No. 9 Kansas uses big first half to drop Kansas State

Zeke Mayo -- a native of Lawrence, Kan., playing in his first "Sunflower Showdown" -- had 14 of his 24 points in the first half as No. 9 Kansas built a big lead and then held on to defeat in-state rival Kansas State 84-74. Hunter Dickinson had 25 points for Kansas.

K-State has lost 19 straight games in Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas holds the all-time series lead at 203-96, with the 203 wins the most wins by any Division I program over another.

Kansas State (7-10, 1-5 Big 12) has lost five straight and eight of nine. They hadn't scored more than 70 points since the first of those nine games until Saturday. The Wildcats were led by Coleman Hawkins with 15 points. David N'Guessan had 13 and Max Jones had 11.

Kansas (13-4, 4-2 Big 12) was playing without star forward KJ Adams, who suffered a partially separated right shoulder in Wednesday's loss to Iowa State. Besides Mayo and Dickinson, the Jayhawks were led by Dajuan Harris, who had 15.

Dickinson keyed the start of the second half with 10 points before the first media timeout.

Kansas had trouble pulling away in the second half, never stretching the lead to more than 16 points.

Brendan Hausen hit his first 3-pointer of the game with 4:45 left to cut the deficit to 70-64. Jones missed a corner 3-pointer with less than 3 minutes left that would have cut it to 5 points.

Kansas jumped out to a 14-0 lead, causing K-State coach Jerome Tang to call his second timeout at the 16:00 mark. K-State missed its first seven shots, five of which were from 3-point range. Mayo was 3-of-3 from long range in the first four minutes.

The Wildcats chipped away, eventually getting to within 6 points at 32-26 with 2:45 left. But the Jayhawks extended it to 39-29 at halftime. The Wildcats were just 2 of 15 from 3-point range in the first half. They were led by Hawkins and N'Guessan with 7 points each.

Kansas was led by Mayo with 14 points. Harris had 9 points and Dickinson added 8.

--Field Level Media