Kansas-Texas Tech: Red Hot Kansas Becomes Ice Cold in Lubbock

Texas Tech (13-17, 3-12) took it to the ninth ranked Kansas Jayhawks (24-6 13-2) from the first whistle to the last on Wednesday night, as they came away with a 84-65 win.

The Jayhawks did not have an answer for Alan Voskull, who fired a career high 35 points off of 10-17 shooting, including nine three-pointers. Credit has to go to him and his coach Pat Knight.

Texas Tech executed a motion scheme perfectly. They had the Jayhawks running around trying to defend guards who were flying off of constant screens, typically leaving one shooter open during each possession. As a result, the Red Raiders made Kansas pay.

It wasn't until about the seven-minute mark of the first half that Bill Self decided to go to a two-three zone. He stuck with the zone during the start of the second half and was able to get his team within two.

Then Texas Tech was able to answer with a five-nothing run and rather inexplicably, Self went back to man-to-man. After that, the game was pretty much over.

Voskull proved to everyone that he wasn't going to miss, but he wasn't the only one. Texas Tech is a good shooting team, and they shot 45 percent from the floor and a shocking 56 percent from three point land.

This was not a typical loss for Kansas, as they only turned the ball over 13 times, most of which weren't self inflicted, as they usually are. I just simply can't remember when Kansas shot the ball that poorly under Bill Self.

It wasn't like Texas Tech was playing face-to-face defense either. KU was able to get most of the shots they wanted, and missed most of the shots they took, shooting a ghastly 33 percent.

Kansas typically thrives from behind the arc. They were 4-24 (16 percent)on the night, and I can't even believe how key this was. All year Kansas has been able to rely on their three point shooting to whittle away at leads, or extend small leads when they need to.

I can stick a dagger into my beloved Jayhawks by overly-criticizing this performance, but that isn't what I seek to do. I just have a few more points to make. 

Sherron Collins was quoted earlier in the day as saying something to the effect of "it's going to be fun to celebrate a Big 12 title in the opposing team's locker room."

I won't delve too far into this, but that was not the smartest thing to say to a team with a Knight as its head coach and a few seniors defending their home court for one last time.

Bill Self is still winless in West Texas, as he fell to the other Knight in the last meeting between the two teams in Lubbock.

It's hard to put my finger on what kind of loss this was/will be. It may be one of the most inconsequential loss in Bill Self's tenure at KU.

Oklahoma was unable to beat Missouri in Columbia on Wednesday night which assured the Jayhawks at least a share of the Big 12 title. Kansas still has the ability to win the Big 12 title outright when they return to Allen Fieldhouse to face Texas on Saturday.

If Kansas fans needed any extra motivation for the title game on Saturday, they got it on Wednesday when a better Texas Tech team (on the night) took it to the Jayhawks.