Tom Izzo questioned the manhood of his Michigan State basketball players after last Friday’s 64-52 season-opening victory over Bucknell.

“We are soft,” the Spartans’ head coach said. “This is the softest team we’ve had in the nine years I’ve been here.”

Truth, or a motivational ploy?

Kansas University players and fans will find out tonight when the No. 3 Spartans visit No. 6 KU for an 8:05 p.m. tip.

“His definition of ‘soft’ is not necessarily what the average human being’s definition of soft is,” KU coach Bill Self said Monday. “Soft to him is the two possessions that game they didn’t have three guys diving on one loose ball. He’ll never have a soft team.”

“Soft,” you might recall, was a four-letter word used by critics to describe the Jayhawks at times during the Roy Williams era.

It’s not been used to describe teams of the hard-nosed Self, who compiled a 3-3 mark against Izzo’s Spartans at Illinois the past three years.

“I think our team is getting tougher,” Self said of the Jayhawks, who defeated Tennessee Chattanooga, 90-76, in Friday’s opener. “We are not a finished product by any means in intangible areas, but I think we are gaining on it.”

While not naming names, Self admitted some of his Jayhawks have exhibited more toughness than others.

Kansas coach Bill Self works with junior Keith Langford during practice. The Jayhawks practiced Monday at Allen Fieldhouse in preparation for tonight's home game against Michigan State.

“Toughness is as much or more mental,” Self said. “Guys still get upset when I get onto them or if they make a bad play, things like that. Body language … not everybody, but some guys. We are going to have to be very tough tomorrow, tougher than we have been.”

The Jayhawks believe they can bring a gritty attitude for 40 minutes tonight.

“There’s emphasis on being more physical in initiating contact and diving on the floor and things like that,” junior guard Keith Langford said. “In the first game, we had a couple guys dive on the floor who might not have done that in the past. We just try to take on the identity of our coach.”

That’s a tough, defensive-minded mentality.

“This team has not yet found its identity,” Langford said, “but when it finds its identity, I think it will be a versatile team. We’ll be able to play different ways.”

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Tonight it may take intangibles to upend a Michigan State team that starts two top big men — Paul Davis (6-foot-11, 255) and Jason Andreas (6-10, 250) — plus perhaps the best perimeter trio in the country in Alan Anderson (6-6), Chris Hill (6-3) and Kelvin Torbert (6-4).

“You have to play basketball to win,” Langford said of tonight’s physical matchup. “It’s not football or anything. You have to execute the offense and play hard on defense. We are going to have to dive on the floor for loose balls, box out and get offensive rebounds if we want to win.”

Junior forward Wayne Simien agreed.

“It’s nothing we want to shy away from,” Simien said. “Small things like diving on the floor are important in big games. We’ll take it head on, whatever they choose to throw at us.

“It will be a real physical game. He (Self) has coached against them a couple times in the Big Ten. He knows their personnel, their style of play. He said they will try to muddy the game up a little bit, try to get us out of our tempo a little bit. As long as we do what we have to do, we’ll be all right.”

Whether high or low scoring, tonight’s game should be interesting.

“It has got to be the most anticipated game of the early season nationally,” Self said. “That’s all positive, getting your program a lot of exposure.”

The game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN.

“It’s a big game, two top-five juggernauts going head to head at the beginning of the year,” Simien said. “It’s what people want. It’s what we want.”

And it’s what Izzo wants. He was juiced for his first trip to Allen Fieldhouse.

“You can say take them one at a time, and that’s true,” he said Monday. “You can say that it all counts as one, and that’s true. And that’s like saying the rivalries just count as one. Those are all true statements. But they are just unrealistic.

“For me, this is almost a childhood dream. To go to Kansas, where basketball was born, to Allen Fieldhouse, which is supposedly one of the greatest places ever. So you’re right, I’m excited today, I’ll be excited tonight, I’ll be excited tomorrow. And players should feel the same way.

“I think the problem with this profession is that it has become more of a business and this will be my turn to be a kid. I’m looking forward to that. It was like when (Mateen) Cleaves walked into North Carolina’s place and the guy broke down in tears. Everybody has their thing. I don’t want to make it bigger than it is, because it’s not. We’ve been to great places. But this is one of the ones I wanted to see.”