Technically speaking: Kansas University’s Darrell Arthur and Oklahoma State’s Ibrahima Thomas were called for technical fouls in the first half.

They were reacting to Sasha Kaun’s battling Terrel Harris for a rebound and several players yapping after Kaun finally came away with the ball.

“Somebody pushed. He supposedly pushed back in retaliation,” coach Bill Self said of Arthur. “If he doesn’t make that play, he’s not in foul trouble.”

Arthur, who had six points and two boards in 17 foul-plagued minutes, said: “There was a lot of pushing and shoving. I was trying to keep my teammates safe.”

Of Arthur’s play, Self said: “One of these days we’ll get 27, 30 minutes from him. His fifth foul (on Byron Eaton with 6:04 left) … we had Eaton on the sideline with nowhere to go. We put our hands on him.”

¢ Off day: Brandon Rush scored 12 points off 5-of-16 shooting. All his points came in the second half.

“He had a terrible day. We just didn’t play as a group, in large part due to Oklahoma State,” Self said. “They did a good job on him. We can go down the line as far as individuals. Even the guys that put up decent numbers made mental mistakes.”

Rush said: “It was non-stop missing for me the whole game.”

¢ Collins hobbled: Sherron Collins, who has a bruised right knee, had no points and two fouls in 11 minutes.

“He practiced 15 minutes yesterday. It’s the first time since the Colorado game (last Saturday),” Self said. “Obviously he is a shadow of what he can be. Hopefully he’ll get back to where he can help us soon. We would have played him more if he was capable.”

¢ Losing ground: KU is now a game behind Texas in the league standings.

“I’m not worried about it. Coach obviously is,” Russell Robinson said after scoring nine points with three assists and two turnovers in 38 minutes. “You know as well as I do the most important thing is the postseason. We’ve been up and down. We want to win it (league). We want to win every game. Hopefully we’ll be able to turn it around at Iowa State (Wednesday).”

¢ Appleton to decide Monday: Tyrone Appleton, a 6-foot-3 sophomore from Midland (Texas) College, will hold a 5 p.m. news conference Monday to announce his college choice. Appleton, who has visited KU twice in the past several weeks, has a final list of KU, Kentucky, Texas and Iowa State.

¢ Scary scene: Fans stormed the court after the game. Several KU players, including Rush and Mario Chalmers, were trapped in the mass of bodies. Security tried to pull the Jayhawks away. Nobody was injured.

¢ Stats, facts: KU’s 21 turnovers were one off a season high. KU had 22 at USC. … KU did outrebound OSU, 34-21. … KU had just seven assists to OSU’s 10. KU had six assists at USC.

¢ Beleaguered coach: John Rohde addressed OSU coach Sean Sutton’s job security, or lack of it, in a Saturday column in the Daily Oklahoman.

Sutton’s brother, Scott, head coach at Oral Roberts told Rohde: “Sean’s been around coaching all his life. He understands that’s all part of the territory. There’s nobody who’ll fight more than Sean. He’s the biggest competitor I’ve ever been around. And I’ve been around some great, great competitors.”

Self, who coached Sutton during Sutton’s days as a point guard at OSU. added: “I don’t know what coaches at other programs are going through. I’ve got my hands full with my own program. I’m an expert with only one team, and that’s ours. And to be honest, some people aren’t convinced I’m an expert with our team.”

¢ Sutton on KU: “I think they can (win the national championship) because they’ve got so many different weapons, you can’t key on one or two guys. They’re definitely explosive enough on offense to get by anybody.”