Jayhawks

After spending much of the last two weeks in hotels and airports, UCLA is savoring a return to the place where it has blue and gold status. On Sunday against Montana, the Bruins open a stretch in which they will play seven of their next eight games at Pauley Pavilion. The only time they must venture outside Westwood will be for the Wooden Classic against Brigham Young on Dec. 18 at the Honda Center. "We've been on the road for what seems like forever because of the length of the trips," Coach Ben Howland said during a teleconference Saturday.

Lazeric Jones , you're not in Carterville, Ill., anymore. The UCLA point guard who spent his last two years at a junior college in southern Illinois found himself in the hostile confines of Kansas' home court Thursday. It was an experience that left the junior a bit discombobulated, particularly in the opening minutes. Jones committed four turnovers ? all in the first half ? and had no assists while playing a season-low 21 minutes during the Bruins' 77-76 loss at Allen Fieldhouse.

The whistle blew, and the possibilities seemed endless. Score tied, no time on the clock and Kansas' school-record home winning streak in serious jeopardy. Except for the little matter of the foul on UCLA guard Malcolm Lee. Lee remained confident that time had expired and the game was headed to overtime. Bruins forward Tyler Honeycutt thought the Jayhawks would merely be awarded the ball out of bounds with less than a second to play. What happened shocked them both.

Playing Kansas can feel like getting poked in the eye without knowing what hit you. Reeves Nelson knows this all too well. A year after being struck in the right eye by a stray finger, the UCLA forward still doesn't know whether the culprit was Marcus Morris or his twin brother, Markieff. "They're identical and you couldn't really see the [jersey] number on the tape," said Nelson, who returned to the Bruins' 73-61 loss to the Jayhawks last December at Pauley Pavilion even after his eye had swollen shut.

UCLA next at Kansas, Thursday at Allen Fieldhouse, 6 p.m. PST, ESPN ? The road only gets tougher for the Bruins as they travel to Lawrence, Kan., to play the sixth-ranked Jayhawks at a place where Kansas has won a school-record 63 consecutive games, the nation's longest active home winning streak. The Jayhawks defeated the Bruins, 73-61, last season at Pauley Pavilion.

Federal prosecutors charged five former University of Kansas employees Thursday with conspiring to steal more than $2 million in tickets to athletic events. Investigators said the conspirators made between $3 million and $5 million in the scheme over five years. Prosecutors singled out former associate athletic director Charlette Blubaugh , who was in charge of the ticket office. They said she began stealing tickets in 2005 and gave them to other key athletic department employees to sell, either personally or through third parties.

Saturday in the NCAA tournament was as uneasy as one ... two ... three. If you saw it coming you may have ties to Nostradamus but definitely not to Barack Obama, who is lobbying hard for bracket reform now that Kansas is not going to win the national title and Villanova is not going back to the Final Four. A guy from the L.A. Times made the same Oval Awful mistake and is paying for it by typing the words you are reading now for this emergency-access-the-NCAA carnage weekend (it couldn't, obviously, hold until Monday)

James Anderson scored 27 points, Keiton Page was perfect on four three-point tries at crucial times and Oklahoma State denied a bid by No. 1 Kansas to go undefeated through Big 12 play with an 85-77 victory on Saturday. The Jayhawks (27-2, 13-1) had won their last 13 games since losing at Tennessee to close nonconference play and suffered their second loss of the season just hours after No. 2 Kentucky also lost to the Volunteers. The last time the top two teams lost on the same day was Jan. 21, 2006, when No. 1 Duke lost to Georgetown and No. 2 Florida lost to Tennessee.

UCLA today VS. NO. 1 KANSAS When: 2:30 p.m. Where: Pauley Pavilion. On the air: TV: Prime Ticket; Radio: 570. Records: UCLA 2-4, Kansas 6-0. Record vs. opponent: 10-4. Update: The last time these teams met was in the 2007 NCAA tournament, the West Regional, when UCLA cruised to a 13-point victory. A lot has changed since then. The Bruins have lost three straight and are making only 43.6% of their shots, which puts them at No. 176 among Division I teams.

Kansas Coach Mark Mangino resigned Thursday in the wake of an investigation into his treatment of his players, stepping down just two years after leading the Jayhawks to the greatest season in their checkered football history. The university made the announcement as Athletic Director Lew Perkins informed the players of the news. The school said last month it would probe Mangino's alleged verbal and emotional abuse of players. In the following days, many former players described insensitive, humiliating remarks they claim he made to them in the heat of games or practice, often in front of others.