Abrams Keys Texas Win Over Oklahoma

No. 6 Texas 77, Oklahoma 49

KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 15 -- As he sat in his locker room stall Friday night after his team had advanced to the Big 12 tournament semifinals with a shaky win over Nebraska, Kansas sophomore guard Sherron Collins talked about how difficult it was to build intensity heading into a matchup against a team the Jayhawks already had beaten twice this season by more than 20 points.

"Teams like that, sometimes you're not psyched up to play them," Collins said.

After Kansas knocked off Texas A&M, 77-71, Saturday at Sprint Center, Collins took a different tack when explaining why a contest against a team the Jayhawks beat by 17 just a week ago was so close.

"Naw, we knew we couldn't do the same thing we did yesterday," said Collins, who finished with nine points and four assists. "I think we came out more with an aggressive attitude, and we were ready to play. It just shows teams are getting better around the time of March."

Texas A&M guard Dominique Kirk hit a jumper with 55 seconds remaining to pull the Aggies within three, but Kansas guard Russell Robinson answered with a layup.

Robinson said the plan was to take as much time off the clock as possible, but when a clear path to the basket presented itself, he had to take it. Texas A&M guard Beau Muhlbach missed a three-point attempt on the other end with 20 seconds remaining and forced the Aggies to begin searching for a body to foul. Only they couldn't get to anyone quickly enough.

Finally, they got a hand on Kansas forward Brandon Rush, who sank two free throws with 6.4 seconds left to put the game out of reach. Rush finished with a career-high 28 points.

"I thought Brandon was as good today as I've ever seen him," Kansas Coach Bill Self said. "The thing that I am most proud about, that I like about Brandon, is he didn't play [well] at all yesterday. And for him to come back from that, you know, I think is a good sign for him."

Forward Bryan Davis led four Aggies in double figures with 16 points.

Texas will meet Kansas for the title Sunday for the third year in a row.

A day after scoring six points and missing all five of his three-point attempts in a quarterfinal win over Oklahoma State, Texas guard A.J. Abrams registered a game-high 24 points on 7-for-12 shooting from beyond the arc in a 77-49 semifinal victory over Oklahoma.

Abrams also misfired on his first three long-range shots Saturday, but he said his confidence never wavered because his teammates continued to feed him the ball.

"It feels really good right now, finally knocking down some shots and helping my team on the offensive end as well as on defense," said Abrams, who also forced three steals against Oklahoma. "My teammates did a good job of setting screens for me, and D.J. [Augustin] did a great job of penetrating and kicking the ball out tonight. Fortunately, I was knocking down the shots."

After trailing by seven at halftime, the Sooners tied the score at 36 with just less than 18 minutes to play. The Longhorns answered with a 14-2 run and held a comfortable lead from that point forward.

Texas made 50 percent (27 for 54) of its shots from the field and 45.5 percent (10 for 22) from beyond the arc. Augustin scored 17 points and sophomore forward Damion James added 13 for the Longhorns.

Oklahoma shot 32.8 percent (20 for 61) from the field and 17.4 percent (4 for 23) from three-point range. Freshman forward Blake Griffin led the Sooners with 20 points and 13 rebounds.

"The game got away from us very quickly," Oklahoma Coach Jeff Capel said. "We had some great looks; we just didn't knock 'em down . . . and when you're playing against a really good team like Texas, you have to be able to knock more of those down than we did."