The Allen Fieldhouse seats all were filled, as usual, but you have to wonder how many of the minds drifted away from Wednesday night and all the way to Norman, Okla., all the way to Big Monday, to the biggest Big 12 game of the season.

“That was a really dead atmosphere tonight,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “The crowd was dead.”

Not a shocker considering Wednesday’s game against Iowa State came four days after the Jayhawks’ emotional victory against in-state rival Kansas State and five days before the trip to Oklahoma, a word Self spoke only to illustrate how big Saturday’s game in Allen Fieldhouse is against Nebraska.

“They are a team that is always going to play hard, and it is going to be how we handle their post traps,” Self said of the energetic Cornhuskers. “Tonight we didn’t handle it well at all, and Cole (Aldrich) had five turnovers. We are going to practice more on it and get better at it. They are small and scrappy, and (Nebraska coach) Doc (Sadler) is doing a great job, like usual. They gave us everything we wanted in Lincoln, and we were fortunate to win. Monday’s game against Oklahoma isn’t a big game unless we take care of business on Saturday.”

Nebraska is more equipped to play spoilers to the enormity of Big Monday than the Cyclones, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t get interesting during KU’s 72-55 victory Wednesday. Doesn’t it nearly always go from blowout to mid-game blowup to pull away at the end for Kansas on its homecourt? This time, turnovers were to blame, and players not named Sherron Collins combined for 18 of them.

While it was Aldrich who got the crowd going late by throwing down a particularly vicious one-hand slam and hitting long jumpers and hook shots, Collins was as impressive reviewing the game as he was playing it after scoring 22 points, hitting four of six three-pointers and dishing six assists without committing a turnover.

Early in the season, when things grew iffy, the players had a tendency to wait around for Collins to pull them out of it. In this one, they looked more to Aldrich.

“That takes a lot of pressure off of me,” Collins said. “It helps to have an inside presence, and we have one of the best inside presences in the country. He’s good. We’ve got to feed him. Early in the season, we weren’t feeding him enough. When we feed him that takes pressure off all of us.”

As for his own scoring contributions, Collins disagreed with the assessment that he had been in a shooting slump, even though in the previous six games he had made just 25 percent of his three-point shots.

“Sometimes when your shot’s not falling, you have to figure out other ways to attack,” Collins said. “It was just one of those days I was feeling it. I was feeling it early in the game.”

Collins had 11 turnovers during rivalry-road-trip week and made just two of nine three-pointers.

Averaging 35.5 minutes in conference games, Collins might have been in a February funk that saddles many college basketball players, but he looked to be back in top form against the Cyclones. From the moment he slammed the basketball hard on the floor with two hands after coming out of the locker room door, to the delight of a crowd that watched it on the scoreboard, Collins again had that bouncy look about him.