Mills Lane wasn’t wearing a striped shirt, Ferdie Pacheco wasn’t in Baylor’s corner and Larry Merchant wasn’t behind a microphone.

Still, Baylor coach Dave Bliss couldn’t resist using a pugilistic analogy following Saturday afternoon’s 87-72 Big 12 Conference basketball loss to No. 2-ranked Kansas.

Baylor coach Dave Bliss throws up his hands over a second-half call.

“It’s like going 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali, and at least you didn’t die,” Bliss said. “You’re bloody and impressed.”

In the last five games, Kansas hadn’t scored fewer than 98 points, so somebody asked Bliss how he felt about slowing the Jayhawks down.

“I’m not sure we slowed anything,” Bliss, now in his third year as BU’s coach, said. “I’m not sure Baylor has played a more explosive basketball team.”

Bliss came to town unsure whether he wanted to use a zone, a trap or man-to-man defense against the nation’s highest-scoring team.

“You pick your poison,” Bliss said, “and we stayed with man.”

Meanwhile, Kansas played its patented man-to-man defense with an occasional trap, and played it well, because the Jayhawks were whistled for only 11 fouls and Baylor made only seven of 25 three-point attempts.

“Their defense is terrific,” Bliss said. “It’s as good a Kansas defense as we’ve played in the last three years.”

A couple of freshmen playing for the first time in Allen Fieldhouse led the Bears. Lawrence Roberts, a 6-foot-8 forward, was tops in points (21) and rebounds (7), while 5-10 point guard John Lucas III had 16 points. No other BU player had more than eight points.

“One of the disturbing things,” Bliss said, “is freshmen leading us in scoring. That’s not good in the Big 12.”

Lucas, son of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ head coach, had been looking forward to Saturday’s game for a long time.

“When I was little, I used to love watching Jacque Vaughn, and one day I told my dad I wanted to play in that arena,” Lucas said with a smile. “I loved it. I wasn’t nervous at all.”

Later, after Lucas had dressed and was headed to the bus, he stopped at a souvenir stand in the southwest corner of the fieldhouse and bought a small crimson and blue basketball.

“I got it for my little brother,” Lucas said as he strolled toward the door. “He’s got plenty of Baylor stuff already.”

Lucas was proud of how he and his teammates performed against a team that went in as a 22-point favorite.

“We came in to send a message that we’d play hard,” Lucas said. “We didn’t want it to be a cakewalk, and we gave them trouble.”

Roberts, who played a role in holding Drew Gooden the league’s leading scorer to just 11 points, recalled a moment when Gooden gathered his teammates for a pep talk.

“He tried to get them to play together and pump them up,” Roberts said. “That’s when I knew we were doing a good job.”

Bliss wished junior guard Wendell Greenleaf, who has been in a shooting slump for the last few games, had snapped out of it on Saturday. But Greenleaf was 1-for-10 from the field and threw up six three-pointers that either clanked or missed everything.

“I think he had four airballs today and he had five at Texas Tech,” Bliss said. “He’s in a slump, but he’ll come out of it.”

Baylor, 14-11 overall and 4-8 in the Big 12, will play host to Oklahoma on Tuesday.