A good run, but ...

Trailing at the half, No. 3 Jayhawks prevail in a bruising battle of big men

No. 3 Kansas rallies in second half to beat No. 16 Mountaineers.

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Kansas coach Bill Self knew he would need his toughest bunch on the floor to muscle up against West Virginia. All three of them showed up.

Udoka Azubuike had 17 points and 11 rebounds while outplaying Mountaineers big man Oscar Tshiebwe in the second half, Devon Dotson and Marcus Garrett made crucial plays down the stretch, and the third-ranked Jayhawks rallied from a slow start to beat

No. 16 West Virginia, 60-53, in the Big 12 opener for both teams Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.

Dotson added 16 points and Garrett finished with 12 points and six assists for the Jayhawks (11-2), who overcame a sluggish first half. Kansas trailed by as many as 10 before leaning on defense and dunks to beat the Mountaineers (11-2) for the seventh time in their past eight meetings.

“I’d be honest, I didn’t think we played very tough at all the first half. I didn’t think Doke was that tough. Oscar just dominated,” Self said. “The key the second half was Dot’s conditioning — I think he played 40 minutes and never came out against pressure like that. And you know, Doke was the best player in the game the second half.”

In the first half, that was Tshiebwe who had the bulk of his 17 points and 17 rebounds. Fellow freshman Miles McBride added 13 points, most of that coming as the Mountaineers tried to close in the final minutes of their eighth consecutive loss in Allen Fieldhouse.

Kansas won despite shooting 3 of 17 from beyond the arc — mostly because West Virginia wasn’t any better. The Big 12’s best defensive team couldn’t solve the Jayhawks’ own defense in the second half, when the Mountaineers shot 28 percent from the field and missed all of their 3-point attempts.

It was a much different story from the first half, when Kansas was fortunate to get within 30-24 into the locker room.

It wasn’t so much that West Virginia had dominated, either. It was that Tshiebwe had done it.

The bruising McDonald’s All-American was 6 of 8 from the field, scored 15 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, all while flexing and strutting to the jeering of a sold-out Fieldhouse. On the defensive end, the 260-pound Tshiebwe proved to be one of the few players in the Big 12 who could match the Jayhawks’ own big man with brute strength.

“Beautiful thing about Oscar is Oscar is Oscar. He doesn’t try to be anything else,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. “He’s really good at what he does. You don’t have to worry about him going out and dribbling it between his legs and losing it, or jacking up 3s. Oscar knows who he is. He is happy with who he is. He’s pretty damn good at who he is.”

He just wasn’t quite as good in the second half.