Pittsburg State didn’t seem nervous against No. 6 Kansas University until the last five minutes of Tuesday night’s game.

Sold-out Allen Fieldhouse didn’t intimidate the Gorillas like it did two years ago, when KU thrashed PSU, 105-62.

And 16,300 sets of eyes didn’t cause so much as a tremble.

It wasn’t until fans started racing for the exits that Pitt State truly faltered; the end result was a 103-73 Jayhawk victory.

A timeout with 4:46 remaining triggered the exodus, and the Gorillas’ woes began. With about 4,000 fewer fans in the stands — closer to PSU’s traditional 2,500-fan crowd size, but still much greater than it’s used to — the Gorillas couldn’t combat the Jayhawks.

They’d weathered a 16-0 run midway through the first half and traded buckets for most of the second, but those final minutes were killer. Four turnovers, 2-for-7 shooting, 2-for-7 on free throws and surrendering a 12-0 run to close the game spelled defeat.

Pitt State coach Gene Iba liked the fight and lack of fear he saw from his squad. The starry-eyed awe the Gorillas showed during their 43-point loss two years ago was absent this time.

Instead, experience showed from players like senior Jamey Richardson, who scored PSU’s first five points and grabbed 11 rebounds, Eddie Jackson (15 points), and junior Tommy Vosseler (2-for-2 on three-pointers).

“You can come into a venue like this, not get a good start and it can be over in the first three or four minutes if things don’t work right,” Iba said.

Kansas University's Wayne Simien, right, pressures Pittsburg State's Jamey Richardson during the Jayhawks' 103-73 victory over the Gorillas. KU completed its exhibition season with a win Tuesday at Allen Fieldhouse.

Things went right for the first nine minutes. The Gorillas led twice early and trailed just 16-14 after nine minutes.

“Our mind-set coming in was that we wanted to win,” said Vosseler, a Leavenworth native who was a teammate of KU junior Wayne Simien’s in junior high. “We kept it close for a while, and I thought, except for a couple of runs, we stayed with them for a while.”

The first run — a 16-0 burst paired with a 7:19 scoring drought by PSU — gave the Jayhawks control. Then the teams traded buckets until the final five minutes.

The Gorillas stayed focused because three of their in-state athletes played in the first meeting and were familiar with the fieldhouse.

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Additionally, its top five scorers all hail from Missouri, Georgia and Texas, and didn’t grow up immersed in Jayhawk lore. They focused on running their offense rather than worrying about the menacing crowd and fieldhouse mystique.

As proud as Iba was of his players, he also tipped his hat to first-year Kansas coach Bill Self. Both Iba and Self share ties through Tulsa University and Oklahoma State, so Iba has taken keen interest in Self’s coaching career.

He liked what he saw Tuesday.

“You give coach Self a little bit of time, and this place is going to be hard for anybody to win in here,” Iba said. “I’ve known coach Self for a long, long time, and he’s going to make this thing as good as you want it.”