-covered fields, Kansas University senior guard Tyshawn Taylor stole a nap Friday in Seat 19C on Southwest Airlines Flight 105.

He was on his way to New Jersey to visit friends and relatives for a well-deserved break from his duties as student-athlete and leader of a basketball team that has less depth than Kim Kardashian.

Taylor, up with the crack of dawn, connected to another flight on his way to New Jersey, where he was scheduled to arrive at 7:30 p.m. Just another long day in the life of a college basketball player. He’ll return to school for the final time the day after Christmas.

By the time Selection Sunday arrives 11 weeks from now, all the talk will center on the seeding, the opponent, the site. Not much will be said about how much worse that seeding would have been had Taylor not been able to manage so well the pain that comes with playing basketball with a torn meniscus and sprained ACL.

In a span of nine days, Taylor suffered a knee injury in practice, then — while wearing a knee brace — helped KU to win two games (Long Beach State and Ohio State) it would have lost without him, then underwent surgery to repair the meniscus, then was back on the court in a losing effort against Davidson.

“The doctors did a great job,” Taylor said, after dishing nine assists and turning it over just twice in Thursday night’s grind-it-out road victory against USC. “I’m proud of myself, too. I never really had any injuries with my knees, with my ankles, with my legs, period. I was a little nervous about it when it first happened. I was a little scared. Once I started to do my rehab, I started to feel better.”

The knee, he said, still swells, but returns to normal after icing. He said he doesn’t feel it when he’s on the court. It’s his pride that hurts sometimes when he watches games.

“Since that Duke game,” when Taylor had 11 turnovers, “I’ve watched every game once or twice. A lot of my turnovers are unforced. Just careless plays. Those are things that are easily correctable, and I’m working on correcting them. I know that I have to be patient and not try to force so many things.”

Taylor expressed gratitude to the team’s video coordinator, Jeff Forbes, a former Lawrence High assistant boys basketball coach. Every turnover and assist is edited onto its own clip. Same with defensive possessions and shots.

Taylor watches his plays, good and bad, so often because he wants to lead his team deeper into the tournament than most of us would guess it will advance. He wants to play in the NBA. He knows his game needs tightening.

“On the ball, I think I’m a pretty good defender,” Taylor said. “I think where I get in trouble is not being a strong help defender. If somebody beats Elijah (Johnson) or Trav (Releford), I’m not helping. Or I’m just ball-watching. Elijah and I both get into trouble ball-watching.”

He also wants Thursday’s two-turnover total to be the norm.

“The only other thing I can say about myself is, defensively I have to try to put more pressure on the ball and create more havoc,” he said.

If he falls short, it won’t be for lack of effort or toughness.