STILLWATER, OKLA. — Sweet dreams, Kirk Hinrich.
"This is the complete opposite of two years ago," Hinrich, Kansas University's junior point guard, said after the Jayhawks' 79-61 victory over Oklahoma State on Tuesday night at jam-packed Gallagher-Iba Arena.
It avenged a 86-53 OSU annihilation of the Jayhawks a game Hinrich said gave him nightmares two seasons ago.
"My freshman year it was so loud I thought the roof was going to cave in," Hinrich said. "It's the most embarrassed I've been on a basketball court. Tonight I looked up in the stands with four minutes to go and saw empty seats. They didn't have anything to scream about."
Judging by the smile on Hinrich's face, he'll sleep much better in the wake of the worst home loss in Eddie Sutton's 12 years at OSU than he did after the worst loss in KU coach Roy Williams' career.
That's right, Tuesday's 18-point OSU setback surpassed a 17-point Sutton loss to Texas in 1997.
"If it's not 180 degrees opposite, it's close," Williams said after the No. 4-ranked Jayhawks improved to 14-2 overall and 3-0 in the Big 12. No. 6 OSU fell to 15-2, 2-2.
The Jayhawks had a plenty of motivation Tuesday, wanting to atone for Saturday's 10-point loss at UCLA and make up for that 33-point annihilation two years ago.
Missions accomplished.
"It's obviously a 180-degree change," KU junior Nick Collison said of the game at OSU his rookie season and Tuesday's game in which the Jayhawks hit 67.7 percent of their first-half shots in racing to a 53-31 lead.
"The difference between that game and this game is we took control and had them on their heels. Last time, Desmond Mason hit 5-of-5 threes and had us on our heels. That game was the worst game I had ever been involved in," added Collison, who scored 14 points on 7-of-11 shooting with seven rebounds in 25 minutes.
Teammate Drew Gooden, who scored 13 points early in helping KU to a 22-4 lead, finished with 17 points on 6-of-14 shooting.
"To lose one game in high school, then come in and get kicked like that, I didn't know what to do," Collison said. "Obviously this feels a lot better."
"It's vice versa," added senior Jeff Boschee, who shrugged off a nasty case of the flu to hound OSU guard Maurice Baker into a 2-for-12 shooting night. For good measure, Boschee hit two threes and scored seven points.
"They came in and blew us out last time. We came in and somebody said we handed coach Sutton his worst loss. We made shots and played good defense," Boschee added.
Tuesday's rout marked Williams' biggest win in Stillwater, surpassing a 15-point victory in 1996.
"We were really good," Williams said. "We were better defensively than in the past several games and were making shots as well."
Oklahoma State hit nine of 28 shots in falling behind 53-31 at halftime. For the game, OSU hit 35.6 percent of its shots, including just two of 12 threes (16.7 percent).
KU hit 53.6 percent of its shots and five of 11 threes.
"Today the whole thing was our work on defense the first half," Williams gushed.
Williams cited Boschee's work on Baker (six points, 2-of-12 shooting); Aaron Miles' defense on Victor Williams (12 points, 4-of-11 shooting); and Hinrich's work on Melvin Sanders (two points, 1-of-5 shooting).
"The second half was a struggle. They are so good defensively. I try to get our team to guard people like Eddie's teams do. We were silly with the ball a couple of times," Williams added.
Williams, who watched and clapped most of the first half, jumped off the bench and ripped off his sports coat late in the game, just as he did in last year's home game against Texas. He didn't throw it in the crowd this time, however, and just placed it at the end of the bench.
"Three straight turnovers," he said. "You can't make some of the mistakes we were making."
He was very satisfied with the victory, however. It was total domination, with the Jayhawks never leading by less than 18 the second half.
"Drew got off to a great start and Kirk too," Williams said of Gooden, who had 15 points the first half, and Hinrich who hit all five shots the first half and scored 13 first-half points, finishing with 15 points and two assists versus four turnovers.
"Aaron Miles did some nice things as well. We came in and did not make a big deal of what happened the last time. We told the kids we have had teams be successful here before. We have won here before and we were tonight."
The Jayhawks are 6-5 in Stillwater under Williams.
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