Kansas' Withey rebounds, dominates Baylor

WACO, Texas Jeff Withey had a bad week, and he has a sore chest to prove it. The Kansas center had scored no points in Kansas' loss to Missouri on Saturday, and his teammates had spent the last few days punishing him for that transgression by blasting him in the chest. Really. "We've been screaming at him in practice every day," KU guard Tyshawn Taylor said. "Punching him in his chest, jumping on him. Trying to get him fired up." A properly abused Withey scored a game-high 25 points in 29 minutes Wednesday, outscoring Baylor's entire starting frontcourt of Quincy Acy (11 points), Perry Jones III (five) and Quincy Miller (three) and leading No. 7 KU (19-5, 9-2 Big 12) to a 68-54 win at No. 6 Baylor (21-3, 8-3) that knocked the Bears out of what had been a three-way tie atop the Big 12. "I don't know why Withey likes playing against us," Baylor coach Scott Drew said, "but he looks like an All-American every time he does." This is partially true, and partially diversionary. Withey did have 10 points and 10 rebounds in Kansas' first win over Baylor, a blowout in Lawrence, and he was the best player on the floor Wednesday. But Withey is just a tree, and there's a forest behind him waiting to be explored. It starts with defense, which is also where it ends. Baylor had a 10-point lead with 9:41 left in the first half. Withey had kept Kansas in the game, mostly from the foul line, as the Jayhawks' offense flowed like a frozen garden hose. Baylor's zone defense, which attracts so much criticism, was working. When Kansas' best player, Thomas Robinson, went to the bench with his second foul at the 5:26 mark, the Jayhawks looked cooked, well on their way to losing consecutive games for the first time since the 2005-06 season. Hardly anybody noticed that after both players made shots within the first two minutes, Miller and Jones had disappeared. Baylor had Robinson taken care of, and apart from Withey was outplaying Kansas everywhere else. The story gets a little jargony here Withey talked about having a player move to the middle of Baylor's zone at all times -- but the long and short of it is that Kansas decided to change the way it was attacking Baylor's zone, and the game was never the same again. "Them having a great coaching staff over there, they adjusted to it," Baylor guard Pierre Jackson said. "And we didn't answer back." The consequence for that was a 34-5 Kansas run that spanned both halves. Drew took timeouts at the 16:38 mark (when it was 40-32, Kansas), the 15:01 mark (52-34), but the Bears never responded. Kansas' lead grew to 22 points, and with about 12 minutes left the home crowd offered a sarcastic cheer when Jones sank two free throws. Baylor hadn't scored in four minutes, and the previous four offensive trips had resulted in an airball, four missed free throws and two blocks by Withey. Those free throws were the third and final time Jones saw the ball go in. He went 1-for-8 from the field and got three rebounds in 25 minutes. "I think Perry just missed shots and I think he got down after he missed shots," Drew said. "He can't get down like that." Miller sat out the game's final 16 minutes by Drew's decision after getting called for a flagrant foul for throwing an elbow at Withey during a free throw. With Miller on the bench and Jones off in orbit, the meltdown was fast and messy. Kansas shot 59 percent in the second half, which felt a lot like the last two times Kansas played Baylor. The Jayhawks shot 57 percent in the win earlier this year, and shot 79 percent in the first half of a 20-point win in Waco last season. Drew defended his zone defense Wednesday night, saying Baylor had performed better in it than in a man-to-man. The Bears started the second half in man, got a steal, then switched back to that zone Kansas had already adjusted to. Kansas didn't bother switching defenses. The Jayhawks, who lead the Big 12 in scoring defense and field goal percentage defense, held Baylor to 37 percent from the field and 25 percent from the 3-point line. "We've recruited some good players, and those good players have all sacrificed to become that," Self said. "That's more of a compliment to them than it is anything else, but it's who we are."