Top-seeded Kansas was on the ropes, turning the ball over about as often as it was putting up shots, and had allowed North Carolina to build a comfortable lead by halftime.

Bill Self followed his team into the locker room and, undoubtedly, delivered quite a message, even though his answer dripped with sarcasm when he was asked later to describe it.

”I told them, ‘Hey, just keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll be fine,”’ Self said with a grin.

The Jayhawks were fine indeed, but only because they flipped the script.

They played better on defense, protected the ball on offense – making shots didn’t hurt either – and behind the impassioned play of Travis Releford and Jeff Withey, pulled away from the eighth-seeded Tar Heels for a 70-58 victory Sunday in the third round of the NCAA tournament.

”We played miserably the first half and they took us out of everything,” said Self, whose team trailed the Tar Heels 30-21 at the break. ”The second half, we played really, really well.”

Much to the chagrin of former Kansas coach Roy Williams, whose Tar Heels were knocked out of the tournament by Kansas during its 2008 title run and again last year, when the Jayhawks advanced all the way to the Final Four.

”It was definitely a nightmare in the second half,” Williams said, ”no question about it.”
Withey and Releford led the way, the 7-footer scoring 16 points and grabbing 16 rebounds and Releford adding 22 points.
Together, the two senior starters helped the Jayhawks (31-5) outscore the Tar Heels 49-28 in the second half, pushing the Big 12 champs into a South Regional semifinal against fourth-seeded Michigan on Friday night in Arlington, Texas.

P.J. Hairston scored 15 points and James Michael McAdoo finished with 11 for the Tar Heels.

Of course, the subplot whenever two of college basketball’s bluest blue bloods meet these days centers on Williams, who coached the Jayhawks for 15 seasons and led them to four Final Fours.

Williams has always had a fond place in his heart for his former school, but the Southern charmer was booed heavily by the pro-Kansas crowd during pre-game introductions, and the din never died down in the second half, when things were spinning out of control for North Carolina.

”We lost to another basketball team,” Williams said afterward. ”The fact that I coached here for 15 years is extremely important to me, but it doesn’t add anything to today.

”I hurt for my kids in the locker room,” he added quietly. ”The NCAA tournament, the swiftness with which your season ends is dramatic, and it hurts everywhere.”

It was hard to blame him for the pain.

Withey made life miserable for the Tar Heels (25-11) in the paint, and the Tar Heels’ new-look, four-guard offense was stuck around the perimeter. And when those shots quit falling, and the veteran Jayhawks started to get into transition, North Carolina was powerless to stop them.

Of course, none of that was the case in the first half.

After the opening minute, the Jayhawks missed 11 straight shots, committed four of their 12 first-half turnovers and went 7-plus minutes without a field goal.

Then, it was North Carolina’s turn to suffer, the Tar Heels missing 12 shots in a row.

Everything switched again toward the end of the half, with the Jayhawks clanking just about every shot they put up off the Sprint Center’s cold rims, and the up-tempo Tar Heels going on a 14-2 charge that helped them carry that nine-point lead into the break.

Kansas shot just 25 percent in the first half – just a bit better than the Tar Heels, who went at a 26-percent clip – as the teams combined to miss a staggering 52 shots.

”We made some bonehead plays, especially me. I had six turnovers myself,” Withey said. ”But in the second half, we got a better feel for them, what they were going to do.”
It certainly made a difference.

Withey got the crowd inside the Sprint Center stirring with a putback, and then after the Jayhawks had missed 13 straight 3-pointers to begin the NCAA tournament, Releford hit one from the wing to bring more than 18,000 fans – the vast majority Kansas fans – to their collective feet.

Withey kept the charge going by driving the lane for a dunk, and then got isolated in the post for another dunk. Releford added a putback during their tag-team effort, and Williams – who rarely burns timeouts when teams are on a run – was forced to finally give in.

”The first half was probably the hardest we’ve played all year,” said the Tar Heels’ Marcus Paige. ”In the second half, they got out in transition, and from there it just kept going.”

The half may have been summed up with one spectacular play by Withey in the waning minutes: He batted a 3-point shot into the air, tracked the ball down himself, and then got it over to Elijah Johnson, who was fouled and made two free throws.
The potential five-point swing gave Kansas a 67-52 lead.

It wasn’t long before that haunting chant of ”Rock, chalk, Jayhawk, K-U!” – all too familiar to Williams, and now to his Tar Heels – began to echo through the cavernous building, ultimately replaced by a standing ovation from Kansas’ frenzied fans.

”We benefited from the game being played in Kansas City, no doubt about it,” Self said. ”The first half, we didn’t utilize the benefit at all. I thought in the second half, we did.”

— Asssociated Press —

Jeff Withey scored 17 points and top-seeded Kansas struggled to put away scrappy Western Kentucky in a 64-57 victory Friday night that avoided what would have been the biggest upset on a day full of them in the NCAA tournament.

The Jayhawks (30-5), flummoxed by the Hilltoppers’ full-court pressure, trailed 31-30 at halftime. Kansas eventually built an 11-point lead in the second half, but couldn’t put Western Kentucky away until Ben McLemore’s two foul shots with 11 seconds left in the game.

McLemore and Travis Releford scored 11 each for the Jayhawks (30-5), who wearily advanced to play No. 8 seed North Carolina and former coach Roy Williams in the South Regional on Sunday.

Jamal Crook scored 13 points and T.J. Price had 12 for the Hilltoppers (20-16), who would have made history by becoming the first No. 16 seed to upend a No. 1 seed in the tournament.

Earlier in the day, No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast stunned second-seeded Georgetown, perhaps emboldening the Sun Belt champions. And on the same floor at the Sprint Center, 13th-seeded La Salle knocked off Kansas State and No. 12 seed Ole Miss beat fifth-seeded Wisconsin.

Alas, the undersized team in red couldn’t hang tough with the bigger blue bloods down the stretch, allowing Kansas to reach 30 wins for the fourth straight season — the first time that’s happened in Division I men’s basketball, after Memphis was forced to vacate the 2008 season.

The Jayhawks also improved to 7-0 at the Sprint Center this season.

Since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, 16 seeds are winless against No. 1 seeds in 116 games, including Southern’s heartbreaking 64-58 loss to Gonzaga on Thursday.

Western Kentucky, though, spent the first half pinning Kansas against the ropes.

Price hit an opener 3-pointer in the opening minute, George Fant was able to use his superior quickness against the bigger Withey in the paint, and the Hilltoppers — who needed four wins to capture the Sun Belt tournament title and the league’s automatic bid — slowly built a 20-16 lead.

The heavily pro-Kansas crowd fell quiet, even as Jayhawks coach Bill Self turned up the volume on the sideline, laying into his team for its lethargic start.

Kansas finally pulled ahead for the first time since midway through the first half when Elijah Johnson finished off a three-point play that made it 28-27 with 90 seconds left, but a pair of baskets by Price down the stretch gave the scrappy Hilltoppers a 31-30 lead at the break.

The Jayhawks seized the lead again early in the second half when Kevin Young followed up his own miss by grabbing the rebound and throwing down a reverse jam, and then Releford scored off a nifty feed from McLemore, forcing Western Kentucky coach Ray Harper to burn a timeout.

Fant and Aleksejs Rostov both picked up their fourth fouls midway through the half, taking seats next to Harper on the Western Kentucky bench. But the longtime Division II and NAIA coach couldn’t keep his hottest hands there for long, and decided to gamble by putting them back in.

Farmer rolled snake eyes when Fant fouled out with 5:37 remaining.

Withey made one of two free throws, McLemore drove untouched down the lane for an easy basket, and Withey scored on a nifty move in the post to push the Jayhawks to a 52-42 lead — their biggest of the game — and force Farmer to call another timeout with 3:44 left on the clock.

Western Kentucky started whittling into the lead in the closing minutes, and a 3-pointer by Crook made it 59-55 with 25.4 seconds left on the clock.

But the Jayhawks got the ball in the hands of Naadir Tharpe, and he made two free throws to provide them a cushion. Price misfired from beyond the arc, and Brandon Harris was long on another 3-pointer from the corner, as McLemore added two more foul shots to seal the Jayhawks’ victory.

— Associated Press —

Kansas senior C Jeff Withey and redshirt freshman G Ben McLemore have been named to the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) All-America Second Team, the USBWA announced Monday.

This marks the fifth-straight season Kansas has been represented on the USBWA All-America teams. Additionally, this is the fifth time two Jayhawks have appeared on the squad.

Named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2013 Big 12 Championship where he averaged 13.3 point and 6.3 rebounds, Withey has 12 double-doubles this season, which rank second in the Big 12. A three-time Big 12 Player of the Week in 2012-13, Withey, from San Diego, Calif., averages 13.6 points per game and a team-high 8.4 rebounds. His 129 blocked shots in 2012-13 are second-most in school history and are 11 shy of his single-season record of 140 set last year. A two-time Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, Withey is KU’s and the Big 12’s all-time shot blocking leader with 294 blocks heading into the NCAA Tournament.

An All-Big 12 First Team selection along with Withey, McLemore leads Kansas in scoring at 16.4 points per game this season, which is tops among conference freshmen and second overall in the Big 12. The St. Louis, Mo., native has 10 games of 20 points or more including three 30-plus scoring efforts. His 556 points in 2012-13 are a Kansas freshman record, surpassing KU legend Danny Manning’s 496 set in 1985. McLemore leads the Big 12 in free throw percentage at 86.7 percent.

No. 1 seed Kansas (29-5) will take on No. 16 seed Western Kentucky (20-15) in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Friday, at 8:50 p.m. (Central) at Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo.

— KU Sports Information —

On the cusp of claiming the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship title and earning its ninth-straight Big 12 Conference regular-season championship, No. 7/6-ranked Kansas was tabbed as the No. 1 seed in the South Region of the 2013 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and the second seed overall, as determined by the tournament selection committee Sunday. The Jayhawks will be making their 24th-straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, the longest-current streak in the nation, and will take on Sun Belt Conference Tournament champion Western Kentucky Friday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo.

The Jayhawks, the 2012 national runners-up, are making their 42nd NCAA Tournament appearance and are a No. 1 seed for the 11th time since seeding began in 1979. The Jayhawks were a No. 1 seed in 1986, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2013.

Kansas boasts a 29-5 record this season under head coach Bill Self, including a league-best 14-4 mark in the Big 12 Conference. KU has won 10 of its last 11 games.

The Jayhawks are led by four seniors and freshman Ben McLemore. Two-time Big 12 Conference Defensive Player of the Year and the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship Most Outstanding Player Jeff Withey and McLemore each received first team all-league honors. McLemore leads the squad with 16.4 points per game, while Withey is posting 13.6 points per game and 8.4 rebounds per contest. KU’s all-time leading shot blocker also has 129 swats this season to rank No. 3 nationally. Seniors Travis Releford (11.5 ppg.), Elijah Johnson (10.1 ppg.) and Kevin Young (7.6 ppg.) round out the starting five for KU. Johnson owns a team-best 163 assists, while Releford leads the team with 42 steals.

Western Kentucky entered the Sun Belt Conference Tournament as the No. 6 seed, after posting a 20-15 overall record and a 10-10 mark in league play, but claimed its second-straight league tournament title. This will mark the 23rd NCAA Tournament appearance for the Hilltoppers, including four in the last six seasons. WKU has also posted four combined NCAA Tournament wins in its last three appearances with at least one win each trip.

WKU sophomore guard T.J. Price, a 2013 Second Team All-Sun Belt selection, leads the Hilltoppers in scoring with 15.3 points per game and 79 made three-pointers. George Fant (12.9) and Jamal Crook (12.0) also average double-digit points for Western Kentucky, which averages 67.2 points per game as a team.

KU and WKU have met four previous times, twice in the NCAA Tournament. Kansas owns a 3-1 all-time series record against the Hilltoppers including a 75-62 victory in Allen Fieldhouse in the Preseason NIT to open the 1997-98 season. The Jayhawks also defeated WKU, 75-70, in Dayton, Ohio at the 1995 NCAA Midwest Regional. WKU claimed a 77-75 win in the 1971 NCAA Consolation game, while KU won the first game in the series, 104-81, during the 1969-70 season in Lawrence.

The winner of the Kansas-Western Kentucky game will face the victor of the No. 8 North Carolina – No. 9 Villanova contest on Sunday.

— KU Sports Information —

Bill Self roared up and down the sideline in front of the Kansas bench, a volcano of emotion threatening to spill onto the court, his unfiltered venom directed at the officiating crew.

Self knew he was going to get called for a technical foul.

He was practically begging for it.

”I acted like an idiot, I know,” Self would say later. ”They could have popped me a lot earlier and I wouldn’t have had to act that way for so long.”

That was the closest Self came to admitting he got the technical foul on purpose, but it clearly had the intended effect. The seventh-ranked Jayhawks quickly became energized, rushing past Iowa State for an 88-73 victory in the Big 12 tournament semifinals Friday night.

Perry Ellis scored a career-high 23 points, Jeff Withey and Elijah Johnson added 14 points each, and Ben McLemore finished with 10 for top-seeded Kansas (28-5), which advanced to play the winner of Kansas State-Oklahoma state on Saturday night for the tournament title.

”I thought it was a very emotional game. Both teams, especially Iowa State, they came out of the chute fast, and our guys knew it would be an emotion-filled game,” Self said, ”and after about the 12-minute mark, we did a great job of playing with emotion and matching their energy.”

His technical foul had a lot to do with it.

McLemore had hit a 3-pointer in front of the Iowa State bench and did a little jig to celebrate it, and was hit with a technical of his own. Self took umbrage with the call and spent about five minutes lambasting the three-man officiating crew, finally earning his technical.

”I could have gotten one 10 minutes earlier,” Self said. ”They told me they were going to give me one, and I’m not a real good listener.”

Asked whether Ellis had ever seen his coach more upset, the freshman replied: ”I haven’t, actually. That was probably the angriest I’ve seen him.”

Self may have disagreed with McLemore’s technical, but the freshman seemed to accept it.

”I was celebrating pretty good,” he said with a smile, ”and the ref tech’ed me up.”

Ellis surpassed his previous career high of 15 points set in the Jayhawks’ season opener by shooting 10 of 12 from the field against the Cyclones. He also gathered six rebounds as chants of ”Perry! Perry!” filled the building in the waning moments of the game.

”He did a great job of finishing dump-downs. Sometimes we got caught out of position,” said Georges Niang, who led the Cyclones with 19 points. ”We weren’t expecting that.”

Melvin Ejim added 17 points and Tyrus McGee had 12 for fifth-seeded Iowa State (22-11), which was trying to turn the tables after losing to the Jayhawks twice in overtime this season.

Instead, Kansas won for the 16th time in 17 meetings.

”We came out with great energy, getting out to an eight-point lead early,” Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg said, ”and then we got stagnant with the ball, and you can’t do that with Kansas.”

After their coach picked up his technical foul, the Jayhawks slowly pulled ahead, and a 3-pointer by Travis Releford in the closing seconds of the first half made it 35-31 at the break.

The Cyclones, who rely so heavily on their own 3-pointers, missed their first six from beyond the arc in the second half, and Kansas responded with a 20-8 surge to seize control.

”Coach made me a big believer in the way you go into a locker room affects the way you come out of the locker room,” Johnson said.

Withey scored seven points during the Jayhawks’ run, and by the time Hoiberg called timeout, the Cyclones trailed 55-39 – the biggest deficit for either team in three games this season.

Iowa State managed to trim the lead to 59-49 on a 3-pointer by Will Clyburn a few minutes later, but Kansas answered with seven quick points, including a 3 by McLemore in front of the Jayhawks’ bench – no dancing this time – that again forced Hoiberg to call timeout.

The closest the Cyclones got the rest of the way was nine points, and chants of ”Rock! Chalk! Jayhawk! K-U!” filled the Sprint Center, where a record crowd of 19,116 had turned out.

”Our goal was to come win the Big 12 title, no matter who we play,” Releford said.

Many fans thought this would settle the score between Kansas and Iowa State after they waged two classic nail-biters during the regular season.

In their first meeting at Allen Fieldhouse, Iowa State led most of the way, only to watch McLemore get hot down the stretch. The freshman finished with 33 points, including a banked-in, buzzer-beating 3-pointer that forced overtime in a 97-89 victory.

The return game at Hilton Coliseum last month may have trumped it.

Kansas rallied behind a career-high 39 points from Johnson, including eight in the last 29 seconds of regulation and 12 in overtime, as the Jayhawks emerged with a 108-96 win.

After the game, the Big 12 disciplined two of the game officials for errors that occurred with the game on the line. The league never disclosed the mistakes, but a foul on Kansas was awarded to the wrong player, and a questionable no-call in a charge-block situation – and the subsequent foul on the Cyclones during a loose ball – helped the Jayhawks force overtime.

There was no extra time needed this time.

The Jayhawks made sure of it.

— Associated Press —

Top-seeded Kansas wasn’t about to let itself get lulled into a sense of apathy by playing an early afternoon game in the Big 12 tournament.

It helped that the Jayhawks had a partisan crowd behind them in the Sprint Center.

It also helped that they had Iowa State awaiting them in the semifinals.

Ben McLemore scored 24 points and the hot-shooting, seventh-ranked Jayhawks rolled to a 91-63 rout of Texas Tech on Thursday, setting up a third matchup with the Cyclones that basketball fans can only hope lives up to the drama of their first two games this season.

”Those two games may be the two most exciting games played in our league this year,” said Kansas coach Bill Self, whose team emerged victorious in overtime on both occasions.

If Kansas shoots it like it did Thursday, regulation might suffice this time.

Anrio Adams had a career-high 11 points as the Jayhawks (27-5) shot 66 percent from the field (31 of 47), the best mark by any team in a Big 12 tournament game, and finished 9 of 18 from beyond the arc. They also went 20 of 23 from the foul line, putting on a show for a crowd that included new Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith, who sat a few rows behind the Texas Tech bench.

”We were pretty efficient offensively when we didn’t turn it over,” Self said. ”Ben got us off to a good start before we puttered around, but we played a pretty good second half.”

Dejan Kravic scored 20 points, Dusty Hannahs added 15 and Jordan Tolbert had 13 for the Red Raiders, (11-20), who head into the offseason awaiting the fate of interim coach Chris Walker.

The longtime assistant took over in October, shortly after Billy Gillispie submitted a letter of resignation citing health concerns, and has been told he’ll be a candidate for the job.

”I’m going to take it day-by-day,” Walker said. ”There’s a process we’re going through at Tech. I’m certainly aware of it, and I think it’s a good thing. I’ve done all I can to make a case. The one thing I am very appreciative of is the opportunity I received.”

The Jayhawks, wearing their special, Zubaz-like Adidas uniforms, raced out to a 15-2 lead in the opening minutes, getting into transition and easily taking the ball to the basket.

McLemore, their star freshman, hit a pair of 3-pointers after missing his first nine tries against the Red Raiders during the regular season. He also added a mid-range jumper, a soaring dunk in transition and a couple of free throws before Texas Tech could slow him down.

”Ben helped us out a lot bringing us energy,” said the Jayhawks’ Jeff Withey.

The Red Raiders stormed back to make it close by halftime.

Kravic, whose buzzer-beating tip-in Wednesday night helped Texas Tech beat West Virginia, followed up a 3-pointer by Jamal Williams by scoring the Red Raiders’ next nine points.

His jumper midway through the second half forced Self, his face red with fury, to call a timeout and lay into a starting lineup that includes four seniors.

Kansas slowly settled down and led 35-25 at the break, and after Tolbert hit a couple free throws early in the second half, the Jayhawks ripped off an 18-4 run to put the game away.

It started when McLemore got loose in the corner opposite the Kansas bench and, with a silky smooth stroke, poured in his third 3-pointer of the game. Young added a dunk, Withey scored inside and McLemore hit again from beyond the arc as Walker burned another timeout for Texas Tech.

”It’s definitely tough when they get rolling,” Kravic said. ”It’s really hard to stop.”

Later in the run, Travis Releford got ahead on a fast break and converted a layup as he was clobbered from behind by the Red Raiders’ Josh Gray. The officials ruled it a flagrant foul, and the senior from Kansas City made both of his free throws to give the Jayhawks a 52-31 lead.

The Jayhawks emptied their bench in the closing minutes, the game well in hand, giving their starters the luxury of looking ahead to at least one more game with the Cyclones.

In their first memorable game in Lawrence, Kansas needed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by McLemore just to force overtime. In the return game in Ames, Elijah Johnson scored eight of his career-high 39 points in the final 29 seconds to again force overtime.

That second game was thrown into controversy when officials called a foul on the wrong Kansas player down the stretch, and then failed to call a block-charge call. The game was reviewed by the Big 12 office and the officiating crew was disciplined.

”We’ve been fortunate,” Self said, ”but we also had some players step up and make some plays, too. They’re very capable of beating anybody and we know we’re going to have to step up.”

— Associated Press —

Kansas redshirt freshman Ben McLemore was named to the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) Freshman All-America Team announced Wednesday.

The team consisted of five freshmen and McLemore was joined by Anthony Bennett (UNLV), Shabazz Muhammad (UCLA), Nerlens Noel (Kentucky) and Marcus Smart (Oklahoma State). Smart was named the Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year by the USBWA.

McLemore leads Kansas in scoring at 16.7 points per game, which leads all Big 12 freshmen and ranks second overall in the conference. Against West Virginia, McLemore broke the Kansas freshman record for points in a game with 36 and he is the only freshman in KU history to have three 30-point games. The Jan. 14 Big 12 Player of the Week and three-time conference Rookie of the Week, McLemore leads the league in free throw percentage (86.3) and is second in the Big 12 in three-point field goal percentage (43.4). McLemore has a team-high 62 three-pointers made and is tied for second on the team with 35 steals.

Kansas (26-5, 14-4) enter the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Men’s Basketball Championship as the No. 1 seed after winning its ninth-straight, 13th overall and NCAA-leading 56th conference regular-season title. The Jayhawks tied Kansas State for the 2013 title. KU will face either No. 8 West Virginia or No. 9 Texas Tech in the quarterfinals of the event on Thursday, March 14, at 2 p.m. WVU and TTU play March 13 at 6 p.m. The event will be held at Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo.

— KU Sports Information —

Kansas seniors Jeff Withey, Travis Releford and Elijah Johnson and redshirt freshman Ben McLemore highlight KU’s selections to the 2013 All-Big 12 Men’s Basketball awards announced Sunday. The all-conference awards were voted on by the league’s head coaches who were not allowed to vote for their own student-athletes.

For the second straight season, Withey is the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. He was joined on the 2013 All-Big 12 First Team by McLemore. Releford was a second-team all-conference selection, while Johnson earned honorable mention all-league. Withey and Releford were named to the six-person Big 12 All-Defensive Team, while McLemore was selected to the six-person Big 12 All-Rookie Team. There were ties in the coaches’ votes for the defensive and rookie teams, hence six players listed.

“I’m happy for all of them” Kansas head coach Bill Self said. “We knew Ben and Jeff would be on the first team but I feel sometimes when you have guys on the first team it could split the vote for player of the year. Marcus Smart is a very deserving player of the year in leading Oklahoma State to a good finish in the league and an NCAA Tournament bid. Any of those four – Ben, Jeff, (Kansas State’s Rodney) McGruder and Smart – could have been player of the year.”

“Travis and Jeff both deserve to be on the All-Defensive team and it’s great for Jeff being named the defensive player of the year for the second straight season,” Self said. “I’m glad Elijah is honorable mention. I am so pleased for Travis to make second team. He’s put so much time into this program. He’s the rock nobody talks about.”

Withey becomes the second Jayhawk to earn Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year in consecutive seasons, joining former KU center Cole Aldrich who was named for the honor in 2009 and 2010. Withey has 124 blocked shots, a total that ranks fourth on the single-season Big 12 chart after he set the record of 140 in 2011-12. He is the Kansas and Big 12 career blocked shots leader at 289.

“This is a big honor to be named the defensive player of the year for two straight years in such a tough conference,” Withey said. “These are prestigious honors from the coaches and to have my other teammates listed throughout those awards shows how much of a team we have been (this season).”

McLemore has nine games of 20 or more points in 2012-13, including three 30-point efforts against Big 12 competition. Releford and Johnson are appearing on All-Big 12 squads for the first time in their careers. A lockdown defender, Releford leads KU with 37 steals this season, while Johnson has a team-high 149 assists in 2012-13.

“I’m happy for all those guys,” Self said. “They are all very deserving. Individual awards are terrific but I know our guys are focused on team achievements, which mean much more.”

Kansas, which tied Kansas State in winning its ninth-straight, 13th Big 12 and NCAA-leading 56th overall regular-season conference championship in 2013, placed two student-athletes on the All-Big 12 First Team for the second straight year and the sixth time in the last seven seasons. The Jayhawks have had two first teamers nine times in the 17-year history of the Big 12, which began in 1996-97.

No. 4/3 Kansas (26-5, 14-4) will enter the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship as the No. 1 seed and will play in the quarterfinals of the event on Thursday, March 14, at 2 p.m. (Central). The Jayhawks will face the winner of the No. 8 West Virginia versus No. 9 Texas Tech game to be played Wednesday, March 13, at 6 p.m. The event will be held at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo.

— KU Sports Information —

Kansas had a share of its ninth Big 12 regular-season title in a row even before Ben McLemore scored a layup off the opening tip at Baylor.

That ended up being the only lead the fourth-ranked Jayhawks had, and as close as they came to claiming the outright league title on the final day of the regular season.

Pierre Jackson had 28 points with 10 assists and Cory Jefferson scored 25 points, mixing in his first three career 3-pointers with his usual powerful dunks, and Baylor handed the Jayhawks their worst loss in seven years. The 81-58 loss Saturday night kept Kansas from winning conference regular-season title outright for the fifth year in a row.

”It doesn’t feel like we’ve won it at all. We tied Kansas State,” said Jeff Withey, one of four Kansas seniors in the starting lineup with standout freshman McLemore. ”It’s cool to win, obviously. To win nine in a row is huge. But it just stinks to lose.”

Especially like this, after winning their last seven games.

The Jayhawks (26-5, 14-4 Big 12) will still be the No. 1 seed for next week’s conference tournament in Kansas City.

”Yeah, I’m happy we got a ninth, I’m never going to apologize for winning a league championship,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. ”It’s not exactly the way we scripted it, which I think is pretty obvious. They were so much better than us. … I’m not happy, but I’m a lot happier than I would be if it was different and we finished second.”

The Jayhawks knew they already had a piece of the Big 12 title after ninth-ranked Kansas State (25-6, 14-4) lost 76-70 earlier Saturday at No. 13 Oklahoma State. But the KU loss gave the rival Wildcats a share of their first regular-season conference title since 1977 in the Big Eight.

”I’ll be candid with you: I was excited and knew that we got piece,” Self said. ”I thought we would play better because we knew we did. Because there would be no pressure, total freedom, confidence going out and it didn’t work out that way for us. We got off to a rough start.”

McLemore’s quick basket gave the Jayhawks no momentum.

Baylor (18-13, 9-9) scored the next six points, including a two-handed slam dunk by Jefferson, and led the rest of the game.

Jefferson had a pair of early dunks before hitting the first 3-pointer of his career for a 22-13 lead. The 6-foot-9 forward was 0 for 7 from long range before that.

”It’s something I’ve been doing in practice, and I just figured I might as well do it in a game,” Jefferson said.

Jackson, the Big 12’s leading scorer, and Jefferson both made 11 of 13 field goals – Jefferson made all three of his 3-pointers. A.J. Walton added 12 points for Baylor and Isaiah Austin had 11 for Baylor.

McLemore had 23 points for Kansas, which hadn’t lost this big since a 25-point loss to Texas in February 2006.

Kansas used an 11-0 run in the second half to get within 61-55 with 6:23 left after consecutive baskets by Perry Ellis, who finished with 12 points.

”When we cut it to six, I still thought we were climbing a pretty steep hill,” Self said. ”They were terrific and we weren’t good. They were terrific and had a lot to do with us not being very good. And, of course, two players played about as well as any two players against us in a long, long time off the same team.”

After the Jayhawks’ spurt, Jackson stole a ball from McLemore and drove for a layup made between two defenders. After Ellis missed a shot, Jackson got the ball and made a pass ahead to Brady Heslip for an easy layup.

The Bears kept piling on after that, and because of that could still have a shot at an at-large NCAA berth with a couple of wins at the Big 12 tournament.

”We were just focused. We knew what was at stake, we know how big this game was,” Jackson said. ”We handled business.”

Baylor had lost six of its previous seven games and was already locked in as the No. 6 seed in the Big 12 tournament. The Bears play Oklahoma State on Thursday night in Kansas City – they split their two regular-season matchups.

Kansas, which has won an NCAA-best 56 overall conference regular-season titles, plays Thursday against the West Virginia-Texas Tech winner.

Jefferson had 18 points by halftime, including a 3-pointer for the last points of the half. That came on the possession right after he took a charging foul that wiped out a basket by Elijah Johnson.

”Cory was O-for for his career and now I think we’ll have to design some plays for him to get him 3-point shots,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. ”Cory makes 3s in practice and works on them. … If you don’t go out and guard him, Cory is going to shoot the 3 and he was on fire.”

— Associated Press —