Kansas University’s Brandon Rush and Darrell Arthur, who were named first-team all-conference by the Big 12 coaches on Monday, hold no grudges against media members who failed to place any Jayhawks on the Associated Press all-league first team.

“I’m not mad at the media at all,” Rush, KU’s junior guard, said after learning he’d been named first-team by the coaches for the third straight year, yet joined sophomore forward Arthur on the AP’s second team.

“We’re a balanced team. Things happen like that sometimes,” Rush added.

“We’re so balanced,” Arthur said. “Anybody on our team could have made it. We have eight starters on our team. Anybody can show up any day. A different guy can do it every day.”

Six Jayhawks received some sort of honor on a day both the AP and coaches came out with their postseason awards.

Arthur and Rush were joined on the AP second team by junior Mario Chalmers, who also was named second-team by the coaches.

Senior Darnell Jackson was named third team by both the coaches and AP.

Sophomore Sherron Collins, who won the coaches’ sixth man award, was named honorable mention AP. Chalmers and senior Russell Robinson made the coaches’ all defensive team.

KU coach Bill Self said he was “disappointed, not crushed,” no Jayhawks were named first-team AP for the first time since 2000.

“The thing I’d say, you could take a Darrell Arthur and put him on another team and he’d not average 14 points a game, and take some others and put them on our team and maybe they would not average as many points (as they do),” Self said. “We have a lot of depth and balance. We had guys deserving to be mentioned. I was told they were mentioned. They just split the vote.”

Indeed, AP sports editor Doug Tucker indicated 17 of 19 AP media voters had one player from KU on the first-team ballot. Four Jayhawks (Rush, Arthur, Chalmers, Jackson) received votes for first team.

“They siphoned votes from each other,” Tucker said, indicating KU and K-State were the only teams to have more than one player receive votes for first team.

Members of the AP first-team were: Michael Beasley, Kansas State; Curtis Jerrells, Baylor; D.J. Augustin, Texas; Blake Griffin, Oklahoma and Aleks Maric, Nebraska.

Joining Rush and Arthur on the coaches’ team were Beasley, Augustin, Jerrells and Griffin. The coaches’ team had six players because two unnamed players tied. Rush joins Texas Tech’s Andre Emmett as the only players to be named first team three times.

“You want guys to win postseason honors, (but) you can see how it’d happen,” Self said of the AP snub. “You can ask who is the best player on our team. It depends on what game you watched. Right now Sherron would be our best player based on how he played last week (in winning Big 12 co-player of the week with Beasley). If I’m a voter and somebody asked me who the best player on our team was, I’d probably change my vote week to week, too.”

Collins was enthused upon hearing he won the sixth man award.

“I’m pretty happy for myself to get something like that when having the up and down season that I’ve had,” Collins said. “There’s a lot of good athletes and a lot of good players in this conference, so to be chosen sixth man is pretty good.”

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Big 12 looking good: Self said he thought five Big 12 teams were locks for the NCAA tournament: KU, Texas, K-State, Baylor and Oklahoma.

“I believe Texas A&M will get in. They could solidify their position by playing well this weekend,” Self said of ex-Jayhawk Mark Turgeon’s Aggies.

He said former KU assistant Tim Jankovich’s Illinois State team is looking good for a bid as well.

“I think ‘Jank’s’ a lock too. We talked last night. He said, ‘What about this and that?’ I said, ‘I guess you bring up a point.’ But I can’t see how a team that has won 24 games and is 34 in the RPI will not get in. It’s a great accomplishment in his first year they finish second (in Missouri Valley) by two full games, sweep Southern Illinois and Creighton and get in the finals (of tournament, losing to Drake).

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Big man on radar: Self was asked on his weekly radio show if he was still hoping to land another big man in recruiting.

“We are recruiting some guys presently and I will not go into detail (who they are),” Self said. “We are always after somebody that can help our program. If I look at our team, we expect certain things to happen if they play to be true we could be one big guy short as we look to our depth. That’s what we’re searching for now.”

Though nothing is yet set in stone, KU is expected to lose sophomore Arthur and junior Rush to the NBA Draft. Chalmers and Collins also are considered early entry possibilities.

KU has signed five players and will sign guard Tyrone Appleton in April. Another big man would mean a recruiting class of seven with five scholarships to give.

“The percentage play is we’ll have more than one leave (for NBA). I feel good where we are in that regard. The reality in college basketball kids do make decisions to leave,” Self said. “You must be prepared. If we were just now thinking about those things it’d be too late because most (top-notch) players are committed by now.”

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No. 1 seeds: Self said he felt North Carolina was a lock for a No. 1 seed with UCLA, Memphis and Tennessee likely candidates unless they stumble in their conference tourneys.

He did say KU had a shot at a No. 1. “We’d have to win the Big 12 Tournament and somebody else would have to not perform as well (nationally),” he said. KU will open tourney play at 6 p.m., Friday at Sprint Center against either Missouri or Nebraska.

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Wooden list: Rush is one of 24 candidates for the Wooden Award, which goes to college basketball’s top player. Big 12 players Augustin and Beasley are also on the list.

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Otto will be missed: Self on KU great Otto Schnellbacher, who died Monday at the age of 84.

“The last time we saw him was at the 110th reunion (Feb. 16 reception at Crown Automotive). He was there with his wife. He was having a great time. He’s a KU legend, a great person. He will be missed. He did so much for KU in so many ways that didn’t garner recognition, such as the Topeka Jayhawk Club. He was a Jayhawk through and through.”