No. 4 Jayhawks Edge Cowboys 71-67

Raef LaFrentz said his shoulder hurt, although you wouldn't have known it when the game was on the line for No. 4 Kansas.

LaFrentz, playing with a strained left shoulder, only made seven of 16 shots Sunday, but still had 17 points and 14 rebounds, including two big offensive boards down the stretch, to help the Jayhawks hold off No. 25 Oklahoma State 71-67.

"I want to do more for this team than score," LaFrentz said. "I have to rebound."

And Kansas (31-3, 15-1 Big 12) needed him to rebound. After leading by 13 points at halftime and by 10 with 6½ minutes remaining, the Jayhawks saw Oklahoma State get within 67-63 on a baseline jumper by Adrian Peterson with 1:21 remaining.

Ryan Robertson, who scored all 12 of his points on first-half 3-pointers, missed from long range with 1:05 remaining but LaFrentz got the rebound, allowing the Jayhawks to burn another 20 seconds before they turned it over.

After an Oklahoma State miss, Billy Thomas missed the front of a 1-and-1 with 34 seconds left. Again LaFrentz came through with an offensive rebound.

Robertson was fouled and missed the front of a 1-and-1 with 28 seconds left. LaFrentz got that rebound, too, but was called for pushing off. Alex Webber's free throw brought Oklahoma State within 67-64.

Paul Pierce, who scored 13 points, made two free throws with 13 seconds to play to give Kansas a five-point lead. The Cowboys got within two on a 3-pointer by Chad Alexander with 7.1 seconds remaining, but they were out of timeouts and Kansas sealed the victory with a fastbreak dunk by Nick Bradford.

"We were just trying to weather the storm," Kansas coach Roy Williams said."I told them that if they continued to make runs at us, let's be tough enough to withstand that and make baskets ourselves. We didn't do it all the time, by any means, but I really did like our poise down the stretch."

Oklahoma State (21-5, 11-5) had won seven in a row, but wasn't able to overcome a poor start and as result lost to Kansas for the sixth straight time. The Cowboys trailed 16-4 after the first 4:45, and a 14-4 run by Kansas in the final seven minutes made it a 39-26 deficit at halftime.

"I thought we got ourselves in trouble early in the first half by not playing very good defense," Cowboys coach Eddie Sutton said."We had to play catch-up most of the afternoon, and that's hard to do."

Particularly when you're not shooting the ball well. The Cowboys made just 37 percent of their shots, compared with 48 percent for Kansas. Peterson scored 18 points but was just 5-of-15; Joe Adkins scored 16 on 4-of-16 shooting.

"You can't beat a quality team like Kansas when you shoot 37 percent. You just can't do it," Sutton said."We missed a lot of easy shots that you've gt to hit against an outstanding ball club like Kansas."

All of Kansas' starters scored in double figures. Oklahoma State lost one of its starters, forward Desmond Mason, early in the second half due to a hip bruise. Mason was coming off a 27-point, 14-rebound game against Texas, but scored only four points Sunday.

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