Anna Faltermeier/KANSAN
KU
BY MICHAEL PHILLIPS
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The Texas Longhorns were moving the ball through pressure defense easily, and star freshman Kevin Durant was making highlight-reel shots from everywhere on the court. So what did coach Bill Self do? He told his players to back off of Durant. "We said to make Durant beat us, because everybody else was lighting us up," he said. "Just try to keep the other guys under wraps." That, combined with a textbook example of the law of averages, fueled a second-half comeback that led to a 90-86 Kansas victory. The Longhorns shot 11-for-14 — 79 percent — from three-point range in the first half, including a perfect 5-for-5 from Durant. That number plummeted to just 19 percent in the second half. Meanwhile, the Jayhawks never dropped below 50 percent from behind the arc, not panicking or rushing shots during the Longhorns' hot streak. "It's a long game," sophomore guard Mario Chalmers said. "We just wanted to keep playing the way we were defensively."
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