Seventh-ranked Kansas holds on to beat Texas, 80-78

Seventh-ranked Kansas held on for an 80-78 victory over the Texas Longhorns Monday night at Allen Fieldhouse.

The Longhorns had a chance to win on the last play, but Jase Febres missed a contested 3-point shot at the buzzer.

Late in the game, Kansas was up by 10 and was threatening to blow out Texas.

But the Longhorns retaliated, first with a Jaxson Hayes dunk on a lob and then a Kerwin Roach three.

After that, Febres started to hit from seemingly everywhere, raining three consecutive 3-pointers, with the last one tying the game, 73-73, with 2:15 left.

Trailing by two points at intermission, the Jayhawks came out firing in the second half, with Devon Dotson and Quentin Grimes nailing threes back-to-back to fuel a 13-4 spree in the first four minutes.

Two more threes by Lagerald Vick boosted Kansas into a 51-44 lead with 15:54 left.

Texas never got closer than four in the next 10 minutes, with the Jayhawks moving in front by 10 twice, including 69-59 on a Dedric Lawson dunk at the 5:10 mark.

Records

Texas 10-7, 2-3
Kansas 15-2, 4-1

Individuals

Texas — Matt Coleman III, 16 points, 8 assists. Kerwin Roach II, 13 points. Dylan Osetkowski, 11 points, 9 rebouds. Off the bench, Jase Febres, 12 points. Courtney Ramey, 10.

Kansas — Lagerald Vick, 21 points, 5 threes. Marcus Garrett, career-hiigh 20 points, 3 assists, 3 steals. Dedric Lawson, 17 points, 8 rebounds.

Notable

The Longhorns have lost three straight in the Big 12 by a total of 11 points.

They lost by three at Oklahoma State, by six at home against eighth-ranked Texas Tech and now by two on the road at Kansas, one of the toughest places to play in the nation.

Texas freshman center Jaxson Hayes fouled out in 17 minutes. He finished with 8 points and 4 rebounds.

Quotable

“I thought our overall effort was very good most of the time. I thought, obviously, the way Kansas started the second half was big for them. And I told the guys at one point in a timeout, ‘We’ve got to make them miss, they aren’t going to miss on their own.’ And to our guys’ credit, we got down 10 (points) a couple of times and they fought to cut that lead down and bring us back. We were just a play away from being able to win tonight’s game.” — Texas coach Shaka Smart, in comments posted on the Kansas website