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Longhorns whip up on Jayhawks

AUSTIN, Texas - Don’t crown sixth-ranked Kansas as Big 12 champions just yet. There’s another team with serious designs on winning the title.

It’s the surging Texas Longhorns.

Isaiah Taylor scored 23 points, Jonathan Holmes had 22 and No. 25 Texas beat the Jayhawks 81-69 on Saturday for its sixth consecutive victory.

Texas, which lost its top four scorers from last year’s 16-18 squad, has been the surprise of the Big 12. The Longhorns have four consecutive victories over Top 25 opponents and now sit in second place after dominating a team that had been playing as well as anyone in the country in recent weeks.

“We’ve got pretty good momentum,” Holmes said. “We’ve got to keep it going.”

The Longhorns (17-4, 6-2) thumped the Jayhawks with suffocating defense that held the Big 12’s best shooting team to 39 percent from the floor. Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins, who averaged 24 points over the previous three games, scored seven before fouling out late.

Wayne Selden Jr. scored 21 for the Jayhawks (16-5, 7-1).

In other Big 12 games Saturday, Dejan Kravic scored 18 points and grabbed six rebounds to lead Texas Tech to a 60-54 victory against TCU. Jaye Crockett tacked on 15 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists for the Red Raiders and Dusty Hannahs (Pulaski Academy) scored 11 points. … Juwan Staten had a career day with35 points as West Virginia knocked off Kansas State 81-71. Staten had four rebounds and five assists, and connected on 8 of 13 field goals and 18 of 21 from the free-throw line. Terry Henderson had 13 points, Eron Harris scored 11 and Remi Dibo had 10. … Brady Heslip scored a season-high 20 points to help Baylor beat No. 8 Oklahoma State 76-70 and end a five-game losing streak. Rico Gathers scored 14 points, Gary Franklin scored all 11 of his points in the second half and Cory Jefferson had 11 points and 13 rebounds for Baylor. … Sophomore Georges Niang scored a career-high 27 points and No. 16 Iowa State held off 23rd-ranked Oklahoma 81-75 for just its second victory in six games. Melvin Ejim had 22 points with 16 rebounds for his 28th game with 10 or more points and rebounds for the Cyclones.

AMERICAN ATHLETIC SMU tops Memphis

DALLAS - Maybe there were too many coincidences going against No. 22 Memphis.

Or maybe SMU was just better Saturday, staying undefeated at home with an 87-72 victory and the Tigers suffered their first conference road loss in two years.

“You don’t dwell on it,” guard Geron Johnson said.

Hall of Fame Coach Larry Brown’s Mustangs (17-5, 6-3 American Athletic) took control with a 10-2 run in just over 3 minutes to start the second half. That grew to a 29-8 spurt minutes later.

“We got punched in the mouth at the start of the second half and we didn’t recover,” Memphis Coach Josh Pastner said. “As I told our guys in the postgame, there’s no time to have the woe-is-me syndrome, we can’t feel sorry for ourselves. I was fine with our energy and effort. We just didn’t get the job done.”

The Tigers (16-5, 6-3), who moved with SMU from Conference USA to the AAC this season, had won 19 consecutive league road games - 16 in the regular season and three in the C-USA tournament last March - since a C-USA loss at Southern Mississippi exactly two years ago Saturday.

In other American Athletic Conference games Saturday, James Bell scored 19 points to lead No. 9 Villanova to a 90-74 nonconference victory over Temple. … J.J. Moore scored a career-high 27 points to lead Rutgers to a 93-70 victory over Houston. ... Russ Smith scored 27 points and Luke Hancock added 16 to help No. 12 Louisville pull away from Central Florida 87-70.

MISSOURI VALLEY Shockers still unbeaten

WICHITA, Kan. - Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker scored 14 points apiece, and fourth-ranked Wichita State withstood an early barrage by Evansville before cruising to an 81-67 victory on Saturday that kept it among the nation’s two unbeaten teams.

Cleanthony Early had 13 points and Tekele Cotton added 12 for the Shockers (23-0, 10-0 Missouri Valley), who haven’t lost since last year’s run to the Final Four.

Wichita State spotted Evansville (10-13, 3-7) a 15-point lead before using a massive run to carry the advantage into halftime.

Sports, Pages 31 on 02/02/2014

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