NCAA Men's Basketball Recap: Oklahoma State vs Kansas

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- Elijah Johnson got a chance Monday night to show he can play point guard for Kansas (No. 2 ESPN/USA Today, No. 3 AP) because two teammates slipped up.

First, Tyshawn Taylor was suspended earlier in the day for violating team rules, leaving the position wide open. Then, heralded freshman Josh Selby, coach Bill Self's first choice to run the point, left the little orthotic device he wears in his left shoe at home.

So Self gave Johnson the nod, and the little-used sophomore responded with a head-turning 15 points, three assists and solid defense in a 92-65 romp over Oklahoma State.

Fast Facts

• Kansas went on an 18-2 run during the first half and got 27 points from Marcus Morris, the fourth 25-point game of his career (all this season).

• The Jayhawks have won 34 of their last 35 home games, with the only loss coming earlier this season to Texas.

• Oklahoma State hasn't won in Lawrence since February 1989.

• Kansas has won 37 straight home games vs. unranked opponents, with its last loss coming in 2006.

-- ESPN Stats & Information

"It was a good decision because I thought Elijah played great," Self said. "Hopefully, this will be a confidence boost for him. I'm not going to make any brash statements on who is going to be our starter for the rest of the year. But the ball's definitely in his court."

Marcus Morris had 27 points for the Jayhawks (26-2, 11-2 Big 12), who hit eight of their first 10 shots and pulled away from the outmanned Cowboys with an 18-2 spree that produced a 52-28 halftime bulge.

Marshall Moses, who spent Saturday night in the hospital, had 27 points for Oklahoma State (16-11, 4-9), 13 above his season average. He scored 16 in the first half, but the Cowboys never got closer than 19 after halftime.

Taylor, a 6-foot-3 junior who has struggled at times to replace Sherron Collins at the point, was suspended indefinitely Monday for violating unspecified team rules. Self declined to say what rule was broken. But he hinted that someone else might have Taylor's job when he gets back.

"I am disappointed. I like him and all that," Self said. "But it's time for somebody else to get an opportunity."

Johnson was 4 for 4 from behind the 3-point arc. He also had three assists while alternating with other guards bringing the ball up the floor as the Jayhawks shot 56 percent in a sizzling first half and 54 percent for the game.

"I think I did well," Johnson said. "Some stuff I can still improve on. I threw the ball away two times."

Perhaps just as impressive was his defense. He held Keiton Page to eight points on 2-for-11 shooting.

"We haven't had good point guard defensive play consistently like I think we could," Self said. "And this was by far, in recent memory, the best job that anybody's done as far as being sound on a guy. I thought he played really smart."

Markieff Morris, who had a career-high 26 points in the previous game against Colorado, had 15 points and seven rebounds for the Jayhawks, whose loss to Kansas State last Monday dropped them from No. 1 to No. 3 in this week's Associated Press poll.

During the decisive stretch in the early going, the Cowboys went more than 6 minutes without a field goal. Moses' fadeaway jumper at the 11:49 mark made it 24-19, then Johnson hit a jumper and the Jayhawks were off and running to their 15th straight victory over Oklahoma State in Allen Fieldhouse.

Marcus Morris hit his second straight 3-pointer, then Page, hounded by Johnson, turned the ball over and Marcus Morris made a basket.

Thomas Robinson, who got a big hand when he came into the game after missing three outings with a knee injury, got a bucket and then Selby fed Marcus Morris, who blew right past a flat-footed Cowboys defender and slammed the ball home for a 35-19 lead.

Moses, a 6-7 senior, was 8 for 11 from the floor and made 10 of 13 free throws. He played only a few minutes Saturday against Texas A&M before heading for the hospital.

"That word makes it sound worse than it was," Moses said. "I was just really dehydrated. The doctor told me I had some kind of virus, just a cold or something which makes it hard for me to breathe. I knew I was sick going into the A&M game, but I didn't know I was dehydrated."

He said he still has a cough and a headache but during the game felt "way better than I felt two days ago."

Kansas outrebounded the Cowboys 38-25 and made 20 of 27 foul shots.

In the second half, Moses' two free throws sliced the lead to 74-55 before Johnson answered with a 3-pointer and ignited another Jayhawks push that quickly built the lead to 83-58 on another 3 by Johnson.

Reger Dowell had 10 points for Oklahoma State.

"They're the best offensive team I've seen, no question," Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford said. "I don't think there's any question you can talk about them as one of the best teams, easily. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out."

Copyright by STATS LLC and The Associated Press

NCAA Men's Basketball Recap: Colorado Buffaloes vs (1) Kansas JayHawks

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- Markieff Morris and No. 1 Kansas found the perfect cure for a bad Kansas State hangover: a big dose of Colorado.

Held to three points and zero rebounds in Monday night's 84-68 loss to the unranked Wildcats, Morris bounced back Saturday with 26 points and 15 rebounds in an 89-63 victory over a Colorado program the Jayhawks have dominated for decades.

Fast Facts

• Kansas was able to respond from its loss at Kansas State on Monday by taking a 26-point win over Colorado.

• The Jayhawks have won 17 straight overall and 28 straight at Allen Fieldhouse against Colorado.

• All five starters scored in double figures for Kansas, including a career-high 26 points from Markieff Morris, who also tied a career-high with 15 rebounds.

-- ESPN Stats & Information

It was a career-high in points for the elder (by seven minutes) of the Morris twins and tied his career high in rebounds. In 29 minutes, the 6-10 junior also had two steals, two assists and two blocks as the Jayhawks (25-2, 10-2 Big 12) beat Colorado in Allen Fieldhouse for the the 28th straight time.

Morris' eight offensive rebounds were the most by a Kansas player in a conference game in seven years.

"I think us as a team had something to prove," he said. "It was embarrassing losing to K-State. We don't want to do that again. We've just got to get better and I guess it starts with me."

Brady Morningstar hit his first four 3-pointers to help the Jayhawks get off to a flying start in the teams' last regular-season meeting before Colorado (16-11, 5-7) heads off for the Pac-10.

Kansas coach Bill Self said his team, particularly Markieff Morris, was grim and intense in practice all week.

"We were a mad team. And I thought we were an embarrassed team," Self said. "There's nothing embarrassing in college basketball about losing a game. What's embarrassing is the way we lost it and how we didn't rally around one another. I think our guys saw some things that happened in that particular game that they were totally embarrassed about."

Playing Kansas twice a year may be what the Buffaloes will miss least about the Big 12. They are 39-120 all-time against the Jayhawks, including a 5-51 record at Allen Fieldhouse. Altogether, they've lost 44 of their past 45 to Kansas.

The last time Colorado won in Lawrence, their coach, Tad Boyle, was a sophomore on Larry Brown's Jayhawks team in 1983.

"This is a special place for basketball," Boyle said. "We certainly don't relish going through days like this and getting your teeth smashed in everywhere you look. But you want the opportunity to play against the best and coach against the best, and that's what you get when you come to Allen Fieldhouse. We won't have that in the future, and that's too bad. But we've got some other pretty special venues to go to. The Pac-12 will be a new challenge for us."

Alec Burks had 15 points for the Buffaloes, Cory Higgins had 14 and Marcus Relphorde 12.

With Morris leading the way, the Jayhawks outrebounded the shorter Buffaloes 41-29.

Colorado, which has lost seven of eight after a seven-game winning streak, including a two-game sweep of Kansas State, mounted one effort to get back in the game early in the second half, when Higgins had four points in an 11-2 run that sliced the lead to 57-44.

Josh Selby's basket finally halted the spree, then Higgins' 10-foot jumper cut the lead to 60-48, before Markieff Morris rebounded a miss by his twin Marcusand completed a three-point play.

Marcus hit two more baskets for Kansas, and Tyrel Reed and Tyshawn Taylorconnected on back-to-back 3s, building the margin to 76-57.

"We closed out and rebounded and played defense as hard as we could," Burks said. "But they kept making shots."

Marcus Morris and Morningstar each had 16 points. Reed had 13 points and Taylor 10. The Jayhawks, who came in leading the nation with a 52.1 shooting percentage, hit 52.4 from the floor and were 11 for 22 from 3-point range.

The Buffaloes dropped to 0-15 all-time against top-ranked teams, including 0-7 when playing a No. 1 Kansas team.

"When you come to a place like this, you see that Saturday basketball games in Lawrence feel like a football game anywhere else you go, and that's pretty special," Boyle said.

Copyright by STATS LLC and The Associated Press

20 THINGS MEN DONT KNOW ABOUT WOMEN

A friend of mine, a guy who used to occasionally step out on his woman and hook up with other girls, had the strangest theory about the female species.

They will never tell....

“Women don’t cheat,” he told me, when I asked if he was ever worried she was doing the same thing to him. “It’s just not in their nature.” I just laughed and took a sip of my beer. Of course, I was not at all surprised when he found out she’d been two-timing him for most of their relationship after their inevitable breakup, but he was completely shocked.

There are of course many things that men don’t know about women, mainly because we don’t want them to know, and so we try and keep them hidden really well. But during my two and a half years of interviewing countless ladies for Maxim‘s sex section, I discovered that there are many, many more things that we ladies keep hidden from men ...

1.As soon as we are alone in the house—husband leaves for the office, kids go to school, roommate goes out of town—and we have quality free time knowing no one is going to walk in on us, we masturbate. Sometimes we even just do it if you’re still in the house if that quality free time is never going to come. Usually, it’s while we’re in the bathroom.



2.A good majority of us prefer to pee outside. And in the shower. And sometimes we really just want to do it in the hot tub, but we try to not do that one out of respect for everyone else in there.


3.We pluck stray hairs from our toes, our chin, our lips, moles on the backs of our legs and our nipples. And we really, really enjoy plucking a stubborn ingrown hair. Getting that sucker out is, for some gross reason, such sweet satisfaction.


4.When we’re in love, we smell your clothes or the pillow you were sleeping on when you’re not around. If you were to catch us doing this, we’d be mortified.


5.We’ve all wished that we could be more open and casual about sex from time to time … maybe go to a swingers party, have a threesome or be a dirty stripper for a night, but with no emotional consequences.


6.Deep down we really hope that your guy friends secretly want to sleep with us, and very often we will dress for them and subtly flirt just so they will. We don’t want to bone them; we just want them to want us.


7.We are not insulted in the slightest by those catcalls from construction workers, as long as they aren’t rude or nasty. It’s kind of flattering. We also like it when you get a little jealous, to a degree. Not in an irrational or psycho way, just a bit to show you’re protective and you care.


8.We regularly check in on what our exes are up to via Facebook, emails or texts. As long as we have the technology, they will never be fully out of our lives or minds. This doesn’t mean we still love them; we’re just curious.


9.When we have girls’ nights, we do bad things that you wouldn’t approve of like spill all of your embarrassing secrets, sneak cigarettes or other substances, and drink way more than we let on. Grinding with strangers at a club can also sometimes occur.


10.When you’re not around, we fart. The longer, the louder and the stinkier, the more enjoyable.


11.If you’re really hot or the sex is good, you can be a total idiot and we’ll still date you for a while. But we’ll never marry you. Brains and kindness will always trump sexiness when it comes to marriage material.


12.A lot of times we really like to have sex on the first date to determine whether the chemistry is there and we should have another date. Or sometimes we’re just plain horny and want to get laid. We hate being judged for it.


13.We hate waxing our privates. Hate it, hate it, hate it. But, we like that when it’s cleaned up you go down on us more readily. In a perfect world, you would go down on us with regularity on naturally poofy pubes.


14.When a guy says he doesn’t want kids, it’s really a dealbreaker for almost every woman who is still of child-bearing years.


15.The majority of us don’t really care about how much money you have or make as long as you are kind and emotionally generous and work hard. Laziness and lack of motivation is inherently unsexy.


16.A lot of us are fakers … when it comes to our love of sports and being outdoorsy.


17.We love flaws on guys. A little belly, gray hairs, even a receding hairline. It reminds us that we all have body issues and that we shouldn’t be so insecure or hard on ourselves. Being human is cool. But being whiny about your paunch or constantly fussing over your gray temples is as annoying as us always asking, “Does this make me look fat?”


18.During sex, we’re usually thinking about something other than you. A gross and pervy situation, another man, being dominated … who knows, but we always, always fantasize. It doesn’t mean we’re not sexually attracted to you, we just need the weird mental images to get us off.


19.We don’t consider drunk kissing cheating, as long as we’re the ones doing the drunk kissing. We consider sex with another man cheating.


20.We cherish our independence and “me” time more than you’ll ever know. We say we miss you, but are often secretly glad you’re going so we can just totally relax and be ourselves. But we still love it when you come back.

I hope this was somewhat of an educational course for you men. Then, again, there is always more than I listed today. Be careful of all relationships in your life, because one thing that I know for sure: WOMEN ARE SOME CRAZY ASS CREATURES!!! Yep, I said creatures. Thank God for being bisexual and PRO-CHOICE.

Happy Endings Everyone!
Amile