After getting back to town in the wee hours of Monday morning from a winless and seemingly long trip to Palo Alto, Calif., coach Ritch Price said he was looking forward to another round of traveling before leaving for Oral Roberts (3-5) on Monday evening.

Price and his Jayhawks (7-4) hopped a bus for Tulsa last night to avoid the five-hour drive immediately before today’s 3 p.m. game. Getting into town a few hours earlier may boost the Jayhawks into snapping out of their losing woes.

“When you’ve just lost three in a row, you’ve got to find a way to win,” Price said.

After an 11-day hiatus from game play because of the weather and poor field conditions, Price and his team will have played four games in five days. The intense schedule may be difficult and travel-heavy, but at least games are being played.

That extended lull between games caused the team to step backwards, Price said last week. Without the layoff, last weekend’s results against Stanford (7-5) may have turned out differently.

“We don’t make excuses,” Price said. “But I’m confident in how hard we played that if we didn’t have those two weeks off and had played the weekend before — we could’ve won the series.”

During Friday night’s loss, Price said he watched his players swing at nearly 25 balls in the dirt. Those were the same pitches the Jayhawks were avoiding on Sunday after working back into game mode towards the end of weekend.

“That’s why we went though,” Price said, explaining that the only way to get his team game-ready is by playing games, and it’s all the more helpful if those games are against quality teams capable of sweeping the series.

The Golden Eagles look as if they will provide that caliber of competition that Price deems necessary. On the surface, their 3-5 start disagrees with the Golden Eagles’ threat as a serious opponent, but snapping their losing streak against Big 12 Conference powerhouse Baylor on Sunday proved their worth.

“They play in probably the weakest conference in America,” Price said. “But their non-conference season is one of the toughest in the country.”

Playing in the Mid-Continent Conference, Oral Roberts will take on No. 13 Texas (9-6) this weekend and is slated to face No. 5 Arkansas (9-3) in two weeks.

Playing in rough waters, Oral Roberts was swept by Texas Christian University two weekends ago and Baylor took the first two games last weekend, pushing the Golden Eagles’ losing streak to five games.

Oral Roberts refused to buckle. Using a strong offensive stand and a record-breaking pitching performance, the Golden Eagles prevented the sweep. In fact, Kansas and Oral Roberts were in the same boat this weekend as the Golden Eagles dropped a tough one, 3-2, in 10 innings on Friday, much like the 6-5 loss the Jayhawks suffered on Friday after battling back from a 5-0 deficit.

Junior lefty Michael Jarman struck out 14 batters in his team’s victory on Sunday, setting a new record for strikeouts in Baylor Ballpark. Although the possibility of the Jayhawks facing him tonight is highly unlikely, they will have to quiet the hitters.

“We played them my first year,” Price said. “We beat them two out of three, but they’ve won their conference like nine years straight.”

Junior third baseman Tyler Warmerdam went 2-4 with one RBI in the Golden Eagles’ last game to bring his average to .250.

Oral Roberts has no .300 hitting threat, but they have plenty with potential. Senior first baseman Chad Rothford leads all of this afternoon’s players with three home runs. The All Mid-Continent Conference first team performer also leads his team with a pair of doubles and is tied for the lead with six RBI.

Kansas packed a few weapons of its own.

Junior left fielder John Allman went a solid 7-15 against Stanford this weekend, spiking his team-leading batting average to .410, while fellow outfielder Kyle Murphy continued to follow Allman’s lead.

The senior Murphy tagged a career-high four hits against Stanford on Sunday and went 5-12 in three games, trailing Allman slightly in the batting average race at .394.

Allman and Murphy are the only Jayhawks hitting over .300. Kansas is hitting just .267 as a team, which should match-up fairly evenly with Oral Roberts’ .235 team average.

Freshman left-hander Wally Marciel (1-0, 4.50) will get the nod tomorrow afternoon for Kansas. In Friday’s loss to Stanford, Marciel came in to relieve starter Nick Czyz. Marciel allowed one run off of two hits while retiring just two batters.

Nevertheless, Price and his team will come out swinging tomorrow. Price said that getting some of his guys back on track is a goal for tomorrow’s match-up, probably much like Oral Roberts.

“They need a win as bad as we do,” Price said. “They’ve also had a tough two weeks opening up.”

Kansan sportswriter Alissa Bauer can be contacted at abauer@kansan.com.

— Edited by Joe Caponio