“Coach was real upset. He was mad. He looked down at us, pointed at us and was like, ‘You go. You go. You go. You go. You go,”’ KU reserve Michael Lee said.

KU’s 15th-year coach ordered scholarship reserves Lee, Jeff Hawkins and Bryant Nash, plus walk-ons Christian Moody and Brett Olson, to the scorer’s table to replace KU’s uninspired starters.

The move seemed to shake things up as the Jayhawks, who were coming off Monday night’s rousing 29-point rout of Iowa State, rallied from an early slumber to pound the Cornhuskers, 92-59.

“I didn’t like the whole atmosphere in the locker room before the game,” Williams said after replacing the five starters with the score tied at 5. “I was worried. I was concerned. I told our staff I didn’t like the emotions when we came out on the court.”

“I thought the attitude was, ‘Ho hum, we’re going to kick somebody else.”’

Williams tried to warn his troops that NU (8-6 overall, 0-1 Big 12) would be fired up playing the 14th-ranked Jayhawks (11-3, 2-0)

“I said, ‘Just because we did something Monday night, doesn’t make any difference today,”’ Williams said.

Realizing his words didn’t sink in after watching 6-foot-9 forward Nick Collison miss three outside shots and point guard Aaron Miles brick a long-distance try and commit a wild turnover, Williams put in the subs.

“I’ve always said, ‘Give me five guys that have got Kansas uniforms on, they’ll play their butts off,'” William said. “When those five got in, they did play their tails off. They brought some energy to it and didn’t take the first outside shot somebody gave ’em.”

The five subs outscored NU, 2-0, over the next two minutes.

Nash blocked a shot and Moody forced a turnover to the delight of the 16,300 fans.

KU’s starters, who received an earful from their coach on the bench, returned at 14:11 with KU up 7-5.

Hinrich, who eventually scored a game-high 28 points off 9-of-16 shooting, immediately drained a three, but it still took awhile for the Jayhawks, who missed 15 of their first 18 shots, to begin clicking.

An 11-2 run finally opened a 27-19 lead at 4:28.

“Anytime he pulls you I think it’s kind of a wake-up call type deal,” Hinrich said. “Even after he put us back in we still struggled, but once we let the defense dictate, we were a lot better.”

Hinrich scored seven straight points and finished with 19 the first half as KU opened a 40-28 lead.

“I wanted to tell the guys at halftime, ‘I want to play again, but I don’t want to play until we’re up by 30,”’ quipped Olson, a senior walk-on who missed a shot in the two-minute stint. “I’d rather play when we’re playing well as a team.”

Not that he didn’t mind the early action, which, of course, surprised him.

“Usually we sit Stephen (Vinson), Christian, then me on the end of the bench,” Olson said. “Today Jeff Hawkins sat on the very end. Coach came down there and I thought he’d tell Jeff to go in. He told me to go in. I was ready, though.”

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Nebraska played without point guard Jake Muhleisen. He was injured after falling hard after getting fouled by Collison just eight minutes into the game.

The Huskers committed 14 turnovers the second half. The Jayhawks, who had six of their 11 steals in the second half, rolled, 52-31, the second 20 minutes.

“The last eight to nine minutes of the first half, from that point on, we played very well on the defensive end of the floor,” Williams said.

And KU clicked better offensively, hitting 50 percent of its second-half shots after hitting 42.4 percent the first half.

“Kirk’s first shot, off a good screen by Jeff Graves, was the only good shot we had in the first five minutes of the game,” Williams said. “Nick Collison, who was 11-for-15 at Iowa State … his first five shots were outside shots himself. We came out against their zone and were doing what they wanted us to do. I don’t want to take what somebody else gives us. They are giving it to us for a reason. They give it to us because they think it helps them.”

Collison finished with 10 points off 4-of-11 shooting.

“We didn’t start out very well. Nebraska sagged in the lane and we took a lot of outside shots,” Collison said. “It’s what they wanted us to do. We needed to play better, play harder and not settle for outside shots. We (later) did a good job of pressuring their ballhandlers.”

Miles, who had eight points, eight assists and four turnovers agreed Williams deserved an assist for shocking the starters back to reality early on.

“I thought it was something we needed to get our focus back,” Miles said of the coach’s tongue-lashing. “It was a wake-up call. It was an early game. We should have been awake, but for some reason we weren’t.”

The Jayhawks will meet Wyoming at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Allen Fieldhouse.