LAWRENCE — Andrew Wiggins scored 21 points, Joel Embiid briefly flirted with a triple-double and No. 8 Kansas trounced No. 19 Texas 85-54 Saturday night to seize control of the Big 12.
Embiid finished with 13 points, seven rebounds and six blocks for the Jayhawks (21-6, 12-2), who lead the league race by three games with four to play. Kansas can wrap up at least a share of its 10th straight title when Oklahoma visits Allen Fieldhouse on Monday night.
Kansas also exacted a little revenge for a lopsided loss to the Longhorns (20-7, 9-5) in Austin, using a 32-5 run over a long stretch of the first half to put the game away early.
It was the Jayhawks’ fifth win in the last six meetings and easily the most impressive.
Jonathan Holmes scored 17 points and Cameron Ridley had 11 for Texas, but they were about the only guys wearing burnt orange who seemed to solve the Jayhawks’ gritty man-to-man defense.
Freshman guard Isaiah Taylor was held to just five points on 1-for-14 shooting, while Javan Felix was 2 of 9 from the field and finished with six points.
The game actually played out in similar fashion to the first meeting, an 81-69 win for the Longhorns, only this time it was Kansas that played flawlessly and Texas that looked like a mess.
After the Longhorns jumped out to an 8-3 lead, they managed just one field goal over an 11-minute stretch, baffled by the Jayhawks’ impressive length and athleticism.
Taylor missed a series of layups at the rim, Holmes kept turning the ball over in the paint and all the miscues on the offensive end led to a series of run-outs and dunks by Kansas.
Wiggins led the game-deciding 32-5 run, at one point scoring 12 points during a particularly efficient 14-0 spurt by Kansas. The star freshman did it in dazzling fashion, too: There was the soaring fast-break dunk, the back-to-back 3-pointers, and the alley-oop jam from Wayne Selden that left the crowd roaring so loudly that the field house floor was shaking.
By the time Connor Lammert finally hit a 3-pointer with about 5 minutes left in the half, the lead had ballooned to 28-13 and the Longhorns had exhausted nearly all their timeouts.
Kansas promptly scored the next seven points, and then went on another brief run to close out the half. Perry Ellis finished it off with a buzzer-beating layup for a 46-18 lead.
Just how bad were the Longhorns? They were 6 of 29 from the field, 5 of 12 from the foul line and committed five turnovers to three assists in the first half. They were dominated on the glass, dominated in the paint and, well, dominated just about everywhere else, too.
Taylor, who had 23 points in the first meeting with Kansas, was 0 for 10 from the field.
Even when the Longhorns finally scored a basket, as they did out of halftime, Kansas often scored two in return. It kept going like that throughout the second half, allowing the Jayhawks to put on a pressure-free display of outside shooting and acrobatic dunks.
Tarik Black had two monster jams in the closing minutes, including an alley-oop stuff off a feed from Jamari Traylor, while Wiggins tacked on one more dunk for good measure.
It was especially sweet for Wiggins, who was held to seven points on 2-for-12 shooting in his first try against Texas. He was 7 of 12 in this one while pulling down seven rebounds.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Big 12 Conference
MEN
Saturday
At Lawrence
Allen Fieldhouse
No. 8 Kansas 85,
No. 19 Texas 54
TEXAS (20-7)
Taylor 1-14 3-4 5, Holland 1-5 0-0 2, Felix 2-9 2-4 6, Holmes 7-11 2-6 17, Ridley 5-7 1-4 11, Yancy 0-2 0-0 0, Croaker 1-4 0-1 2, Lammert 3-5 0-0 8, Walker 1-3 0-0 3, Ibeh 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 21-61 8-19 54.
KANSAS (21-6)
Selden, Jr. 4-7 0-0 8, Tharpe 1-9 0-0 2, Embiid 4-6 5-8 13, Wiggins 7-12 4-4 21, Ellis 2-6 4-5 8, Mason 6-7 0-0 14, White III 1-2 0-0 3, Wesley 0-0 0-0 0, Manning 0-0 0-0 0, Greene 0-0 0-0 0, Garrett 0-0 0-0 0, Roberts 0-0 0-0 0, Frankamp 2-4 0-0 5, Black 4-5 1-2 9, Traylor 0-1 2-2 2, Lucas 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 31-60 16-21 85.
Halftime—Kansas 46-18. Three-point goals—Texas 4-13 (Lammert 2-3, Walker 1-2, Holmes 1-3, Croaker 0-2, Felix 0-3), Kansas 7-21 (Wiggins 3-5, Mason 2-3, White III 1-2, Frankamp 1-3, Selden, Jr. 0-3, Tharpe 0-5). Fouled out—Ibeh. Rebounds—Texas 37 (Ibeh 8), Kansas 39 (Embiid 7). Assists—Texas 11 (Taylor 5), Kansas 19 (Selden, Jr. 7). Total Fouls—Texas 17, Kansas 19.
