It doesn’t appear a new videoboard will be hanging in Allen Fieldhouse next season.

Kansas University’s athletic department is in the process of raising money for a videoboard that, when installed with an upgraded sound system and perhaps new lights, would cost in excess of $1 million.

Once funding is established, KU associate athletic director Pat Warren will go out and finalize pricing of videoboards and ultimately purchase one that would replace KU’s center scoreboard.

Funding would have to be in place in the next week or so to conceivably rush a board into use for next season. More likely, Warren indicated, is a scenario in which funding would be finalized during the 2002-03 basketball season with a videoboard to go up in May of 2003.

“Allen Fieldhouse would be unusable for a week or two weeks (during installation),” Warren said. “The month of May is the best time for a project like that in a building that is used pretty much the entire year.”

Warren and former KU facilities director Darren Cook scouted a Daktronics board at American Airlines Center in Dallas months ago, prior to Cook leaving for a job at Kansas Speedway. In the past, Cook also visited Baylor and other sites to look at boards.

Fatty growth removed: KU sophomore guard Michael Lee recently had surgery.

Not to worry, though. His surgery involved Lawrence doctor Jeff Randall removing a lipoma, a fatty growth on Lee’s right shoulder.

“Picture half a golf ball,” Lee said. “That’s what was on my shoulder. I’ve had it a long time. It was growing so they decided to cut it off.”

The growth was checked for cancer and ruled benign. Lee missed two weeks of pick-up basketball so his skin could heal. The incision on his shoulder took just a couple stitches to close.

“I never really lost range of motion. I’m glad it’s off there and taken care of,” said Lee, a 6-foot-3 guard from Portland, Ore.

Roster numbers: Kansas has released its roster for next season. All the returning players will keep the same jersey numbers they had last season.

Newcomer Jeff Graves, 6-9, 255 pounds from Iowa Western Community College, will wear No. 42. Moulaye Niang, 6-9, 205 from Senegal, will wear No. 55.

Recruiting update: Illinois this week received a verbal commitment from Richard McBride, a 6-3 senior-to-be from Springfield, Ill., Lanphier High. The Illini also have a commitment from Warren Carter, 6-9 from Texas. The Illini are recruiting Brian Randle, 6-7 from Peoria, Ill., who has mentioned Kansas as a possibility, plus Shannon Brown, 6-2 from Chicago Proviso East, who also is considering KU, Duke, Michigan State, Cincinnati and DePaul. Brown recently had an unofficial visit to DePaul.