Columbia, S.C. ? If the Columbia Broadcasting System has done it once, the national network has done it a hundred times.

Once again Sunday afternoon, CBS left Kansas University men’s basketball fans frustrated because it didn’t telecast the KU-South Carolina game in its entirety.

KU fans watching around the country missed the first 31â2 minutes because of the post-game blah-blah – not to mention the incessant commercials and in-house promotions – after the Jets-Patriots NFL playoff game.

I know this because I was sitting behind CBS announcers Kevin Harlan and Bill Raftery in the Colonial Center, eyes fixed on their monitor waiting for the KU-SC game to appear.

Once CBS finally joined the game in progress, it occurred to me that the many KU fans who were depending on this telecast for their Kansas basketball fix must have been wondering if center Sasha Kaun was the latest Jayhawk to be victimized by the flu or a sprained ankle or whatever.

Nope, Kaun started. The problem was the 6-foot-11 center already had been whistled twice by the officials before television joined the fray. Those two fouls earned the native Russian a bench berth for the remainder of the half.

Take a look a Kaun’s line in the box score and you won’t be impressed. Six points and six rebounds don’t draw much attention, and yet the lanky sophomore posted his double half-dozen in just 14 minutes of second-half duty.

Mario Chalmers was terrific with 19 points and five steals. Darrell Arthur, Kaun’s first-half replacement, snapped out of his freshman funk with 17 points. And Brandon Rush contributed a dozen points and four assists.

KU coach Bill Self praised all three, of course, but he didn’t stop there. Self placed a laurel wreath on Kaun’s head, too.

“Sasha was the key in the second half,” the KU coach said. “I really feel he played as big a role in the second half as anybody.”

Another second-half stalwart was KU radio analyst Chris Piper, who didn’t miss a beat when a dangling rubber spider suddenly appeared in front of his face.

What the : ? Ah, it was just Cocky, the Gamecocks’ playful mascot having a little fun by attaching the ersatz arachnid to a line at the end of a fishing pole and hanging it momentarily over Piper’s noggin.

Cocky could not, however, remove the blanket of fatigue that hung over the Gamecocks like an oppressive cloud in the second half.

When push comes to shove, South Carolina coach Dave Odom doesn’t have a bench. All five of the Gamecocks’ starters logged 31 or more minutes. Brandon Wallace, a lithe and talented 6-9 senior, went the route.

Odom mentioned that KU’s depth had been a factor, but he must not have noticed that four of the Kansas starters logged 30-minutes plus. Basically, Self went with a rotation of seven players. Three other Jayhawks saw duty, but none for more than six minutes.

In retrospect, perhaps the most important aspect of the Jayhawks’ 70-54 victory was wiping away the notion nurtured by the late December loss at DePaul that this team, as talented as it is, lacked a killer instinct.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon in the state capital of South Carolina, the Jayhawks stomped on the Gamecocks down the stretch, erased the bad memories of that Windy City swoon and, in essence, said: Look out Big 12, here we come.