Kansas guard Tre White (3) fires up the Kansas student section during the second half on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

There’s just something about facing Iowa State at Allen Fieldhouse that apparently lends itself to season-defining hustle plays.

A year ago, Kansas coach Bill Self quickly declared David Coit’s halfcourt alley-oop to KJ Adams off a gritty steal by Dajuan Harris Jr., which occurred in a 69-52 win over the Cyclones on Feb. 3, the potential “play of the year.”

On Tuesday against the Cyclones, it didn’t take long for another candidate to emerge just eight minutes in, one that Self called “the best play of the game, maybe the best play we’ve had this season.”

It was one of the most telling signs of just how intensely motivated the Jayhawks were in their 84-63 upset victory over second-ranked ISU. And it started with a near-disaster.

KU led 14-9 when Tre White grabbed a rebound off Tamin Lipsey’s airballed floater. White dished the ball off to Elmarko Jackson on the right wing. The redshirt sophomore guard took an uneasy dribble forward into the body of ISU reserve guard Jamarion Batemon, who easily slapped the ball back toward the Jayhawk logo at midcourt, setting up what looked for all intents and purposes like a straightforward transition bucket for either Batemon or the hard-charging Killyan Toure.

“(He) made a terrible play,” Self said. “They took it from him. And then went and got it back.”

Jackson dove to the ground ahead of Toure, snagged the ball before the Cyclone could get his right hand on it, and from his supine position tossed it to Jamari McDowell. McDowell dribbled into the paint and kicked it out to White, who drilled one of his five 3s on the night to make it 17-9.

“He turned an obvious negative into the biggest positive of the night,” Self said of Jackson. “But that’s the way it should be. Guy misses a block, well, you still got to figure out a way to make a play. And he did that at that moment.”

White hit another 3-pointer soon afterward and the Jayhawks were off to the races, in part because Jackson had seized what Self called a “20/80 ball”: “Instead of giving up two points, it ended up being three points,” he added.

White said postgame that the play summed up the kind of team that the Jayhawks want to be.

“We want to be like a grit-and-grind type of team, one of the toughest teams that you’re going to play, and I feel like that play kind of explained it all right there,” he said.

It had certainly been a point of emphasis for Self, who said he had written the phrase “get on the floor” numerous times on the board in the locker room — and he later brought up Jackson’s play for discussion after the game, Darryn Peterson said. (“We listen to him,” Peterson added. “He (is) a GOAT, so it’d be wrong not to listen to him.”)

“(I was) trying to prove a point about basketball’s a game of 50/50 balls,” Self added. “If you get a majority of them, you have a better chance to win. I don’t know what the numbers were, but I think we were much better in that area.”

The Jayhawks came up with eight blocks and eight steals and — though they still allowed numerous offensive rebounds — indeed beat the Cyclones to plenty of loose balls, which ISU tends to get.

The question now becomes whether this year’s team can build on and replicate its hustle against the Cyclones in a way last year’s could not. The 2024-25 team lost three of four after beating a top-10 ISU team in Lawrence. This year’s squad will aim to channel its momentum into Friday night’s home matchup with Baylor.