Kansas head coach Bill Self has words for Landen Lucas after a play in the paint during the second half, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016 at Allen Fieldhouse.

College basketball recruiters pick the brains of high school coaches for qualities the stat sheet doesn’t capture. Pro scouts mine college coaches for the same information.

Some start with a simple question that centers on the athlete’s aggressiveness, a topic of conversation Bill Self raised Thursday when discussing freshman Josh Jackson.

But talent judges don’t necessarily ask, “Is he aggressive?” Some boil it down to three syllables: Dog or cat?

As in if you trespass on his turf will he react the way a junkyard dog does to the kid who climbed the chain-link fence to retrieve a foul ball or will he observe from a safe perch the way a cat does?

Self was talking about how Jackson needs to be “a junkyard dog,” as it applies to specific basketball plays. Jackson didn’t look aggressive in the exhibition victory against Washburn, but based on the way Self talked about him in the past and the things Landen Lucas said about him a couple of weeks ago, once Jackson learns what’s needed of him, my guess is he’ll gain junkyard-dog status.

“He has such a mindset and a presence that is great that Andrew (Wiggins), we were trying to get out of him,” Lucas said of Jackson. “Just that kind of super-aggressive mindset, and he’s willing to speak his mind, stuff that you really look for in a superstar. So he has those qualities. He just needs to be himself and don’t shy away from things because you’re a freshman. We’re not worried about that. We’re all just worrying about winning.”

Jackson has plenty of examples of aggressive men in the Kansas basketball program to model, including these four, ranked in order of their junkyard-dog status:

1 – Bill Self: He coaches his players aggressively, never shying from blasting their shortcomings in front of the whole team in practice. His direct approach means his players never have to wonder what he’s really saying about them behind their backs because he holds nothing back from them face-to-face.

On the golf course, if after his drive he’s standing 225 yards away from the pin on a par 5 with a green guarded by out-of-bounds to the right and a deep bunker front-left, he’s not laying up. He’s gunning for the eagle, not thinking about the par.

2 – Devonte’ Graham: His intelligence ranks high among the reasons he steadily improves at a rapid rate. His aggressiveness is another, because the more things he tries, the more his confidence blossoms. Graham plays every aspect of the game aggressively and proves that nice guys don’t always finish last.

3 – Landen Lucas: He uses his friendly personality to engage referees so that his knowledge for which types of contact will draw whistles and which won’t expands, which is a subtle form of aggressiveness. Less subtle examples come when he’s leaning, nudging, elbowing and hip-checking opponents when the ref’s not looking.

4 – Frank Mason: Unlike the first three on the list, Mason never masks his junkyard-dog approach with a killer smile. Ever the dead-eyed boxer waiting for the Round 1 bell to ring, Mason thoroughly enjoys venturing into the land of giants and schooling them. Even for someone who leads with his chin, it can be difficult to avoid deferring to an upperclassman. If that weren’t an issue for Mason as a freshman, he would have beaten out Naadir Tharpe.