The Jayhawks will need to quickly turn things around after dropping their Big 12 opener as they head to Orlando to take on UCF in Kansas’ first conference road game. Road woes plagued the Jayhawks last season, finishing with a 2-7 record in Big 12 games played away from Allen Fieldhouse.

Bill Self spoke to the media on Friday and talked about how his teams had found success on the road in the past. He said a lot of it has to do with the players but mentality also plays a big role.

“The best way to win on the road is to have the best players playing on it,” Self said. “But I actually think Dave, to your point I think, is that you have to have that dog, tough, together, lack of a coach speak term, you know, ‘us against the world’ mentality.”

The Big 12 has been a monster of a league in recent years with no road game being a gimme. “Having Kansas on your chest” isn’t enough, and Self said the Jayhawks can’t take any opponent lightly.

“The league’s so good,” Self said. “But wherever we play, we have to have a mindset that we respect the situation, how other teams will be motivated to play against us, and the fact that we’ve proven to ourselves multiple times now that being Kansas and showing up doesn’t guarantee any success whatsoever.”

Self said his best teams have had both the talent and the mentality. He believes this group is talented enough but isn’t sure the mentality is there yet.

The presence of energy can go a long way in helping this team craft the mindset to win on the road. Self said the Jayhawks were “flat as could be” in the first half against West Virginia. He also said that a lack of energy magnifies mistakes and vice-versa.

“The thing that is misleading is the things that you run, or the way that you guard things, if it’s done with a certain exuberance, [it] still works,” Self said. “Mistakes are magnified by a lack of energy, and mistakes are minimized by the presence of energy. To me, that’s the bigger issue than the actual things.”

For Self, energy is a driving factor in a team’s performance. You see showings like the first half against the Mountaineers when it's not there.

“Doesn’t energy create offensive rebounding? Doesn’t energy create pace? Doesn’t energy create how fast you run in transition? Doesn’t energy dictate where you pick up and defensively?” Self said. “You know, if the gameplan is to make them feel us every possession, they never felt us the first half one time.”