Early in Saturday&#x92;s Kansas-Texas game, Longhorns point guard Myck Kabongo drove, collided with Ben McLemore and went down near the basket. No foul was called.</p><p>This, as much as any moment in Kansas&#x92; blowout victory, remained with Texas Coach Rick Barnes.</p><p>&#x93;It&#x92;s a foul, and it puts him on the bench with two fouls,&#x94; Barnes said. &#x93;It&#x92;s a big call.&#x94;</p><p>Or noncall. I was sitting about 30 feet from Barnes and noticed he made certain all three officials got an earful.</p><p>Had Texas gotten that whistle, McLemore perhaps would have sat for the rest of the half and maybe the game flows differently. But even if the Jayhawks&#x92; rotation had been disrupted, the determination would not have been. KU was so dialed-in, it forced shot-clock violations on successive possessions later in the half.</p><p>But Barnes wasn&#x92;t the only person in Allen Fieldhouse steamed by the action.</p><p>Sitting in the ESPN analyst chair for this game was Jay Bilas, one of the game&#x92;s most astute observers, and about a half-hour after the broadcast, Bilas was left shaking his head about college hoops&#x92; direction. The game is sinking into an unwatchable ugliness.</p><p>&#x93;These are hockey games, and we&#x92;re pretending this is basketball,&#x94; Bilas said. &#x93;Any referee that disagrees with me, come to my house and we&#x92;ll sit and watch the game. And I can show you foul after foul.&#x94;</p><p>Not being called.</p><p>Under the basket scrums, body checks and, &#x93;things that happen to cutters and drivers they would throw flags on in the NFL aren&#x92;t getting called,&#x94; Bilas said.</p><p>The result is largely defensive-oriented games without flow. Saturday, Texas was held to 15 points in the first half, and the Longhorns rallied for that total with four points in the final 44 seconds. Their 21.8 percent field-goal shooting for the game was the worst by a KU opponent since the 1975-76 season.</p><p>Kansas knows something about anemic scoring games and halves, tallying 13 points on three field goals in the first half of the loss at TCU two weeks ago. The Jayhawks&#x92; 73.3-point scoring average is a shade under last year and headed toward the lowest since 1999. And in McLemore, Kansas has one of the nation&#x92;s most gifted shooters.</p><p>College basketball scoring is at its lowest point since the pre-shot clock days of the early 1980s, and other factors are involved. The game has been diminished by the one-and-done rule, where the top talent is 18 years old, takes half a season to develop a college-level skill set, then moves on. The offensive-minded big man has been on the decline for years. You simply don&#x92;t see as many run outs, and the ability to close out a man-advantage break seems to be a lost art.</p><p>But will calling more called fouls help the game&#x92;s flow?</p><p>Yes, and teams will defend more by letter of the law.</p><p>&#x93;These players aren&#x92;t as bad as they&#x92;re made to look,&#x94; Bilas said. &#x93;They look inept because they&#x92;re getting fouled. And coaches are teaching it because they know referees won&#x92;t call it.</p><p>&#x93;It&#x92;s embarrassing, and it&#x92;s hurting the game.&#x94;</p><p>I don&#x92;t have foul trends for all teams this season, but the three teams tied for the Big 12 lead &#x97; Kansas, Oklahoma State and Kansas State &#x97; have been whistled for fewer fouls this year than last: about a half-foul per game less for the Jayhawks, almost two for the Cowboys and about 2&#xBD; for the Wildcats. The improved Pokes are scoring more than last year, KU and K-State less.</p><p>The game&#x92;s low-scoring, physical nature is an unfortunate storyline in an otherwise compelling year with the return to power of Indiana and excellence of the Big Ten, Miami&#x92;s rise in the ACC, the struggles of powers like Kentucky and North Carolina. The list of teams that can make a Final Four case seems as long as any in recent years.</p><p>But watching some of the games can be dreadful. When bad offense and physical play turn basketball into a sloppy slugfest, and 19-point scoring halves become all too common, and drives to the basket wind up in hard contact and no call, the game suffers.