When your team goes 6-for-16 on layups in the second half and 4-for-12 from 3-point range, there’s but one way to start the postgame news conference. Such was life Tuesday night for Bob Huggins, who coached his 300th game with WVU.

In total, WVU was 11-for-26 on layups, and Kansas was the first team I’ve seen sell out to keep Jaysean Paige out of the paint. He was 1-for-6 on layups and had to deal with arms and bodies whenever he even thought about getting inside. Overall, the Jayhawks did well to pull some focus from the perimeter in order to keep the drives out of the paint.

WVU’s not talking anybody out of that when it misses shots like it did in Allen Fieldhouse, and we’re within reason to wonder if Esa Ahmad and Dax Miles enjoyed one-off performances and how short Jevon Carter’s leash is.

Anyhow, layups, simple as they are, were a reason the Mountaineers were outscored in the paint 28-26 and 10-0 on fastbreak points. In the first game against Kansas, WVU won paint scoring 32-18 and didn’t allow any fastbreak points. Those little differences combined with significant upticks from the likes of Landen Lucas and Brannen Greene accounted for a dramatically improved performance from Kansas, which is a pretty nice team on the road and attains another level at home.

No. 6 Kansas built a 12-point lead in the first half and a 13-point margin after halftime and warded off multiple challenges from the 10th-ranked Mountaineers in a 75-65 win before 16,300 at Allen Fieldhouse.

“We win this game and we’re two games ahead of them, but we let that slip,” WVU guard Jaysean Paige said. “We’re still in the driver’s seat, but we’ve got guys right there in our rear view mirror.”

The Jayhawks, who improved to 203-9 at home in Self’s 13 seasons, are tied with the Mountaineers and No. 3 Oklahoma for first place in the Big 12. Instead of being two games — and two head-to-head losses — behind WVU with seven games left to play, Kansas (20-4, 8-3 Big 12) instead plays at Oklahoma Saturday with first place again on the line.

“It would have been a pretty tough thing for them to come back from,” Mountaineer forward Nathan Adrian said. “Everyone in the Big 12’s going to lose a couple more games. As long as we won our home games, we would have been in pretty good shape.”

WVU had a chance to land a big punch in the Big 12 race and took a swing, but the the Jayhawks struck when the Mountaineers were winding up, and the visitors went away blaming themselves for what they did and did not do … to remain in first place. (Update: I mentioned in the game post that I’d never heard a place as loud at the tip as Allen Fieldhouse was last night. A reader sent in this video.)