Bohls: Texas holds onto Big 12 grasp, but loss to Kansas leaves Horns' lead razor-thin

LAWRENCE, Kan. — The Jayhawks’ layup drill started with Dajuan Harris’ drive to the bucket in the first 13 seconds of the game Monday night.

I’m not sure it’s ended yet.

But the official count after 40 minutes, according to the final box score, showed an eye-popping 36 layups and another four impressive dunks by No. 9 Kansas in an unimpeded offensive landslide.

The Jayhawks certainly got their practice in as for finding directions to the rim, and the resulting 50 points in the paint provided a staggering advantage for the home team in the Jayhawks' 88-80 victory over No. 5 Texas at Allen Fieldhouse.

Texas had just jumped five spots in the newest Top 25 Poll after big wins over ranked Baylor and ranked Kansas State, but it never came close to getting many consecutive stops as Kansas scored just over 20 points more than the Longhorns' defense usually yields.

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That aberrant performance by an otherwise terrific 19-5 Longhorns team that has constantly preached defense as its main staple considerably tightened an already tight Big 12 race.

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And while Texas remains the league leader at 8-3, its advantage was drastically reduced to half a game over idle Iowa State (7-3) and a single game over Kansas (7-4) and seemingly a cast of thousands in this deepest of deep conferences. Actually only Kansas State, Baylor and TCU are knotted with Kansas in the loss column with four defeats each, it just seems nearly every team is at the top.

“Hey, we’ve played poor basketball the last three weeks for the most part,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “Before tonight we were tied for the poorest start ever in our 20 years here at 6-4, and we’re ninth in the country. That shows you how good we are in the Big 12.”

And Texas has been the best of all of them.

The Longhorns will get the chance to prove it against the Jayhawks again in the regular-season finale at Moody Center on March. 4, and you can bet they’ll be looking for some lids on the opponent’s basket in that one.

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But this was a tough loss, no doubt about it. Had Texas won, it would have owned at least a two-game lead over everybody but Iowa State with seven games to play. Furthermore, one has to think the league champion will deserve a national No. 1 seed and maybe a penthouse on Park Avenue, given the universal respect for this conference, and then open the NCAA Tournament against a 16 seed and then the 8-9 winner.

As it is, Texas occupies the 2 line, according to most bracketologists, and can still find higher seeding if it holds on to first.

“Obviously we didn’t have our best game tonight,” interim Texas head coach Rodney Terry said. “In fact, it was probably one of our worst halves. They attacked downhill and scored baskets, and we didn’t play the type of defense we’re capable of playing.”

Truer words, Terry has never spoken.

This time, the comeback never materialized

For the fourth time in league play, the Longhorns fell behind by double figures in the opening half although they’d rallied to win three of those before Monday to get past TCU, Texas Tech and Kansas State, the latter just on Saturday.

“We’re not happy to leave here 1-1 (on the road swing),” Texas team leader Marcus Carr said. “We’re disappointed we didn’t get it done.”

But beating Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse is no easy task. The packed house of 16,300 had fans derogatorily chanting "S-E-C, S-E-C" at the visitors. And the Jayhawks are 46-1 on Big Mondays, and Self is a perfect 36-0 at home on those special game days.

What has to be frustrating to Texas is the notion it might have won easily with a little more attention to detail on that end of the floor since it was tied at 43-43 early in the second half and trailed by only six with six minutes left.

However, Kansas victimized Texas for 24 fast-break points with one breakaway after another and put the game away. Only TCU came close to that against Texas with 17 run-outs in defeat. And the Jayhawks turned the Longhorns’ 15 turnovers into 18 very emphatic points.

“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot,” said Carr, who after a slow start came back strong to finish with a game-high 29 points after just seven points and four turnovers in the opening half. “We had a lot of turnovers in the first half (10), and it started with me. This building and that team feeds off turnovers, and they want to explode. A lot of their points came in transition and straight-line drives.”

And if Texas truly hopes to end its Big 12 championship drought that extends to 2008 — it has only three titles in this league since 1997 — it must rediscover the lock-down defense that will allow the Longhorns to hold off an array of contenders.

Defense like it played Monday night won’t cut it. And the Horns know it.

“They got a lot of layups,” said graduate senior Timmy Allen, who did the lion’s share of smothering defensive work on Kansas star Jalen Wilson. “That’s not Texas basketball. How hard is it to win in this league? It’s brutal. But I’m having the time of my life.”

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Defense takes a bad game to take the night off

Oddly enough, Texas shut down Wilson, the presumed Big 12 player of the year and a candidate for those national honors as well, and held the junior forward to a single bucket and two points on seven field-goal attempts. All for naught. He was averaging 21.5 points a game.

“If you had told me that, I’d tell you you were crazy,” said Kansas’ KJ Adams, the former Westlake star who had a strong game with 10 points and eight rebounds. “But everybody picked him up.”

While Terry used a committee to handle that monumental task, much of the heavy lifting came from Allen, who not only contained Wilson along with help from Dillon Mitchell, Jabari Rice, Brock Cunningham and even freshman Arterio Morris, but combined with the streaky Carr to carry the team offensively in the second half and finish with 18 points.

Texas contained Wilson, but every other player wearing crimson and blue congregated at the rim and finished one play after another against the helpless Longhorns. The streaky Gradey Dick went off for 21, the aforementioned Harris had 17 and former Texas Tech star Kevin McCullar got 16 as five Jayhawks scored in double digits.

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Self kidded Harris about being in attack mode and asked him the last time he’d taken 16 shots in a game.“He said he did once in the fifth grade,” Self joked. “I said that doesn’t count.”

But his eight baskets certainly did on Monday along with way too many others with ease.

Allen took note of the offensive showcase but blamed much of Kansas’s prowess on Texas’ sloppy ball-handling and passing and poor offensive rebounding.

“We’re still right there,” Allen said of the team’s place in the standings. “And when we take care of the ball, I don’t see anybody messing with us.”

As he said, still business to finish. Especially at the rim.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: With one layup after another, Kansas streaks by helpless Texas