KU claims its 50th conference crown

~ The Jayhawks will be the top seed in the conference tournament, which begins Thursday.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Don't put away those scissors just yet. Keep the stepladder handy.

Maybe Kansas isn't through trimming twine.

"Cutting down the nets is great and all that stuff," coach Bill Self said Saturday after watching his Big 12 champion Jayhawks perform the joyous ritual.

"It will mean a lot more if we have a couple more net-cutting ceremonies before we're finished."

Weathering a first-half scoring onslaught by the remarkable Kevin Durant, the No. 3 Jayhawks erased a 16-point first-half deficit to beat No. 15 Texas 90-86 in a tense title showdown, claiming their fifth outright Big 12 title and their 50th conference championship in 100 years.

Now they head to Oklahoma City as No. 1 seed in the Big 12 tournament starting Thursday. More importantly, they're in great position to nab a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Now, that's when the Jayhawks would really love to ascend the stepladder and snip, snip, snip.

"We've got work to do," Self said. "Now the real work begins."

At the end of a regular season brimming with story lines and intriguing subplots, Kansas (27-4 overall, 14-2 Big 12) finished one game in front of No. 8 Texas A&M (25-5, 13-3) and two in front of Durant and the Longhorns (22-8, 12-4).

Joining those three with first-round byes in the conference tourney, and one of the Big 12's best stories this season, will be Kansas State. Since they'd never finished higher than seventh, the Wildcats had never gotten a first-round bye.

But a 72-61 victory over Oklahoma on Saturday left them 21-10 overall and fourth in the league at 10-6 in Bob Huggins' first season as head coach.

Huggins, by far the most experienced of the six new head coaches in the league this year, was also the only one to have a winning conference record.

Oklahoma State's Sean Sutton (20-10, 6-9) was the only other new coach with an overall winning mark, although that must be small consolation. The Cowboys started 15-1, and then a lack of depth and other shortcomings turned a promising season to ruin.

The Cowboys and Nebraska will not conclude their regular season until they meet today in a game that was postponed because of bad weather.

The schedule for the first round on Thursday is Iowa State vs. Oklahoma, Texas Tech vs. Colorado, Oklahoma State vs. Nebraska and Missouri vs. Baylor.

Kansas gets the Iowa State-Oklahoma winner, Kansas State the victor between Texas Tech and Colorado, Texas A&M the Oklahoma State-Nebraska winner and Texas the winner between Missouri and Baylor.