Something about Kansas’ 72-55 win over Iowa State last night got my political juices flowing again.

Haul out the ubiquitous yard signs and bumper stickers, for last night marked a call to arms for the Collins-Aldrich 2009 campaign to begin. It’s time to get a little selfish in Lawrence.

Surely NBA scouts this season have discussed Sherron Collins’ and Cole Aldrich’s lottery prospects and, if so, they are surely aware. Any more twin 22-point nights — with 11 rebounds from Aldrich — will make the prospect of two big holes in Kansas’ 2009-10 starting lineup frighteningly realistic.

Aldrich’s game was a 27-minute study of resiliency. Benched early after amassing four first-half turnovers, The Man in the Plastic Mask brought the house down with a thundering one-handed dunk seven minutes removed from seeing his team’s lead shrink from 17 points to five yet again.

Sixty-one percent of the Jayhawks’ offense came from a duo unquestionably anointed the team’s leaders before the season — a billing that’s of course often rewarded by default when dealing with the only two significant contributors left from the prior season.

Aldrich’s performance was a more than welcome complement to Collins’ usual theatrics on as anemic a night Allen Fieldhouse has seen in recent memory.

“We tried to feed him more and get him more touches,” Collins said. “He’s going to draw double teams. Sometimes late in games we get away from feeding. This game we kept feeding him though.”

Collins clearly did not go hungry against the Cyclones either. Coach Bill Self said he thought the game belonged to the junior guard. Collins may have scored a number of his points late, including two three-pointers in the last 90 seconds — one to send the fans home, the other to bring in the subs — but Self was pleased with those developments.

“Tonight I think it was very good from a conditioning standpoint that he shot the ball better late than he did early,” Self said.

Saturday’s game at Nebraska is all that stands between arguably the year’s biggest challenge — Feb. 23’s trip to Norman to face Oklahoma in what will do much to decide the Big 12 regular season champion. Add to that a possibility, which looks quite possible after tonight, that Aldrich could stuff a Player of the Year candidate in Blake Griffin.

We should hope Aldrich and Collins are on campus one year from now. There are no obvious candidates for successors and without the two we are left with an immensely green team yet to find itself.

An early jump to the pros by either will be a huge life decision. It will be made after counsel from one of the nation’s best coaching staffs and with the knowledge that the player will earn a multimillion-dollar contract in a piss-poor economy.

For all intents and purposes, nothing makes more sense than that, and such a move would be worthy of support. But for Kansas fans, those prospects should be scary. There’s little time to waste in rallying the base for our selfish campaign.

— — Chris Horn