“We don’t guard,” said Self after his team’s 86-80 victory over TCU on Friday night. “We don’t guard. We can look at stats, and stats can be misleading and stuff, but we’ll watch this game and (see), when we got stops, they missed. It wasn’t because we created things to make them miss. We don’t guard.”

Tough defense, particularly during the grind of Big 12 Conference play and specifically of the man-to-man variety, always has been a priority for Self’s teams. Many have featured elite-level shot blockers. But even the teams that didn’t carried with them a certain understanding of the importance of playing sound defense.

According to Self, the Jayhawks did not do that on Friday night. And regardless of the fact that the final score went KU’s way or that KU held TCU to 44.3 percent shooting (40.6 in the second half) and forced 15 Horned Frog tunovers, Self came away less than pleased about how his team opened Big 12 play and wishing for better.

“For the most part, it’s kind of just hunker down and have some pride and guard your man,” Self said. “And we’re just not doing that very well.”

It’s not for lack of understanding. With so many veterans on this team, players who have learned for three and even four seasons under Self in the past, the third-ranked Jayhawks (12-1 overall, 1-0 Big 12) have more than enough knowledge both of what it takes to play quality defense and the type of effort Self expects.

Nothing better illustrated that point Friday night than seniors Frank Mason III and Landen Lucas both addressing the team’s sub-par defense against TCU even when not being asked about it.

“We know coming into games that we play on the road that we’ve gotta really guard and take pride on the defensive end,” Mason began. “Try and make the opposing team play bad and that’ll help us on the offensive end.”

Added Lucas: “We know conference play is a whole different situation. Every game’s gonna be tough and we have to come out and get off to a good start. And we didn’t do that tonight. We’ll learn from it and get better as a team.”

Leading up to Friday’s conference opener, which Kansas won for the 26th consecutive season, junior guard Devonte’ Graham shared a common phrase he said Self liked to use that stresses the importance of defense. According to Graham, defense is a part of everything the Jayhawks do, even offensive-minded drills.

“It’s selfish for you to shoot the ball and not defend,” Graham said. “(That’s) one of the things he always tells us. He don’t care if we’re missing shots, as long as we defend. So everything’s always about defense.”

The reason for that is simple. Self believes playing good defense is as much a mental achievement as it is a physical feat and it’s that philosophy that has the veteran coach preaching defense as much as the Jayhawks practice it.

“I would say just the mindset,” said Self when asked what quality has made most of his KU teams so strong defensively. “It’s not as good as it needs to be, and certainly last year’s was pretty weak until the end. You know, if the other team can’t score, you can’t lose. And I don’t think we have that pride yet.”