The Jayhawks moved to 5-0 and alone at the top of the Big 12 standings after beating Iowa State at home.

Bill Self discussed the win and several topics as the Jayhawks get ready to play Kansas State next.

See some of Self's comments after the win over Iowa State.

Opening comment:

I thought we played great. I thought they played great. Guys, that's a high-level game. No easy baskets. That was a high-level game. I wish we could've shot it a little bit better and rebounded better offensively. But they're good, and they really guard, and they had a great player have a great game. We had a terrific player, have a terrific game. But, that was a good basketball game. Of course, the building was great. To win with so many guys back for the reunion, will definitely make tonight a lot more pleasant, and the dry chicken taste a little bit more moist, probably. But, it was a fun out there today.

What was it about that second half? You called a couple timeouts. What did you tell the team during that, when you guys were going back and forth…

Well, when you play other teams that are good and well-coached, and tough, and confident, and everything, that's how games go. I think the one thing that you saw today, you saw two teams that enjoyed playing in a tight game like that, in an atmosphere like this. They didn't take a step back at all. Our crowd was unbelievable, but our crowd did not rattle Iowa State.

Yeah, it was a fun game. Those are the most competitive games. We talked about that before. This would be one of those games. We weren't going to beat them bad, because I know TJ, and I know the mindset they'd have coming in here. They're playing with house money, reunion, number two ranked. ‘We should have beat them last year,’ that that's the talk going in. So, he had a confident team today.

I know that close conference games helped you in the post-season. Would you welcome a blowout occasionally…

Yeah. But, I don't know that this many close games helps you in the post-season. I think close games help you because you put yourself under duress multiple times. In the post-season, if you advance, you're going to be under duress some, like we were last year, obviously, in multiple games. But, I would welcome anything that's a win in this league. I don't think that we're going into any game thinking this was going to be easy. Certainly, it was Iowa State today. K-State ranked 11th. TCU, Baylor, Kentucky. Then, don't we have K-State and Iowa State both right after that? That's a joke. So, there's not going to be any of those type of games.

On your final offensive play, Jalen was probably your number one option…

Yeah, we tried to post him.

How far down on the list was KJ…

Well, there's not a list. Go get the best shot possible. He drove it. Fortunately, he got Jones, who's a bigger defender, off balance a little bit so he wasn't able to explode, and shot it over him. So, it was great. Then we screwed up the end of the game again. That's twice in a row, we're supposed to foul twice. Bobby, said, ‘Coach, I fouled him.’ I said, ‘Well, you didn't make it very obvious. They didn't call it.’

But, the whole deal was to foul twice, and then hopefully you'd have three seconds or less to run a side out of bounds plays to try to score. But, we did defend it well, we just didn't do what we were supposed to do late.

The 125th, a lot of history in the crowd. Did they come and talk to you all, and the players? What did you say to your players…

We talked about it yesterday and last night. I don't even think I mentioned it today. I may have said, ‘Play for yourselves today. Don't worry about trying to impress others,’ because there's some pressure playing here. There's an expectation to win here. When there's an expectation to win, a lot of times the basket shrinks a little bit if things don't go well. But no, we talked a lot about the past. We talked about history around here all the time. But, we talked a lot about it yesterday.

Then yesterday, there was an event last night where the guys got the chance to mingle with many of the past players. It's cool, a lot of people give a lot of effort, and energy, and time to prop this program up to be in the position that it's in. Everybody that's associated with our program now has benefited greatly by the others that's come before, and we respect that. So it'll be fun, and especially nice to have players back, no question. But, to have every player that's coming back, with the exception of just a couple, all played for the four coaches that are in the building today too. So, I think that makes it pretty cool.

Close game against Oklahoma, you pull it out late out late and obviously a close one today. How does it feel with a zero in the Big 12 loss column…

Yeah, it was a great week. We can play better, but it was a great week. I don't mean to say this in a way that comes off wrong, but people would get fired up to play against Kansas because of time, and then you add a national championship onto it. I mean, it's a big game for folks. Big games for us too. So sometimes I think we look at it like, ‘Well, we should be doing this better,’ which is true in some cases, but sometimes we're getting some pretty good efforts from other opponents. So being able to win those games, I think, is a mark of a pretty decent team.

How much of what Gradey did tonight was sort of a response to Tuesday night…

I don't know about that, but I do think he got off to a bad start today. And then after he saw the first one go down, I thought he was great. I thought a huge one he made was a little pull up from 16 feet on the left-hand baseline. That was huge. And then he made some unbelievable (shots). We're down three, he makes a three. We're down three. He makes a three. So yeah, he was really good.

You've also talked about your guys have been in these types of games, and maybe the best example of that today is Jalen gets his shot blocked. The shot clock's winding down. He picks it up and has the mindset to throw it up and get the bucket there too…

It was a throw too, wasn't it? So, I don't know if you can count that as a shot.

But you don’t win without those types of plays…

Nobody wins games without those. If Iowa State had won a game, they would point to a fortunate play or something like that that happened. Yeah, that was a big play though. I don't know what that did. Did that get it back to one, or were we down three and got it back to one? So that, yeah, that was a huge play.

You go up to Ames in just a couple weeks. How will you approach that game? Will it be the same or what will you change…

Well, we'll try to guard some of their actions better, but I don't look at it like that. We'll approach it like we do every game. I mean, that'll be the next game and we won't think about it till it is the next game. But we will approach it the same way we do each and every year and know it's going to be a hard place to go play and win.

It seemed like Iowa State had a plan to attack you inside…

If we had that type of advantage, size-wise and things inside, I'd probably want to throw it there too. But where they hurt us, obviously, it wasn't Jones and Osunniyi posting with their back to the basket, even though they made three or four baskets combined. It was more facing up in the short role situation. So I thought their strategy was pretty good.

Dajuan didn't score today, but just describe what keeps him on the floor for 39 minutes…

Well, he's our security blanket and he's terrific point guard, but they took him out today. I mean, they made sure Juan did not get to the paint as much today by the way they guard him, but he just took what the defense gave him. But he's pretty disruptive if you watch film and stuff. There's a lot of defense he plays or possessions that he disrupted without really getting much credit for it. His value is far more than scoring.