Richard Roby is a 6-foot-6 guard who every time he steps on a basketball court brings a bag of tricks that gives defenders fits. He hits nearly 40 percent of his three-point shots. He knows how to post up smaller defenders, hit baseline jumpers and floaters, and he can slash to the hoop as well as score on put-backs.

The hard-to-guard Roby, a sophomore and the star of Colorado’s basketball team, likely will be honored as a first-team Big 12 Conference selection.

Stephen Vinson paid his way into Kansas University classrooms and onto a seat on the Jayhawks’ bench for the first three years until he was rewarded for his practice effort with a scholarship for his senior year. At 6-foot-2, he gives up four inches to Roby.

On paper, it was a mismatch. Fortunately, the game isn’t played on paper. Wednesday night, in Vinson’s final game in the Fieldhouse, the first half of the game was played in a sweat box. By night’s end, Kansas had a share of first place in the Big 12 with a 75-54 victory.

How it started had a lot to do with how it ended.

Self didn’t hesitate to assign Vinson, making the first and final start of his college career, to guard Roby.

A player like Roby gets hot right off the bat and it can be difficult slowing him down. Vinson made sure that didn’t happen. Vinson stayed in front of him, and on those rare instances he allowed Roby to catch the ball, Russell Robinson or one of the big men was right there to double him to make sure he didn’t have anywhere to go.

Vinson started with fellow seniors Christian Moody and Jeff Hawkins, along with freshman Brandon Rush and sophomore Sasha Kaun, and by the time that starting five was broken up, the scoreboard read Kansas 10, Colorado 2, Roby 0. Twice in the early going, the shot clock expired on Colorado.

The crowd responded with a huge ovation when the seniors took their first breather.

Later, with just over a minute left in the game, Self put all three seniors in and then quickly took them out so that they could get the standing ovations they deserved.

“With how my body’s felt some days, I didn’t know I’d make it to this point,” Vinson said. “It’s tough. It’s a grind. It’s tough to practice 200 times and get screened by guys a lot bigger than you are. To walk of the court to a standing ovation, there’s just not a better feeling in life.”

Vinson, with his family in the stands and his high school coach, Chris Davis, sitting behind the bench, hit his third of four three-point attempts, played terrific defense and contributed three assists in 16 minutes.

In 23 minutes, Moody had an active, efficient night defensively and totaled four rebounds and two points. Hawkins contributed six points, hitting half of his four three-point attempts, in 13 minutes.

It would be tacky to say anything negative about players on Senior Night, so it would be called for to slip into the mode of the kind friend who talks all about her friend’s wonderful personality and forgets to mention her mustache when talking her up for a blind date. Not necessary here. All three seniors played big parts in putting Colorado in retreat mode.

That’s why Self told his seniors: “You guys impacted the game as favorably as anybody on our team tonight.”