LAWRENCE, Kansas — Georges Niang and Perry Ellis have had four years of battling each other, but Niang has never been able to steal a win against Kansas at famed Allen Fieldhouse.

Niang’s first win on Kansas’ home court was in sight with three minutes remaining, until No. 1 Kansas (27-4, 14-3 Big 12) showed why it has won 12 straight Big 12 regular season titles and will likely be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament as they ran past Iowa State (21-10, 10-8 Big 12) and won 85-78.

“Obviously I’m disappointed,” Niang said. “Anytime you get to finish your last Big 12 regular season, it’s disappointing to end it on a loss. Winning in [Allen Fieldhouse] is something I wanted to do, so it’s real disappointing, but that’s not going to take away from what this team could do in the future.”

The Jayhawks took the lead and outscored the Cyclones 15-7 down the final stretch as Niang saw his final shot at winning at Allen Fieldhouse disappear.

Niang and Ellis tied for a game-high 22 points, but Iowa State was unable to find much success down the stretch, going nearly seven minutes without a field goal until Monté Morris hit a jumper with 20 seconds remaining.

It was too little too late. What went wrong down the stretch after so much offensive success early on?

Simple.

“I think we missed shots we could’ve made, I missed a couple,” Niang said. “That’s just how the cookie crumbles sometimes, but we’re going to regroup, get back and go down to Kansas City for the Big 12 tournament.”

Iowa State already had a tough task against No. 1 Kansas on the road, but it was especially difficult given the levels of success Kansas has had at home. Under Bill Self, Kansas is 207-9 at home.

Iowa State had Kansas on the ropes, but the game simply slipped away in the final few minutes.

“I’d take my chances if you said we’d be up one with three minutes to go,” ISU coach Steve Prohm said. “I thought our kids were resilient, I thought we put ourselves in a possession to win the game and credit to them. [Kansas] made some big plays down the stretch.”

It doesn’t get much easier for Iowa State, who will get No. 6 Oklahoma in the first round of the Big 12 tournament.

Jameel McKay, who scored 19 points and pulled down nine rebounds, said the team is optimistic moving forward after playing with successfully competing with Kansas for 37 minutes.

“I think we’re in a great place,” McKay said. “Our effort was good tonight. Right now I think we’re playing the best stretch of basketball. Regardless of the outcome, I think we’re playing well. So our spirits are high. Of course we wanted to win, and we’re down about that, but we all still look forward to the future and we still have big plans.”

Niang shared McKay’s optimism when asked about the upcoming matchup against Oklahoma in the Big 12 tournament.

“Great,” Niang said. “To be the best you’ve got to beat the best so why not start with them.”