Kansas University basketball coach Bill Self patiently answered a few questions about his team’s toughness Thursday at his weekly meeting with the media.

Finally, about 20 minutes into his session, he’d had enough of the topic.

“This has been made way too big a deal,” said Self, whose Jayhawks were outrebounded, 23-12, the second half of Monday’s 72-69 loss to Texas in Austin.

“Who on our team is not tough? That should be the question. Everybody on our team is tough. We didn’t play tough one night. We should be able to say what we didn’t do one night. We didn’t play tough on the glass one night. That does not mean we have soft guys.

“It means that one night we didn’t play tough on the glass,” he said. “You cannot tell me that over time we don’t have tough guys, as tough as anybody.”

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Work ’em hard: Self put the Jayhawks through what sophomore Darrell Arthur called “a pretty tough practice,” the day after the Texas loss.

“We came in and worked on a lot of defensive things. We didn’t go up-and-down. We just stayed half court, working on a lot of defense, so it was a pretty tough practice,” Arthur said.

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Short shorts?: KU’s players will wear 1988 national title replica jerseys during Saturday’s 12:45 p.m. game against Colorado.

Will they wear short shorts as the team did in ’88?

“I hope so,” freshman Cole Aldrich said with a smile.

Self’s players will attend a 110 years of basketball banquet on Saturday night. Several players from different eras will speak.

“I’m looking forward to meeting everybody,” Arthur said.