LINCOLN, NEB. ? The litany began with less than two minutes remaining.

“We want Joe. We want Joe. We want Joe,” Nebraska basketball fans chanted in the Devaney Center.

The Cornhuskers, trailing Kansas by 10 points at the time, desperately needed a basket, and who better to provide it than Joe McCray, NU’s leading scorer?

NU coach Barry Collier did insert McCray about 30 seconds later, but it was too late. Kansas pulled away and won, 78-65, as McCray spent 16 second-half minutes on the bench.

Why did McCray, who was averaging 14.7 points a game, sit for so long?

“They were defending Joe,” Collier said in his postgame media session. “When he was in there, it was tough sledding.”

McCray had led the Huskers with 19 points a couple of weeks ago in Allen Fieldhouse, but the 6-foot-5 freshman settled for seven points Saturday — all in the first half.

“They played aggressively on him,” Collier continued. “He got into a bit of a rhythm when we played down there, and he really didn’t get into a rhythm tonight.”

In the Jayhawks’ 59-57 victory over the Huskers on Jan. 19 in Lawrence, McCray played 33 minutes and did most of his damage from the free-throw line. He missed nine of 13 field-goal attempts, but was 8-of-10 from the foul stripe.

McCray was not made available for comment after Saturday’s game.

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With McCray not a factor, Jason Dourisseau stepped up. The 6-6 junior hadn’t played against the Jayhawks in Lawrence because of an injury, but he came off the bench Saturday to score 24 points in just 26 minutes.

“Some of our guys were struggling,” Collier said. “Some are more fitted to be drivers, and we went with that style. Jason is one of those guys, and he did a good job.”

Dourisseau took a dozen shots from both the field and the free-throw line and, curiously, had more field goals (eight) than free throws (seven).

“Every time I touched the ball, I was in a position to score, and I tried to make something happen,” the Omaha, Neb., native said.

Nebraska shot 36.2 percent (21-of-58), but if you throw out Dourisseau’s 8-for-12, the other Huskers shot a chilly 30 percent.

“It just wasn’t flowing today like it has been,” said 6-9 senior John Turek, who had 12 points and seven boards, “and that really hurt us. We just got out of rhythm in the second half and never found it again.”

Point guard Jake Muhleisen had a strange stat line. The 6-4 senior was the Huskers’ leading rebounder with eight. Meanwhile, Nebraska was credited with only eight assists — three by Muhleisen, who stressed he saw a different Kansas team in Lincoln than he saw in Lawrence.

“They attacked a lot more in this game,” Muhleisen said of the Jayhawks. “We also didn’t play defense as well as last time, and they took advantage of that.”

Nebraska dropped to 3-5 in Big 12 Conference games and 10-9 overall.