The Sooners’ national championship football team took the court at halftime for an awards presentation coach Bob Stoops driving a sold-out Noble Center crowd into a frenzy when he said he was not leaving OU for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns.

The excitement the building seemed to shake from all the noise didn’t carry over on the basketball court as the Jayhawks slapped the No. 22-ranked Sooners, 69-61, on ABC-TV.

“As Arnold Schwarzenegger says, ‘We’re the Party Poopers,”’ KU center Eric Chenowith barked after grabbing 15 rebounds in the defensive struggle.

“Persistence prevails when all else fails,” added Chenowith after a game in which KU hit just 43.4 percent of its shots.

Earl Richardson/Journal-World Photo

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KU’s persistence showed on the boards Kenny Gregory contributed a career-high 13 rebounds to go with 14 points and on defense.

KU held the Sooners to 31.9 percent shooting horrible 29 percent shooting the first half. The ugly shooting made it impossible for OU’s basketball players to join the football team as local heroes.

“Did they present some kind of trophy at halftime?” said Drew Gooden, who scored six points with three boards in 20 foul-plagued minutes. “I guess we came in and spoiled the party. Maybe Stoops is staying, but we’re going home with a win.”

KU’s most effective offensive player was Jeff Boschee, who snapped a slump by scoring 16 points on 4-of-8 three-point shooting.

Earl Richardson/Journal-World Photo

KU’s junior shooting guard had hit just eight of his last 43 threes covering nine games.

“Today I tried to get my feet set,” said Boschee, who hit three threes while Gregory added one in a 16-0 run that gave the Jayhawks a 31-19 lead with 1:31 left in the first half.

“It felt good when I came out to shoot before the game and felt good during the game.”

It seems a film session this week really helped Boschee.

“I watched game film of the Xavier game in Alaska last year when I hit six threes and the Georgia game in Alaska and compared it to the Texas Tech game,” said Boschee, who hit one of six threes at Tech.

Earl Richardson/Journal-World Photo

“I had been hopping on every shot. I still did it once or twice today, but hopefully I made some strides to get out of it (slump).”

He admits now he was in a major slump.

“Yes you could call it that when I come in shooting 25 percent from the three-point line after shooting 40 percent last year,” he said.

Boschee did miss more shots than he made, going five of 11 Saturday.

“I told him the other day, ‘You’ve got to make some daggum shots or you’ll make me look stupid putting you out there,'” KU coach Roy Williams quipped. “I think he’s going to make it every time he shoots the ball. He’s never lacked the confidence to take the shot.”

Overall, the Jayhawks hit 50 percent of their second-half shots, just 38.7 the first half and finished at 43.4 percent.

“It’s very seldom picture perfect basketball when we play,” Williams said of the Jayhawks and Sooners, who like to get after it on defense.

“That was an indication of it today. It’s no secret both teams are filled with very competitive ballplayers who displayed a great deal of toughness in today’s game.

“It was a workmanlike game. You look at the stats it’s either two really bad teams or two teams really playing defense. I like to think it’s two teams playing defense,” Williams added.

The Jayhawks held OU’s top player Aaron McGhee to zero points. Yep, zero points on 0-for-9 shooting.

“We knew to expect some great plays from this young man so we tried to focus our defense on him early,” Williams said. His Jayhawks used both man-to-man and zone. “I think overall he just didn’t have a good day and hopefully our defense had something to do with that.”

Even with the 16-0 run, KU led just 33-25, at the break.

Things tightened in the second half when Nolan Johnson (16 points) scored eight points in a 10-2 surge that tied the game at 40.

KU junior Nick Collison scored two consecutive baskets on jump hooks that put KU in front again.

“I just ran down, posted up and did nothing different. My teammates did a good job getting it in there,” said Collison, who scored 12 points eight the second half.

“At the beginning, they were pressuring us on the perimeter. If you can’t make passes on the perimeter you can’t get it down low. They were doing a good job on defense.”

OU cut it to 44-43 on a three by Johnson. However, Kirk Hinrich (13 points, six assists, eight turnovers) then hit for six points in a 7-0 surge that gave Kansas a comfy 51-43 lead at 6:42.

Oklahoma wasn’t able to make a serious run again.

“It was almost a war out there today,” Williams said, elated with the defensive effort. “We talked about you’ve got to do it on the road as well as the friendly confines of Allen Fieldhouse.”

Kansas (13-1, 2-0) will meet Nebraska on Wednesday night at Allen Fieldhouse. Oklahoma fell to 12-3, 1-2.