Kansas University Coach Bill Self buries his head in the waning moments of KU's loss to DePaul last season in Chicago.

Up by 14 points with 14 minutes left, Kansas University’s basketball team looked like a sure winner against DePaul last Dec. 2 in suburban Chicago.

“We had the game under control,” KU sophomore Darrell Arthur recalled. “But then we let it slip away.”

The No. 5-ranked Jayhawks, who led, 37-23, six minutes into the second half, staggered out of All-State Arena 64-57 losers to the unranked (3-4) Blue Demons.

“Hopefully if we get ahead we’ll squash them with a sledgehammer this time,” Arthur said of today’s 1 p.m. rematch between No. 3-ranked KU (8-0) and unrated DePaul (2-2).

Squash ’em with a sledgehammer?

“That’s what my AAU coach used to say when he wanted to beat a team bad. When you get them down, keep them down,” Arthur said, admitting redemption will be on his mind today.

“It’s going to be intense. They got us last year, so we’ll try to come at them,” Arthur said of the Demons, who are without first-round NBA Draft pick Wilson Chandler and second-rounder Sammy Mejia, who combined for 35 of DePaul’s 64 points against KU a year ago.

“We will have the home crowd on our side. Hopefully we can get a win.”

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DePaul does return 6-4 senior guard Draelon Burns, who averages 18.8 points a game after scoring nine versus the Jayhawks last season. The Milwaukee native has scored 32 points in each of the last two games – an 85-70 win over Texas A&M/Corpus Christi and 96-93 loss to North Carolina A&T. He had seven points in a loss to 74-62 loss at Creighton and four in a 54-53 win over Northwestern.

“I played against him a lot in the AAU circuit. I’m familiar with his game. He’s a good player,” said KU senior Russell Robinson, who will likely guard Burns. “He’s on a little bit of a streak. Hopefully we can stop that.”

Robinson held USC’s O.J. Mayo to 19 points off 6-of-21 shooting in a 59-55 victory over the Trojans last Sunday in Los Angeles.

“It doesn’t get old. You kind of need somebody to do it, why not me?” Robinson said of being asked to be the Jayhawks’ defensive stopper. “I’ve got the tools to do it. Why not get out there and defend?”

Robinson not only has incentive to help No. 3-rated KU remain undefeated today, but to have the back of a buddy – injured Sherron Collins – who hails from DePaul’s backyard in Chicago.

“You want it for Sherron’s sake,” Robinson said of the ‘W.’ “You want some bragging rights when you call home. You don’t want people to say, ‘Ah, you just lost to DePaul.”’

Collins, who will likely miss his seventh consecutive game as he recovers from right foot surgery, said he will be cheering loudly from the bench.

“It won’t be a revenge thing, but it is a little more important because we know they got us last year,” Collins said.

The Jayhawks – who entered last year’s DePaul game following an overtime victory over Florida and 51-point rout of Dartmouth – rattled off 10 straight victories after the bummer in Chicago.

“It was a lesson learned,” Robinson said. “We went on to play very well after that. It was tough, one of the things we had to learn from.”

A year older and presumably wiser, the Jayhawks led Southern Cal by eight points with three minutes left last Sunday. The lead dipped to two, yet KU survived and won by four.

“We won. It wasn’t a good ‘close,’ though,” KU coach Bill Self said.

What’s it take to ‘close’ a game?

“Poise, toughness, smarts. I think we possess those things, but sometimes we don’t play that way,” Self said.

No doubt KU lost its poise last Dec. 2 at DePaul. The Demons, who missed 14 straight shots the first half, went on a 14-0 run to turn a 53-45 deficit into a 59-53 lead.

“We played bad down the stretch. They played good down the stretch,” Self said. “I think we finished games much better after that. I don’t know if it was because of that game or just because we got better at it. Hopefully we’ll be a better ‘closer’ than we were last season for sure.”