Kansas University basketball coach Bill Self was 30 minutes late for his live radio show Monday night at Carlos O’Kelly’s Mexican Cafe.

He had a good reason, needing time after practice to tell his players that Wayne Simien had left thumb surgery and would be out four to six weeks.

“One of the first things I said (to the team) was, ‘We should probably revamp our goals with Wayne out, right?”’ Self related.

“Nobody said anything, and I said, ‘Expletive no, we’re not going to revamp anything because we’ve got good enough players to get the job done.’ Guys are going to play a little bit better than what they did before. Guys are going to be a little more focused. There’s going to be more of a sense of urgency, and we’re going to benefit from this in some way.

Self said he didn’t know yet who would replace Simien, who likely will miss six to 10 games, in the starting lineup Wednesday when the Jayhawks meet Wisconsin-Milwaukee at 7 p.m. at Kemper Arena.

“Darnell, probably in my mind, has played the next best,” Self said of Darnell Jackson, who along with fellow freshmen C.J. Giles and Sasha Kaun have played behind the starting frontcourt of Simien and Christian Moody.

“It could be Darnell. We’ll see how things go. We need multiple people to step up and somebody will.”

Freshman Alex Galindo, known for his outside shooting, also could play more minutes at the power forward position.

“We could go a different mode and play small if we had to. I’m confident they can all do it,” Self said.

KU’s rookie big men will do all they can to replace Simien’s 17.4 points and 12 rebounds a game.

“All our big guys will have to step up,” Giles said. “With Wayne gone, we don’t have a post presence. We need to get a lot tougher. For me, it’s kind of scary at first but I know I can go out and do it. I have to just go out and play.”

Jackson said “yes and no” when asked if it could provide him an opportunity to play more.

“Yes, because I have a chance to go out and prove myself. No, because it’ll be hard. The freshmen need to pick it up,” Jackson said. “We need to take it to another level. We need to block out and concentrate.”

Kaun added: “I think for the big guys, we need to step up and help the team as much as we can because we’re a little different team now. It might be a chance but for me, the first thing is to help the team any way I can. We all need to get more physical, box out and get rebounds, put a body on people.”

Senior Aaron Miles realizes Simien is a tough man to replace.

“You lose Wayne, he’s a 20-and-10 guy that has to be replaced somehow, someway. It’s not necessarily the points. If Wayne can’t play, they definitely have to step up and give 110 percent effort, give rebounds and box out, do fundamental things to help the team,” Miles said of the freshmen.

Miles said Simien is in good spirits.

“Wayne is an optimistic cat,” Miles said. “He’s one of those guys who always sees the glass half full. Whatever he has to go through, he’ll do it.”

• Harm, but no foul: Simien’s injury occurred when he was hacked hard while going up for a shot in Saturday’s game against South Carolina. No foul was called on the play.

“Can you believe that?” Self said Monday. “I think that was just a blown call. I think the official that made the no call would probably tell you, ‘Look, I missed that one.’ On tape, it looked very, very obvious. But those things happen. It’s one thing kind of frustrating with Wayne. He takes a pounding down there. He has not been recipient of near as many free throws as what he was shooting earlier in the season.”

• Mistake revisited: Frosh Giles has taken some good-natured ribbing from friends the past couple of days since he shot the ball in the opposing team’s basket.

“Everybody was telling me I should have just dunked it,” said the 6-10 freshman center. He grabbed a missed South Carolina free throw with 1:06 left in the first half of Saturday’s 64-60 victory, promptly depositing the ball in the Gamecocks’ basket.

“I don’t even know,” Giles said Monday, asked what was going through his mind when he committed the gaffe. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Giles, who had three blocks in seven minutes, knew he made an error in judgment even before the points were put up on the scoreboard.

“Right when it left my hand,” Giles said of the moment he knew he erred. “Honestly that was not a freshman mistake. It was a mistake of someone just not having his head in the game, not being ready. I have to be a lot more focused.”

Giles wasn’t scolded by his coach because of the play.

“He just laughed it off,” Giles said of Self. “He would have gotten upset if in the first couple of minutes I wasn’t playing as hard, but I was playing pretty good before that.”

• Seeing red?: Self hinted on his radio show that the Jayhawks just might be breaking out their red uniforms Wednesday in Kemper Arena.

“We’re definitely going to play in crimson,” Self said. “And we may play in ’em real, real, real, real soon.”