Kansas redshirt freshman Ben McLemore has been named to the Sporting News Mid-Season All-America First Team it was announced Tuesday.

McLemore is joined on the first team by Oklahoma State freshman Marcus Smart, Michigan sophomore Trey Burke, Creighton junior Doug McDermott and Duke senior Mason Plumlee.

A 6-foot-5, guard from St. Louis, McLemore ranks second in the Big 12 in scoring at 16.4 points per game and with an 87.7 free throw percentage. He has five games of 20 points or more including 22 in KU’s victory at Ohio State (Dec. 22) and 33 in Kansas’ overtime win against Iowa State on Jan. 9. His 33-point effort is the most scored by a Big 12 player this season and the most by a Kansas freshman since All-American Danny Manning scored 35 against Oklahoma State in 1985.

Sporting News reporter Mike DeCourcy wrote this about McLemore: “It has taken some prompting to get McLemore to understand how important he is to the offense. The nature of the KU system does not put the ball in his hands a ton, so he has to look to score when he gets it. He has gone through eight games with single-digit shot attempts, which is a lot for a player who clearly is his team’s best scorer. He has made the difference when necessary, though: in a tough road game at Ohio State, in a closer-than imagined overtime home win over Iowa State.”

On Monday, McLemore was named the Big 12 Player of the Week for his performance against Iowa State. He became the first player this season to earn both Big 12 Player and Rookie of the Week accolades.

No. 4/4 Kansas continues Big 12 action and will play at Texas Saturday, Jan. 19, at 1 p.m. (Central) on CBS.

— KU Sports Information —

This year’s edition of the Kansas Relays could be the last at Memorial Stadium.

The University of Kansas received approval from the Lawrence city commission Tuesday to begin construction on a $39 million complex west of campus that will include a new track and field facility along with a soccer-specific stadium and softball park.

Preliminary plans for “Rock Chalk Park” call for a track and field stadium with 7,000 permanent seats and room for 3,000 temporary seats. The new facility would mean the existing track could be removed from Memorial Stadium, where the Jayhawks play football.

“As we move forward in our capital campaign, we can focus our attention on two premier projects — the completion of the renovation of Allen Fieldhouse, which we know is our crown jewel, and the renovation of Memorial Stadium,” Kansas athletic director Sheahon Zenger said.

“Why is that important?” Zenger asked. “We live in a day and age of conference realignment. We have seen in recent months that it continues to bubble and percolate. We cannot afford at this time to sit back on our hands and have a stadium that does not reflect the commitment to big-time college football. If that’s how we are perceived, we could rue the day that we didn’t act when we had the opportunity to act.”

The Kansas Relays, which began in 1923, annually draw one of the nation’s top fields to the school’s campus. Kansas is one of the few schools in the nation that still has its track inside the football stadium, something that went out of vogue years ago.

School officials hope to have the new track and field complex completed by spring 2014, and Zenger said the goal is to build a facility capable of hosting national championships.

“Track and Field is back at Kansas,” he said. “If we give them one of the top tracks in the nation, can you imagine what we can do here at the University of Kansas?”

The new soccer stadium will seat 2,500, while the softball facility will seat 1,500.

Zenger said those upgrades are part of a decades-old Title IX review that found Kansas to be far behind rival institutions in providing proper facilities for its women’s programs.

“This is just an unbelievably golden opportunity to get that corrected,” he said. “Even if we weren’t under review, even if Title IX weren’t involved, the right thing to do is to build facilities for those young women in soccer and softball that are equal to their peers.

“Many of our fans and Lawrence residents aren’t able to travel around the county with us as we compete, or even around the region in the Big 12,” Zenger said. “If they could, they’d see that in these sports we are woefully behind. It’s hard for me to say that, but its reality, and that’s why we’re building these tremendous facilities.”

The Kansas athletic department plans to work with the KU Endowment Association and Bliss Sports to build the facilities. Under terms of the partnership, the school will be able to spread the $39 million cost over 30 years.

“This is great day for Kansas Athletics,” Zenger said. “This will address longstanding needs that we have been trying to fill for well over a decade, and probably should have addressed as many as 20 years ago.”

— Associated Press —

Ben McLemore had just hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key, and then rose to the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse to throw down an alley-oop dunk and bring a raucous crowd to its feet.

When he hit the floor moments later, the old barn was filled with deafening silence.

McLemore had poured in 17 points in the fourth-ranked Jayhawks’ 61-44 win over Baylor, but he was now clutching his right ankle in pain. The star freshman grimaced as a trainer probed and prodded it, and then he was helped to his feet and straight to the Kansas locker room.

Kansas coach Bill Self said afterward that McLemore had a Grade-1 sprain, ”and if we were going to practice tomorrow, I wouldn’t let him practice.” But Self also was hopeful that McLemore won’t miss more than a few days, which means he could be back before Saturday’s game at Texas.

McLemore has been a big reason why the Jayhawks (15-1, 3-0 Big 12) have won 14 straight games, matching the fourth-longest winning streak during the Self era.

He leads the team in scoring, hit the buzzer-beating 3-pointer to force overtime in a win against Iowa State, and has become one of the best perimeter defenders in the Big 12.

”It’s pretty easy to see how good a player he is,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. ”We knew out of high school he’d be good, but what he’s done this early in his career has been impressive.”

Johnson finished with 12 points and Travis Releford had 10 for the Jayhawks, whose defense held the Bears (11-5, 3-1) to 23.2 percent shooting and 9 of 42 from inside the 3-point arc.

Freshman center Isaiah Austin had 15 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Bears, who still have never won in 10 tries in Lawrence. Pierre Jackson finished with 10 points.

”Our defense definitely carried us, because in stretches we didn’t shoot that well,” Kansas forward Jeff Withey said. ”We just played really good defense and that saved us.”

The Jayhawks used a pair of 10-3 runs to seize control in the first half, doing a good job of sharing the ball on offense and clogging up the interior on defense.

Baylor was just 4 of 25 from inside the 3-point arc in the first half – two of the makes were easy put-backs – while the Jayhawks managed two blocks each from five different players.

The Bears carried over their offensive struggles from Saturday, when they trudged their way to a 51-40 win over TCU. They committed nine first-half turnovers – 16 for the game – against one of the nation’s premier defenses, and only had a single assist to show for six made field goals.

”We weren’t going strong to the basket, like we should have, like we usually do,” said the Bears’ A.J. Walton. ”You can’t knock anything they do. They were just good on defense.”

Still, Baylor was within 23-18 on Austin’s 3-pointer with 5:26 left before Kansas went on a 10-2 run to finish the half. Five different players scored during the spurt.

The run was nearly derailed when Releford was called for a flagrant offensive foul, much to Self’s chagrin. But the Bears’ Deuce Bello badly missed two free throws, and Jackson was stuffed on a drive to the basket to leave Kansas ahead 33-20 at the break.

The Jayhawks stretched the lead to 42-23 early in the second half before Baylor trimmed it to 47-34 with 10:32 remaining on a run of free throws by Walton and Gary Franklin.

It was the closest the Bears had been since halftime.

Kansas again stretched the lead on a couple baskets by McLemore sandwiched around an easy inside look from Jeff Withey. And when Austin hit from 15 feet with 6:51 left to trim the deficit to 15, Johnson drove the lane and converted a three-point play as the shot-clock was expiring.

Austin’s 3-pointer got Baylor within 56-42 with 4:18 left, but McLemore poured in his own from the top of the key and then threw down his signature dunk in transition.

It would have been the exclamation mark on a blowout win.

Instead, his injury left a sellout crowd inside Allen Fieldhouse quiet as the final seconds ticked off the clock on the Jayhawks’ fourth win in their last five games against Baylor.

”My heart dropped, to see something like that. You don’t want to see nothing bad happen to him,” Johnson said. ”I think he moreso panicked than anything. That has a lot to do with it sometimes. I think he’ll be all right. Ben will bounce back.”

— Associated Press —