Cute and innocent, that is, until opposing 5-year-olds tried to dribble past him.

“He’d take the other guy’s ball,” reported Ronnie Chalmers, Mario’s dad who coached Kansas University’s junior guard in youth leagues as well as at Bartlett High up in the “Land of the Midnight Sun.”

“Back in that league, the rule was you couldn’t guard until the ball got across halfcourt. He’d be waiting and take it,” Ronnie, KU’s director of basketball operations, added with a laugh. “He started this in kindergarten. It became a habit.”

“This” is the knack of stealing the basketball, something Mario Chalmers does better than anybody in the Big 12 Conference.

Mario Chalmers, KU’s 6-foot-1, 190-pound ballhawking guard, who led the conference in steals the past two seasons – recording a KU single-season record 97 thefts a year ago – has a league-best 44 heading into today’s 8 p.m. Big 12 opener at Nebraska.

“He’s the best I’ve ever been around at taking somebody else’s ball,” KU coach Bill Self said of Mario Chalmers, who ranks fourth in school history with 230 steals – combining to form a dynamic defensive duo with senior Russell Robinson, who is fifth in school history with 206 thefts and second in the league this year with 38.

How did Mario become such a standout steal artist?

“YMCA, AAU, high school I used to tell him to count the dribbles. ‘Go 1, 2, 3, and on the third dribble, take it,'” Ronnie Chalmers said. “Most times the guy will make his move on the third dribble. The third dribble was the most crucial. He’d use his instinct and get it.”

Mario Chalmers, who says he likes “playing defense more than scoring” credits “anticipation and instinct” for his ability to steal the ball.

“I think it’s reading the passing lane, like DB’s do,” Mario Chalmers said of football defensive backs. “They’ve got to read where the ball is going, try to get in front of it, try to meet the ball before the opposing player does.”

Chalmers played some football back in Alaska.

“Nothing too serious, when I was 10, 11, 12. I always played free safety and corner,” Chalmers said.

“I couldn’t answer that,” he said, asked whether playing football helped him on the court. “It could have helped a bit, but I think that I just see it coming and use instinct to go get the ball.”

Chalmers says “50 percent” of the credit for his steals goes to his ballhawking buddy, Robinson.

“Russell puts pressure on the ballhandler. When they try to get rid of it, I try to read the pass,” Chalmers explained. “Russell is one of the best defensive guards I’ve ever seen. Russell is tough, plays great defense. I give him credit all the way.”

Robinson – he had eight steals, one off the school record, in KU’s recent rout of Yale – agreed the two work well together.

“I may help by pressuring the ball,” Robinson said. “It makes Mario’s job easier. He’s so solid. He gets everything set up. We feed off him. He gets steals, and it changes momentum for the team.”

Robinson admitted Chalmers’ defense “can be a little sloppy at times.”

In coach Self’s words, that means … “he’s so good at it, sometimes he goes for it too much. But he gets a lot of them.”

Self said KU’s steals are a thing of beauty.

“Russell sets him up a lot. Other players set him up,” Self said. “Mario has very quick hands. He has a lot of God-given quickness, great basketball instincts, and he’s just good at it, getting many of them off deflections or creating deflections.”

Self said he had no idea Chalmers would be even better at stealing the ball than one of his all-time favorite defenders – former Tulsa player Eric Coley, the WAC’s all-time steals leader.

“We thought Mario had great instincts as a basketball player, but there’s a lot of things you don’t know about guys totally when you recruit them,” Self said. “Mario’s ability to get his hands on balls is something we certainly thought he’d be good at but no idea he’d be this good.”

Self wants no credit for teaching Chalmers the art of stealing.

“I don’t know if it’s something you teach. You do teach guys to play with their hands defensively,” Self said. “Ronnie may have worked with him a lot in high school. The bottom line is you teach guys to be in the right spots. If they are in the right spots, they can take advantage of their instincts.”

Chalmers’ steals definitely have led to a lot of exciting moments in Allen Fieldhouse the past three years. And some interesting moments at practice.

“Mario and Russell do the same thing they do in games with stealing every pass,” senior guard Rodrick Stewart said. “They play the passing lanes so great. Mario is just great at just taking your ball. From last year to this year, he’s on a whole other level just taking the ball away from his man and just locking him up. A lot of their steals are contributed to other guys pressuring their man. It’s definitely a team thing, but every time it’s those guys,” Stewart marveled.

“They make it look so easy out there, too. That’s what’s crazy to me. I’ll just be sitting there like, ‘Man, I wish I could get something that easy. Those would all be fast-break dunks.'”

Chalmers seems to convert a lot of his steals into breakaway points. Maybe moreso than Robinson.

“A lot of Mario’s steals are off the ball, interceptions in the passing lanes,” Ronnie Chalmers noted. “Over half of Mario’s steals seem to result in layups. Russell gets an assist after a lot of his. But they both result in a lot of baskets. Those two are a tandem. They work well together.”

So well … “I think Mario and Russ are the only two guys that I’ve played with or played against in practice that have the defensive mindset that they’re not going to let anybody score on them,” senior Darnell Jackson noted.

Their efforts won’t be appreciated by Nebraska’s fans tonight, if indeed Chalmers and Robinson pluck any steals.

Monday, however, versus Oklahoma on Big Monday in Allen Fieldhouse will be a different story.

“It’s a thrill to steal it,” Chalmers said. “You know you are going to get an easy basket, and that’s going to get the crowd into it.”

He should know. He’s been doing it a long time.