The seniors hadn’t been playing like seniors, and Kansas was suffering for it.

Elijah Johnson kept turning the ball over on offense, Kevin Young missed a couple easy shots around the rim, and Travis Releford was mired in foul trouble.

Little surprise that Temple had the sixth-ranked Jayhawks on the ropes.

But when the final minutes starting ticking way, Kansas’ savvy group of veterans finally kicked it into gear. Johnson scored on consecutive drives to the basket, Young made six straight foul shots and Releford sealed the deal with a shot-clock-beating 3-pointer from the wing.

After a tense Sunday afternoon, Kansas could finally celebrate a 69-62 victory.

”We didn’t do what we were supposed to do early. That came back on the seniors, I want to say,” said Johnson, who had five turnovers but also nine assists. ”I thought we could have gotten our team riled up. … It wasn’t the way it was supposed to be done.”

It was good enough.

Jeff Withey had perhaps the most impactful game of the Jayhawks’ four senior starters. He only scored eight points on 3-of-10 shooting, but he also had 11 boards and nine blocks.

Young finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds, and Releford had 14 points on 5-for-5 shooting, none of his baskets bigger than that 3 from the wing with 34.9 seconds left.

With the shot clock winding down, Releford’s pull-up jumper with a hand in his face gave Kansas a 65-58 lead, essentially wrapping up the victory.

”Altogether we couldn’t do too much until the last few minutes of the game,” Withey said. ”Crunch time, we played like we were supposed to.”

Ben McLemore added 13 points for the Jayhawks (12-1), who enter Big 12 play having won 30 consecutive games at Allen Fieldhouse and 63 in a row at home against non-conference opponents.

Khalif Wyatt had 26 points for the Owls (10-3), who nearly had their second win over a top-10 team this season. Wyatt scored 33 in an upset of then-No. 3 Syracuse on Dec. 22.

”They made some runs, we made some runs,” he said. ”It came down to the last three, four minutes and we made a couple bad decisions, a couple bad shots.”

Anthony Lee and Will Cummings scored 11 apiece for Temple, which seemed to have the recipe for winning in the Phog down pat. The Owls only committed four turnovers – though the third one late in the game proved critical – and prevented the high-flying Jayhawks from getting in transition.

After trailing the entire first half, Temple managed to build a 54-50 lead with just under 7 minutes to go. But the Jayhawks finally got going on offense, and then held on down the stretch to start 12-1 for the third time in the last four seasons.

”I thought it would be a game like this,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. ”I was hoping we’d play better, but I thought it would be a game we’d have to play the entire 40 minutes to win.”

Kansas raced out to a 22-10 lead by the midway point of the first half, clamping down with its intense man-to-man defense and throwing in some token press.

Temple coach Fran Dunphy eventually got a veteran group that starts three seniors to settle down, and the result was an 8-1 spurt that got the Owls right back in the game.

Wyatt led the charge by banking in a 3-pointer, and a basket by Lee – who had eight points and five boards by halftime – forced Self to call a timeout.

Self was only starting to simmer, though. He really boiled over a few minutes later, when Johnson committed his third turnover of the half. The coach slapped his hand against the video marquee at the scorer’s table so hard that it knocked out a bank of lights.

Kansas scored the first five points of the second half to push its lead to 38-27, but then Temple scored on its next nine possessions. Along the way, Wyatt outscored the Jayhawks 11-2 by himself, and his free throws with 14:13 left gave the Owls their first lead at 44-43.

”He’s a really good player,” Dunphy said. ”He has no fear.”

Releford, the Jayhawks’ top defender, picked up his fourth foul during the Owls’ run and spent much of the second half on the bench. That allowed Temple’s talented backcourt to keep answering every time that Kansas tried to make a charge.

Releford eventually checked back into the game, and the Jayhawks picked it up on defense.

After pulling ahead 54-50, the Owls failed to score on five of their next six possessions, and Johnson’s two drives to the basket tied the game. Moments later, McLemore stepped in front of a pass from Cummings and went the other way for a dunk and a 58-57 Kansas lead.

Young added four consecutive free throws, and then Releford hit his big 3-pointer from the wing, allowing Self and another capacity crowd to finally start relaxing.

”We played at a fairly high level the last month. I kind of felt we were due a game like this,” Self said. ”To win a game against an NCAA tournament team where you had to make plays down the stretch, I think it was good for all of us.”

— Associated Press —

It’s not supposed to be this easy for a kid playing his first collegiate road game.

Kansas’ Ben McLemore, a redshirt freshman surrounded in the starting lineup by seniors, didn’t let the raucous crowd, the travel or sleeping in a strange bed bother him.

McLemore scored 22 points and No. 9 Kansas proved it was more than just a bully at home by beating seventh-ranked Ohio State 74-66 on Saturday.

”This was great. It was my first time playing in an away game,” McLemore said with a slight smile. ”You go up and down the court a little bit, and you get into the game. I kept my intensity, I just played my game.”

For that matter, none of the Jayhawks had yet played a true road game this season. Kansas, which has won nine in a row since losing to Michigan State 67-64 on Nov. 13 in Atlanta, came in 7-0 at home, with two other games played before friendly fans in nearby Kansas City.

They had barely heard a boo all season.

No wonder coach Bill Self was a little worried.

”I had concerns, for sure,” Self said. ”Our seniors are good and quality and they’ve been through some things, but against a team that pressures man-to-man and you’re playing with one primarily (ball) handler? That was my biggest concern.”

But the Jayhawks (10-1) weathered a 14-0 run by the Buckeyes (9-2) in the first half that turned the volume up in Value City Arena to 11 on a scale of 10. Then, down in the second half, they held cold-shooting Ohio State without a field goal for more than 10 minutes to take control.

The Buckeyes, who were led by Deshaun Thomas’ 16 points and a career-best 15 by Shannon Scott, hit just 9 of 36 shots from the field in the final 20 minutes. For the game, they ended up making only 31 percent of their shots from the field.

No wonder coach Thad Matta looked so stunned when he spoke after the game.

”There was one point in the second half where I turned to the bench and I said, ‘Hey, let’s call a play where we score,”’ he said, heavy on the irony. ”A lot of it just comes down to you’ve got to put the ball in the basket in a game like this and we couldn’t do it. It became contagious.”

Sixty percent of the starting lineup – star defender Aaron Craft, usually reliable Lenzelle Smith Jr. and post man Evan Ravenel – was a combined 5 of 24 from the field.

Credit the Jayhawks, who play withering man-to-man defense and then are backed up by the incredible wingspan of 7-foot Jeff Withey underneath. Or blame the Buckeyes, who frequently were all alone when they bricked a shot off the rim. But no matter the reason, Ohio State couldn’t buy a bucket for most of the second half.

It was the third victory for the Jayhawks in little more than a year over the Buckeyes (9-2). Kansas won a 64-62 thriller in last year’s NCAA semifinals.

”Today’s probably the best we’ve played against Ohio State in the three games,” Self said. ”We were really good except for about a 3-minute stretch in the first half when they went on a (14-0) run. Other than that stretch, that was a pretty good 35 minutes we played out there.”

Withey added 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Jayhawks. Elijah Johnson had 13 points and Travis Releford 11.

They weathered Ohio State’s first-half tear by relying on the seniors.

”We have a good group of vets and we’ve been in tough situations before,” Withey said. ”We just bounced back. We just had to kind of breathe a little bit.”

Ahead 56-52 with 7 minutes left, Kansas pulled away thanks to its McLemore. He hit a pair of foul shots and then flipped in a 15-foot jumper that bounced not once, not twice, but three times before falling through. Off an inbounds pass, McLemore then came off a back pick and dunked to push the lead to 62-52 with 5 minutes left.

The Buckeyes never got closer than six points again.

Self said he found out a little more about McLemore in the game.

”There’s a lot of stuff I’m curious about Ben,” he said. ”He’s still trying to figure out how to play. You can tell in late-game situations, he’s played less basketball than anybody that’s as old as him and as good as him around. It’s all new to him. When it all comes naturally to him, he’s going to become terrific.”

In his first road game, he already was.

— Associated Press —

Kansas football coach Charlie Weis and his staff have been hard at work since the conclusion of the 2012 season. After combing the country for the last few weeks, the hard work has paid off as the Jayhawks received nine signatures for its 2013 football signing class Wednesday, the first day of the December signing period.

Weis and his staff put together one of the top December junior college classes as Wednesday’s haul included the top-rated junior college prospect in the country according to ESPN, Marquel Combs (Pierce College).

In addition to the highly touted Combs, KU added defensive line stalwarts in four-star prospect Chris Martin (City College of San Francisco), Tedarian Johnson (Hinds Community College) and Ty McKinney (Trinity Valley Community College).

The Jayhawks added two defensive backs by signing Dexter McDonald (Butler Community College) and Cassius Sendish (Arizona Western College). McDonald is returning to KU after spending the 2010-11 seasons on the team.

Kansas signed two offensive players Wednesday, both offensive linemen. Michael Smithburg (Iowa Western) and Ngalu Fusimalohi (City College of San Francisco) each signed on to be Jayhawks.

KU also added a specialist on Wednesday by signing punter/kicker Trevor Pardula (De Anza College). Pardula has experience in punting, place kicking and kickoffs.

2013 Kansas Football Signees

Player                                    Pos.    Ht.       Wt.      Yr.       Exp.    Hometown (Previous School)

Marquel Combs        DL      6-3     310     Jr.      JC       Memphis, Tenn. (Pierce College)

Ngalu Fusimalohi       OL      6-3     300     Jr.      JC       Daly City, Calif. (CC of San Francisco)

Tedarian Johnson      DL      6-3     260     Jr.      JC       Jackson, Miss. (Hinds CC)

Chris Martin             DL      6-4     260     Jr.      JC       Oakland, Calif. (CC of San Francisco)

Dexter McDonald      DB      6-1     205     Jr.      JC       Kansas City, Mo. (Butler CC)

Ty McKinney            DL      6-3     310     Jr.      JC       Weatherford, Texas (Trinity Valley CC)

Trevor Pardula         P/K     6-5     210     Jr.      JC       San Jose, Calif. (De Anza College)

Cassius Sendish        DB      6-2     185     Jr.      JC       Waldorf, Md. (Ariz. Western College)

Michael Smithburg     OL      6-3     300     Jr.      JC       Fairfield, Iowa (Iowa Western CC)

— KU Sports Information —

Jeff Withey had at least six inches on just about everyone from Richmond.

Little surprise that every time the Spiders slashed into the lane, Withey sent their shots right back out. And every time ninth-ranked Kansas dumped the ball inside to the 7-footer, he had to simply turn around and stuff it through the basket.

Withey finished with 17 points and 13 rebounds Tuesday night in the Jayhawks’ 87-59 rout, and the smile on the senior’s face showed that he enjoyed every minute of it.

Now, it’s time for Withey to start picking on someone his own size.

The Jayhawks (9-1) have romped to eight straight victories since losing to Michigan State on a neutral floor early in the season, but finally get their first true road test Saturday, when they visit seventh-ranked Ohio State for a marquee non-conference showdown.

”Now we’ll find out how good we are,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. ”Let’s be serious. The season starts Saturday. Now we can go up there and hopefully take a real enthusiastic team up there, hunker down, see how tough we are and find out a lot about ourselves.”

Travis Releford and Naadir Tharpe had 11 points each against Richmond, and Elijah Johnson added seven assists as the Jayhawks used an 18-0 first-half run to put the game away.

Kansas coasted in the second half to its 28th consecutive home victory.

”We played pretty well,” Withey said. ”Our scout team did a great job preparing us for it, so we knew what would happen. We knew they could shoot so we tried to take that away.”

Richmond (9-3) shot just 32 percent from the field, and was 9 of 32 from beyond the arc, settling for the outside jumper rather than test Withey’s presence in the lane.

The Spiders even struggled from the foul line – the one place where Withey wasn’t a danger to block their shot. They finished just 12 of 22 on free throws.

”We didn’t come out energetic at all in the first half. We kind of picked it up toward the end of the first half, and more toward the second half,” said Derrick Williams, who led the Spiders with 14 points. ”I felt like guys were a little hesitant to go.”

Cedrick Lindsay added 12 points, and Alonz Nelson-Ododa and Darien Brothers had 11 each for Richmond, which fared much better in its last visit to Allen Fieldhouse.

The Spiders waltzed into one of the most intimidating environments in college basketball in January 2004 and beat Kansas with a jumper in the final second. It remains one of only seven home losses in Self’s 10 seasons with the Jayhawks.

Their game Tuesday night never had the same kind of drama.

Richmond appeared stunned by the boisterous crowd of 16,300 early on, allowing Kansas to get out to a quick lead. The Spiders’ 3-point shooting allowed them to crawl within 15-11, but that’s when Johnson started the Jayhawks’ big scoring binge.

McLemore followed with a 3 and fellow freshman Perry Ellis scored inside. On the next possession, McLemore scored and went to the foul line, missed the free throw and watched as Ellis put it back for a four-point trip and a 26-11 lead with 8:20 remaining on the clock.

Withey got into the act with a bucket and then a three-point play, and Johnson finished off the 18-0 run with a couple of free throws that made it 33-11 with 4:26 to go.

”We just had some defensive slip-ups,” Brothers said. ”We let some guys get lobs. We weren’t talking or communicating. I think that was definitely the key.”

Williams, a burly junior forward, provided the basket that ended the Spiders’ 8-minute-plus drought, and two more baskets by Richmond trimmed the lead to 15 points.

It was the closest the Spiders would get the rest of the way.

Kansas answered with another four-point trip – Withey scored and missed his foul shot, and Kevin Young was there for the follow. And then with 1.5 seconds left, Releford went to the foul line and made good on both of his free throws, getting a second chance after missing the second when Williams was called for a lane violation.

The Jayhawks were merely in it for style points in the second half, at one point putting together another 18-2 run that made it 73-35 with 5:21 left. Kansas went through the motions down the stretch as it started to turn its attention toward the Buckeyes.

Kansas beat Ohio State at Allen Fieldhouse early last season before beating the Buckeyes again in the Final Four. The Jayhawks lost to Kentucky in the national title game.

”The next couple of days will be real important. The young guys will get to see what it takes to fully focus,” Johnson said. ”I definitely don’t think we’re prepared as we can be. The focus tonight was Richmond. But waking up tomorrow, the focus is on Ohio State.”

— Associated Press —

Andrew White III figures he will get some more playing time for No. 9 Kansas if he starts performing to the same level as Ben McLemore and Travis Releford.

He showed on Saturday night that he can hit the outside shot like them.

Now he just needs to throw down some dunks.

The freshman forward came off the bench to score 15 points, McLemore and Releford had 17 each, and the Jayhawks rolled to an 89-60 victory over Belmont, their 27th straight home win.

White had only played a few meaningful minutes this season, instead getting on the court when games were mostly out of reach. But he made a layup early, hit an opener jumper before halftime and wound up making three 3-pointers and going 6 of 8 from the field.

”I’ve been working in practice every game, working against these two guys,” White said, flanked by McLemore and Releford. ”Trying to improve the best I can. It’s good to have a good scoring game, but there’s a lot of room to improve.”

There’s a thought that should make future opponents cringe.

The Jayhawks (8-1) used suffocating defense, especially on the perimeter, and peerless transition offense early in the second half to put away the Bruins (6-3), a mid-major darling that’s been to the NCAA tournament five of the past seven years.

Kansas shot better than 50 percent from the field and was 10 of 21 from the 3-point line.

”I think we’re getting better,” said Kansas coach Bill Self, who will be without reserve forward Justin Wesley for the next three weeks after he broke a finger in practice.

”I don’t think we’re terrific by any means,” Self said, ”but I think we’re getting better.”

Trevor Noack scored a career-high 19 points for the Bruins, but he couldn’t overcome their lousy outside shooting by himself. Belmont was just 8 of 38 from beyond the arc.

”Look, their defense was so much better that it affected our shooting numbers, and ours was so poor it affected theirs in the other direction,” Belmont coach Rick Byrd said. ”We were trying to hang in the first half and they kept making shots.”

Leading scorer Ian Clark, who had been averaging 19.4 points, was held to five on 2-for-9 shooting. The senior guard was 1 for 7 from the arc, where he had been shooting at a 58.7-percent clip, and committed five of the Bruins’ 17 turnovers.

”It was a pretty solid beatdown from beginning to end,” Byrd said.

Not entirely: The Jayhawks labored through much of the first half.

They opened a 23-12 lead on a nice feed from Naadir Tharpe to Withey, but the Bruins – who have lost 16 straight against Top 25 opponents – whittled the lead to single digits.

That’s when McLemore started putting on a show.

After beginning his one-man act with an easy basket, the freshman raced to the other end of the court and rejected the Bruins’ Kerron Johnson. Back on offense, McLemore set up White for a basket that extended the Jayhawks’ lead to 36-23 late in the half.

”We’re not a selfish team,” Releford said. ”If I have the ball, I’m penetrating and looking for Ben, or Elijah (Johnson) has the ball – it goes like that throughout the team.”

McLemore’s biggest highlight came as the first half expired.

Johnson had pushed the ball up court, cut to the right of the lane and dropped off a pass for him running down the left side. McLemore leaped up and dunked over Belmont’s Blake Jenkins, getting fouled in the process and hanging on the rim an extra second for emphasis.

While the officials reviewed the play to make sure time was still on the clock, both teams went to the locker room. That left McLemore standing awkwardly on the court by himself to take the free throw – which, of course, he made – for a 44-28 lead at the break.

”It was kind of weird,” McLemore said. ”I felt like there was a lot of pressure on me.”

McLemore kicked off the second half with another 3-pointer, and Kevin Young’s put-back finished off a 12-2 run that allowed the Jayhawks to start having some fun.

At one point down the stretch, White hit a 3-pointer from the wing, a turnover by Belmont led to a run-out and another 3-pointer by White, and yet another turnover led to yet another fastbreak that Releford finished with a reverse jam.

”It was a lot of fun. I’d rather watch Ben do a breakaway dunk,” Releford said with a smile. ”That wasn’t one of my better dunks. I don’t think I got up as high as I could.”

— Associated Press —

Ben McLemore is already accustomed to being on the finishing end of alley-oop dunks.

He was on the giving end on Saturday.

It happened midway through the second half, when the freshman guard looked toward the rim and then lofted a pass that Kevin Young snared in mid-air. The senior sparkplug for ninth-ranked Kansas proceeded to throw down a dunk over Colorado’s Xavier Johnson that brought another capacity crowd in Allen Fieldhouse to its feet.

In a game full of highlights, that one might have defined the game.

McLemore finished with 24 points, Young added 16 points and eight rebounds, and the Jayhawks rolled to a 90-54 victory over the Buffaloes, sending their former Big 12 foe limping back to the Pac-12.

”He was talking to me – he kept saying, ‘I’m running and running,”’ McLemore said. ”We got on a break, and I tossed it up to him and he finished it, and the crowd got into it and we kept rolling.”

Elijah Johnson hit three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points, and Travis Releford added 10 points and six assists for the Jayhawks (7-1), who used an 18-3 run fueled by feisty defense to bury the Buffaloes early.

Kansas pushed the advantage to more than 20 by halftime, surpassed the 30-point barrier with 17 minutes left and extended it to 40 with about 8 minutes to go before substituting liberally down the stretch.

”That was an old-fashioned (butt) whipping right there, is what that was,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. ”It’s not like our guys wanted to roll over and die. Kansas just came out and took our heart.”

Josh Scott finished with 19 points to lead the Buffaloes (7-2), who have lost two of three after rattling off six straight wins to start the year. Askia Booker added 15 points, and leading scorer Spencer Dinwiddie was held to four points on 1-for-4 shooting. Xavier Johnson missed all four of his field-goal attempts before fouling out.

”It all comes down to defense,” Dinwiddie said. ”It’s not like they were hitting contested 3s, they were dunking on us and absolutely humiliating us. There really is nothing else to say.”

Colorado has lost 19 straight to the Jayhawks, and 46 of 47, dating to the 1991 season. The longtime Big 12 member, which bolted for the Pac-12 last season, still hasn’t won at Allen Fieldhouse since the 1982-83 season, a span of 29 games.

Kansas coach Bill Self is 18-0 against the Buffaloes, and has won 11 straight against the Pac-12.

”That’s the first time we’ve played a game in our building where we didn’t let our opponent get comfortable in the game from the outset,” Self said. ”That’s what we’re supposed to do every game.”

The Jayhawks led 43-22 at halftime after turning Colorado over 12 times and coughing up a possession just twice in the first 20 minutes. The result was a lopsided 22-2 advantage in points-off-turnovers, and a big lead despite missing its final 10 3-point attempts of the half.

McLemore nearly outscored the Buffaloes by himself, pouring in 17 points.

The freshman guard, who sat out last season as a partial NCAA qualifier, did his best work slashing through the lane and getting to the foul line. But he also picked Colorado’s pocket on a couple of occasions, once tipping the ball over a defender’s head and tracking it down for an easy dunk and an 18-3 lead in the opening minutes.

”I give my teammates a lot of credit,” McLemore said. ”We just go out there and have fun.”

The only stretch in which Kansas wasn’t having fun came midway through the first half, when it missed seven straight field goals, and Colorado closed within 29-18. As if on cue, the Jayhawks scored the next nine points to force Boyle – who played for Kansas in the 1980s – to call a frantic timeout.

Dinwiddie, who had scored at least 20 in three straight games, played only 12 minutes in the first half. He picked up two fouls in the first 5 minutes, and at one point went to the locker room favoring his left ankle.

The Jayhawks put the game away with an 11-2 run to start the second half.

The spurt included a nifty feed from Young to Jeff Withey under the basket, and a block by Withey on Colorado’s Andre Roberson that led to a run-out and a dunk by Releford. Young had a hand in several buckets early in the second half, and finished 8 of 9 from the field as the Jayhawks shot 55 percent for the game.

”When you’re playing a team like Kansas in a building like this, your mistakes get magnified,” Boyle said, ”and they just put it to us.”

— Associated Press —

Kansas center Jeff Withey has been named the Phillips 66 Big 12 Men’s Basketball Player of the Week for games of Nov. 26 – Dec. 2. The honor is voted on by a media panel which covers Big 12 men’s basketball.

Withey helped Kansas to a 2-0 week with wins over San Jose State (70-57) and Oregon State (84-78). The San Diego, Calif., senior recorded the 13th triple-double in Big 12 history and just the second official one in Kansas history with 16 points, 12 rebounds and 12 blocked shots versus SJSU. It was the first triple-double in historic Allen Fieldhouse. The 12 rejections were a Big 12 and school single-game record.

For the week, he averaged 16.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 7.5 blocks while shooting 70 percent (14-of-20) from the field. Withey has five career outings with eight or more blocked shots. This is the second career Big 12 Player of the Week honor for Withey. He also was named Feb. 13 of last season.

Withey’s honor gives Kansas back-to-back Big 12 Player of the Week recognition. Last week KU senior guard Travis Releford won the award.

Kansas (6-1) plays host to former Big Seven, Big Eight and Big 12 member Colorado (6-1) on Saturday, Dec. 8, at 1 p.m. on ESPN2. Kansas is ranked No. 10 nationally in the Nov. 26 polls, while Colorado is No. 19. Note: new polls will be out later today (Dec. 3).

— KU Sports Information —

Nobody else was doing much scoring for No. 10 Kansas on Monday night. Nobody else was rebounding or playing much defense, either.

Jeff Withey stepped up and did all three.

And etched his name in the school’s record books, too.

The senior center had 16 points, 12 rebounds and a school-record 12 blocks for only the second official triple-double in Kansas history, and the Jayhawks held off a furious comeback by San Jose State for a 70-57 victory.

”He was the only guy who played worth a flip,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. ”He did a good job covering up for a lot of mistakes, because we made a ton of them tonight.”

Withey scored 10 points during a 20-2 run early in the second half, and achieved the Jayhawks’ first triple-double since Cole Aldrich in an NCAA tournament game against Dayton in 2010 when the 7-footer blocked Xavier Jones’ shot with 7:43 left in the game.

”I’ve been wanting that for a while now, and it’s only me and Cole that have it, so it’s pretty special to me,” Withey said. ”They kept on driving in and, you know, I just kept on blocking it. It’s what I do.”

Kansas (5-1) certainly needed every last one of them after taking a 60-36 lead with just over 11 minutes left, and then watching the Spartans (2-3) go on an 18-2 run of their own.

The Jayhawks finally put it away when Elijah Johnson hit a floater with just over a minute left for a 66-57 lead, and when Withey’s rejection of J.D. Brown turned into a run-out that Ben McLemore finished off with a windmill dunk with about 30 seconds remaining.

”We didn’t back down,” San Jose State coach George Nessman said. ”We kept bucking up and sticking our chest out there, and that was important for us.”

James Kinney stuck his chest out the farthest, scoring 19 of his 30 points in the second half for the Spartans. At one point, the senior guard scored nine in a span of about 90 seconds as San Jose State was mounting its big second-half charge.

”I wasn’t going to give up. I’m not going to get embarrassed out here,” Kinney said. ”Once everyone saw I was going to keep fighting, they just tagged along.”

McLemore finished with 13 points despite missing all seven of his 3-point tries, and Travis Releford also had 13 points for the Jayhawks. Kevin Young added eight rebounds.

Playing its first game since romping to victory in the CBE Classic last week, the Jayhawks looked fresh and smooth in building a double-digit lead late in the first half.

San Jose State answered with nine straight points spanning halftime to get back into it.

That’s when Kansas went on its big run.

It began with a 3-pointer by Johnson, and the momentum really started to build when Young followed up Withey’s miss with an easy basket down low.

Withey scored six of the Jayhawks’ next eight points as the lead slowly grew, and the crowd at Allen Fieldhouse began to realize that he was making history. He surpassed the 10-rebound mark midway through the second half before getting his 10th block to mark the triple-double.

”Most of the time – I’m guilty of it, too – we get caught standing around watching Jeff, like a fan or something, and that’s when we need to snap back to it,” Johnson said. ”Jeff saved us a lot of times. There were times I caught myself looking instead of playing.”

Unofficially, it was Withey’s second time reaching the milestone.

The senior had 18 points, 12 rebounds and 10 blocks against Pittsburg State in an exhibition game last season, when All-America forward Thomas Robinson missed the game due to injury.

It also comes with an asterisk in the Kansas record books.

The school didn’t keep records for blocked shots during the 1950s, when Wilt Chamberlain was plying his trade on the hardwood. He undoubtedly had his share of triple-doubles while playing for the Jayhawks – but officially, only Aldrich and Withey have done it.

”On the sideline, I kept thinking some of the shots were going in, and then bang, they were going the other way,” Nessman said. ”We try to tell our guys to jump into shot-blockers, but he’s so good at staying down, it’s hard to get him off his feet.”

Kinney did the best job of getting shots up, over and around him.

In doing so, he nearly stole Withey’s thunder.

The spunky guard hit consecutive jumpers to end the Jayhawks’ big second-half run, and then added a fall-away 3-pointer with just over 10 minutes remaining to close the gap.

He added another 3-pointer with 6:44 left to trim the Spartans’ deficit to 60-51, and then hit his fourth 3 as the shot clock was winding down to make it 64-57 with 2:39 to go.

That’s when Kansas finally put the game away.

”I just don’t think we have any fold in us. That’s not who we are. We have a great group of kids,” Nessman said. ”We came here to play for a full 40 minutes.”

— Associated Press —

Kansas senior guard Travis Releford has been selected as the men’s basketball Phillips 66 Big 12 Player of the Week for games from Nov. 19-25. The weekly honor is voted on by a media panel which covers the conference.

Releford led No. 12/11 Kansas to wins over Washington State (78-41) and Saint Louis (73-59) en route to the championship of the CBE Hall of Fame Classic at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo. A 6-foot-6, 210-pound from Kansas City, Mo., Releford averaged 20.0 points and shot 65.0 percent from the field before being named the CBE Classic Most Valuable Player. He also connected on 60.0 percent from three-point range while making 8-of-9 (.889) from the free throw line. Releford is third for the Jayhawks in scoring this season with 11.8 points per game.

It is the second career Big 12 Player of the Week honor for Releford, who received the honor last January. It is the first league weekly accolade for KU this season.

— KU Sports Information —

Kansas learned just how effective it can be Tuesday night against Saint Louis when its best defenders also turn out to be its most efficient scorers.

Jeff Withey matched a career high with 25 points, Travis Releford added 23 and the No. 12 Jayhawks rolled to a 73-59 victory in the championship game of the CBE Classic.

Releford had 21 points in the first half, and Withey had 15 in the second, the inside-outside duo carrying the Jayhawks (4-1) despite every effort by the Billikens (2-2) and senior forward Cody Ellis to get back into the game in the waning minutes of the second half.

”Travis was unbelievable the first half. They made the decision not to guard him, so he was unbelievable, made them pay,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. ”And the reason Jeff had the big second half is they started to guard Travis.”

Releford, who had 17 points in the semifinals against Washington State, has long been regarded as the Jayhawks’ best perimeter defender, while Withey emerged as one of the Big 12’s top interior defenders during a breakout junior season that has set him up for a big final year.

”He worked himself in there pretty tight,” Self said. ”Jeff was really good at both ends.”

The Jayhawks improved to 16-4 all-time at the Sprint Center, the site of this season’s Big 12 tournament, and where they’ll play Oregon State in a nonconference game next week.

Ellis finished with 19 points for the Billikens. Mike McCall Jr. added 13 points, Cory Remekun had 10 points and Dwayne Evans pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.

”We had 10 turnovers in the first half, two in the second,” Ellis said. ”I think our defense definitely picked up in the second half. We have a long way to go, but it was a big step.”

The Jayhawks got off to the same kind of start they had the previous night, when they buried Washington State under a 21-5 onslaught. Releford keyed it with back-to-back 3-pointers, and Elijah Johnson’s only basket of the first half finished off an opening 14-4 run.

After the Billikens clawed back within four, Releford and Withey combined to score 14 straight points as Kansas established a 28-10 edge and threatened to put the game away.

”They have good players all over the place, so as soon as you plug this hole, another hole opens up,” Saint Louis interim coach Jim Crews said. ”That’s why they’re pretty good.”

Saint Louis never wavered, though, even after Jordair Jett limped to the locker room late in the half, and despite playing without top scorer Kwamain Mitchell due to a broken foot.

McCall hit a long 3-pointer late in the half, and another triple by Jake Barnett – one of three he had on the night – helped get the Billikens within 39-25 at the break.

Releford was 6 of 11 from the field in the first half; Saint Louis was 6 of 23.

The Billikens also committed 10 turnovers, but despite their sloppiness on offense and their inability to slow down the Jayhawks on defense, they still were within striking distance.

McCall’s 3-pointer out of halftime closed the gap to 11, but Withey converted a three-point play off a nifty feed from Kevin Young, and McLemore followed up a 3-pointer with a scooping layup, allowing the Jayhawks to restore a 47-30 cushion with about 17 minutes left in the game.

That’s just about when Ellis started to heat up.

His basket with 14:25 left got the Billikens within 50-36, and he converted a three-point play with under 10 to go that made it 57-45. The senior forward from Perth, Australia, then hit back-to-back 3-pointers a couple minutes later to trim the deficit to 10 points.

Kansas kept trying to deliver the knockout blow, and the Billikens kept dodging it.

McCall answered a basket by Releford that threatened to raise the roof at the Sprint Center, which was filled with a pro-Kansas crowd, and then Ellis knocked down another off-balance 3-pointer from the wing to get Saint Louis within 65-56 with just under 4 minutes left in the game.

Withey converted a three-point play, though, and after Ellis misfired from long range, the Jayhawks’ 7-footer dunked at the other end to make it 70-56 and effectively put the game away.

”Our two leading scorers are probably our two best defenders, too,” Self said, ”and I really think if you don’t worry about scoring, scoring naturally comes, and that’s what happened.”

— KU Sports Information —