When Kansas showed up to Allen Fieldhouse for its shoot-around before Wednesday night’s game against Iowa State, coach Bill Self wasn’t impressed.

Self said his team was making sloppy passes, wasn’t hustling after loose balls and simply didn’t look ready to play a game in a matter of hours.

“No energy,” Self said. “You can tell at shoot-around if guys are juiced because on game days, you always jump a lot higher than you do non-gamedays because adrenaline is flowing. There was nobody flying around today.”

So, Self decided to teach his team a lesson. He turned one of the most relaxed basketball traditions into a conditioning session, running his team up and down the court.

Junior guard Sherron Collins, who didn’t look any more winded than usual at the end of the Jayhawks’ 72-55 victory, said the team wasn’t focused when it stepped on the court Wednesday afternoon.

“We didn’t come ready to shoot-around,” Collins said. “Shoot-around is not a day to waste — it’s a day where we’ve still got to get better. Today we weren’t bettering ourselves, so I think we deserved it.”

A lack of energy before playing the second-worst team in the Big 12 isn’t too surprising. However, this was Kansas’ first home game since a Feb. 7 victory over Oklahoma State. Eleven days apart generally makes a team long for its first game back in a familiar setting. Still, the Jayhawks came out flat Wednesday afternoon, causing Self to work the Jayhawks harder during their shoot-around.

Self said he rarely puts his team to work hours before a game day. Collins echoed that, saying he couldn’t remember it ever happening.

The unorthodox pregame prep worked wonders in the first seven minutes of the game as Kansas stormed out to a 16-2 advantage.

“We’ve got a great environment and the crowd will just get you energized for when the game starts,” freshman forward Marcus Morris said.

Brady Morningstar’s three-pointer midway through the first half extended the lead to 17.

After that, Kansas seemed content with its lead and lost some of the juice from the opening minutes. Morris said that was the problem with attaining such a big lead so early.

“Sometimes it creates room for error, so we start to turn the ball over a little more or shoot some contested shots,” Morris said. “We’ve just got to play through that.”

As loud as the Fieldhouse seemed at tipoff, Self said the electricity wasn’t there for much of the game.

“There wasn’t a lot of energy in the building,” Self said.

That was directed at Self’s bench as much as the crowd. He saw no energy in the afternoon and witnessed only spurts throughout the game.

Kansas got by on talent against Iowa State, but on Saturday Nebraska comes to Allen Fieldhouse. The Cornhuskers took the Jayhawks to the wire on Jan. 28, and Self said he expected more of the same this weekend.

That could mean another shoot-around turned into sprints. More than likely, though, Self will try to re-energize his team through conditioning or some other physical means long before Kansas steps on the court Saturday morning.

“Our guys weren’t as focused tonight,” Self said. “I think we’ll be able to get on them hard enough where they’ll be more excited to play Saturday.”

— — Edited by Susan Melgren