Notebook: Jayhawks getting used to late nights

The Jayhawk starters come together before tipoff on Monday, Feb. 23, 2015 at Bramlage Coliseum.

Manhattan ? Ten Kansas University basketball games have started at 8 p.m., this season, including Monday’s 70-63 road loss, at Kansas State.

“One thing about Big Monday, you get used to playing late,” KU coach Bill Self said. “Of course we’ve (also) played at noon. Very rarely do you have to play before that. Hopefully we’ve experienced the gamut when it comes to those things. We’ve had some games start late in the NCAA Tournament (in past years).”

Smith ceremony: KU athletic director Sheahon Zenger, associate AD Jim Marchiony and former KU athlete Gary Padgett attended the Memorial Service for Dean Smith on Sunday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Former KU coach Roy Williams thanked the KU contingent for attending in his address to the crowd in the Dean Smith Center.

• Box score

Competitors: Kansas State, following Monday’s victory against rival Kansas, has a 14-15 record, 7-9 in the Big 12, while KU is now 22-6, 11-4.

The state’s other Div. I school, Wichita State, is 25-3.

“I think it’s good when everybody is good. It creates interest, creates competition between fans, creates talk, brings attention to our state,” KU coach Bill Self said.

“You’ve never heard us say we were jealous of other people being good because what it should do is make you raise your level when you know people are pushing you and you know there’s competition. We always want to be the superior one in that regard just like every other fan base does as well. I think when our guys watch TV and they are talking about K-State or Wichita State and their guys are watching them talk about us or somebody else, I think it stirs the pot a little bit, boils the blood and makes for competitive practices and stuff like that.”

Self on KSU transfers: Justin Edwards (6-4 junior) and Stephen Hurt (6-11 junior), averaged 6.2 and 4.3 points respectively entering Monday’s game:

“They’re good. Hurt’s highly recruited. He’s a juco guy (from NW Florida State). We looked at him. A lot of people looked at him. That was a good get for K-State. Certainly he’s big and he’s got skills. He’s got touch, too.

“Edwards … I like him. He’s kind of a right-handed (Kelly) Oubre so to speak. Really long, has a good wing span, and he can shoot it, too,” Self added of the transfer from Maine.

Blackman to be honored: Former KSU All-American Rolando Blackman will be inducted in the 10th class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in November in Kansas City, Missouri.

Blackman played for coach Jack Hartman at KSU from 1977-81. He guided the Wildcats to an 80-41 (.661) record, two trips to the NCAA Tournament, including the 1981Elite Eight and the 1980 Big Eight Tournament title.