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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Roy Williams wasn't very complimentary of
his Kansas Jayhawks after their latest win.
"We're the dumbest team to ever step on a basketball court at
times," the Jayhawks' coach said after No. 9 Kansas survived two
missed shots by Brian Brown in the last 11 seconds to beat Ohio
State 69-68 on Saturday.
|  | | Kansas' Mario Kinsey battles Ohio State's Tim Martin for a loose ball Saturday. |
"We shot 59 percent in the second half and had about 800
turnovers," Williams said. "We're not very bright."
Kansas (10-1) turned the ball over on three straight possessions
and then misfired on the front end of three consecutive bonus
situations while Ohio State (8-3) ran off the final nine points.
The Buckeyes (8-3), who had won their last six games by an
average of 29 points, trailed by one and had the ball the final
33.6 seconds. They went to their co-captain with the game on the
line.
"We were fine with him trying to get to the basket and get
something in the lane," Ohio State coach Jim O'Brien said.
Brown, who led the Buckeyes with 17 points, drove the lane but
his off-balance shot in heavy traffic with 11 seconds left ended up
bouncing out of bounds off Kansas' Kirk Hinrich. Inbounding again
with 7.6 seconds left, the Buckeyes gave the ball to Brown who
drove the left wing.
He faked and tried to get defender Kenny Gregory in the air to
draw a foul, but Gregory forced Brown to alter his shot.
"I had a good look, but Ken Johnson's man helped out on me and
that made me force a bad shot," Brown said. "We were sloppy at
the end of the game."
The shot looped near the basket and was batted to midcourt by
Kansas' Drew Gooden.
"I just saw the ball there and tried to hit it to halfcourt
because I knew if I did the time would run out," Gooden said.
The final horn sounded while the ball was rolling near the giant
Ohio State logo at center court.
"I'm not sure we deserved to win," Williams said. "We kept
giving them opportunities."
Gregory led the Jayhawks with 17 points in his return to his
hometown. He had missed the last three games with a stress fracture
in his right foot, but hit 8 of 12 shots from the field and added
six rebounds and three assists.
"It's good because we got the win and we got the win on the
road," Gregory said. "But we made so many major mistakes tonight.
If we want to be as good as we want to be, you can't do that during
the course of the season."
Gooden added 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Jayhawks and Nick
Collison had 10 points.
Boban Savovic hit all 10 of his free throws and had 15 points
for the Buckeyes, while Johnson had 11 points, nine rebounds and
six blocked shots and Sean Connolly added 11 points.
"The thing I said to our guys was this: Take some good stuff
from playing hard and getting yourself back in position to win the
game," O'Brien said. "But don't be satisfied. We had a chance to
win and let it get away from us."
Ohio State stayed in the game because of free throws. The
Buckeyes were 28-of-42 at the line to Kansas' 6-of-13.
After Kansas missed its first four shots from the field to start
the second half, the Jayhawks relied on their superior size to keep
a double-figure lead for most of the half.
They hit nine of their next 11 shots -- many on high-low backdoor
cuts -- to build a 15-point lead.
Gooden scored nine points and Collison had six in the 19-6 run
that gave the Jayhawks a 53-38 lead.
But the Jayhawks were severely hampered by foul trouble. Ohio
State was in the double-bonus at the 11:21 mark. With 10 minutes
left, Kansas had four players with four fouls apiece.
Ohio State built a 5-0 run around Gregory's technical foul for
hanging on the rim on a dunk to cut it to 57-52 before Gregory
nailed a 3-pointer, Mario Kinsey hit a breakaway layup and Luke
Axtell added a 3-pointer at the five-minute mark to push the lead
back to 10.
But Savovic hit two free throws, Brown scored on a steal and a
drive and Connolly popped in a 3 from the top of the circle with
34.9 seconds left to cut the lead to 69-68.
Kansas almost gave the game away at the line.
Hinrich, an 86-percent free-throw shooter, missed the first of a
bonus situation with 55 seconds left and Jeff Boschee, shooting
89.5 percent at the line, missed the front end with 44.1 seconds
remaining. Gooden followed suit with 33.6 seconds to go to set up
the hectic finish.
"At the end, I told them we had a big challenge _ that we had
to have the defensive possession of the year," Williams said.
"Then we had to do it again."
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ALSO SEE
Men's College Basketball Scoreboard
Kansas Clubhouse
Ohio State Clubhouse
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