For a few weeks in January, following one single-digit minute outing after the next, Lightfoot spent the moments immediately after games, win or lose, sitting in the Allen Fieldhouse stands, alone with his father, Matt, talking about a little bit of everything.

Life. Family. Basketball. Effort. Improvement. Opportunity. Humility.

All of those topics, and more, were a part of their heart-to-hearts, and those talks, as much as any of his hard work or good-attitude days, played a huge role in helping Lightfoot find a way to help this team.

There were tears. Truths were told. Frustrations surfaced.

Nick Krug

“I’m not going to lie; it was rough,” Lightfoot said after Monday’s win over K-State. “But you have to come with the same mindset every day in practice and understand that the opportunity is going to be there and you’ve got to take it.”

During KU’s first 19 games this season, Lightfoot averaged just 7.6 minutes per game, and didn’t play at all in a home victory over Iowa State.

In KU’s last eight games, his usage has nearly tripled, jumping all the way up to 17.8 minutes per game, including a career-high 31 minutes in Monday’s win.

Lightfoot has played nearly as many minutes in the past eight games (142) as he did during those first 19 (145).

“Mitch always has a great attitude,” leading scorer Dedric Lawson said Monday night. “He’s a great kid, a great human being and just a great person to be around. Throughout that stretch when he wasn’t playing, he was always happy at practice, always talking. He was just being Mitch Lightfoot.”

Nick Krug

More than any individual player on either side, it was Lightfoot’s fire that sparked the Jayhawks on the floor and thousands more in the Allen Fieldhouse stands on Monday night.

And the simple explanation for the 6-foot-9, 215-pound junior’s ability to play big in such a big moment can be boiled down to two words — Lightfoot cares.

It’s not that his teammates don’t. They care, too. But it’s hard for freshmen from Charlotte, N.C., Texas and Virginia, or first-year players from Memphis and Chicago, to fully understand the Kansas-Kansas State rivalry the way Lightfoot does.

“It probably means as much to Mitch or more to play well against Kansas State as it does to maybe anybody on our team,” KU coach Bill Self said after Monday’s victory. “Being from here and having played in it the last two years and getting beat the first time (this year), it probably meant as much to him as anybody.”

Be that as it may, the Gilbert, Ariz., prospect who originally hails from the Kansas City area was much more interested in talking about the rivalry in broader terms after Monday’s performance. Far be it from Lightfoot, a die-hard Jayhawk if ever there were one, well-versed in the rich tradition and history of the program, to pretend for a second that the Sunflower Showdown has anything to do with him as an individual.

Nick Krug

“Like I said, it means so much to so many people and it means a lot to me and my family,” Lightfoot said after scoring 9 points, grabbing 6 rebounds and blocking 4 shots in 31 minutes against KU’s in-state rival. “I don’t know if I can say too much (more) … My memories are of Jacob Pullen, The Beard, when they had him. Michael Beasley. They’ve had some great players over the years, and we’ve had some pretty good players, too.”

Against all odds, Lightfoot is quickly becoming one of them. He’s also rapidly ascending into cult hero status.

In addition to his own Twitter account, which he uses regularly, a handful of fake Lightfoot accounts have surfaced, including Prison Mitch, Martini Room Mitch, Showtime Mitch and a couple more whose handles aren’t suitable for print.

One die-hard KU fan, with a strong Twitter presence of his own, recently penned and produced a song, “No Easy Buckets,” that pays homage to Lightfoot’s game and name and the impact the junior is beginning to have on this team.

And the roar of the crowd and adoring approval of the Kansas fan base for Lightfoot have become easier to distinguish with each play the KU forward makes.

It’s not unlike the emergence of Landen Lucas a couple of seasons ago. And, as players, the two are similar, rooted in fundamentals and a team-first mentality.

That approach has led and will continue to lead to opportunities for Lightfoot, who has become as important in a supporting role as almost any player on this team.

“I thought Mitch was great,” Self said Monday night, calling Lightfoot’s game the best of his KU career. “I thought (freshman starter) David (McCormack) was fine, but when Mitch came in, it almost felt like you couldn’t take him out.”

That’s all Lightfooot’s looking for — a chance to play and do good things for the school he loves. He realizes his skills don’t lend themselves to the same kind of roles that Lawson or Udoka Azubuike would command. But he’s willing to try, with or without those guys out there beside him, to give Kansas the best he can give night in and night out.

Before Monday’s game, Lightfoot said the Jayhawks had a conversation about the rivalry and each player’s feelings about it. Naturally, both from his experience in it as a player and through his years with it as a born and bred Jayhawk, Lightfoot had the most to say.

And then he went out and let his play say a little more.

“Sometimes you have to pinch yourself and realize you’re living your dream,” Lightfoot said after Monday’s win. “But this is what I came here to do.”