Ahem. Bear with me for a second, because admissions like this don’t come easy. The thing is, sports writers have a dirty little secret: We aren’t actually all that smart. At least I’m not.

Going into Monday’s game against Oklahoma, I would have told you that the weight of 51 previous conference championships would sit like a ton of bricks on the young Jayhawks’ shoulders. I would have told you that, knowing Blake Griffin wouldn’t play, Kansas might take a depleted Oklahoma a bit too lightly. I would have told you Oklahoma’s fans might take advantage of Kansas’ young psyches and rattle the Jayhawks into blowing another tight game.

It’s a good thing I don’t know what I’m talking about.

That’s because the one thing I would not have told you — that Kansas would disregard all the possible sources of pressure and just play — is precisely what happened.

And it’s not as if Oklahoma made things easy. Early on, the Sooners held a 22-8 advantage, and it looked as though Kansas might get run out of the Lloyd Noble Center. Frankly, it’s what I would have predicted. The crowd was set firmly against Kansas, as was the omnipresent beast that is momentum.

But Kansas — led by Tyshawn Taylor, of all people — just played. And it played really well. Well enough to take the lead in a matter of minutes, in fact.

Kansas held Oklahoma at arm’s length until halftime, when the Jayhawks led by seven points.

But halftime provided Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel with an opportunity to fire up his troops. Maybe Kansas would come out flat and the Sooners would turn the tide. Again, I half expected that to happen.

And again, I was wrong.

It was Kansas that opened the second half as the best team, stretching its seven-point lead to 20 points.

But with more than 10 minutes to play, things could still have gone wrong. The Jayhawks could have gotten too comfortable with their lead, too complacent with Blake Griffin wearing street clothes.

For a while, it looked like that might happen. Oklahoma, powered by a barrage of threes, came roaring back. The 20-point lead shrunk to three, and the Sooner faithful came back to life.

Maybe the pressure got to them, or perhaps the Jayhawks did get complacent. Either way, it was over. And so close to a good win, Griffin or not.

Sometimes, I love being wrong.

Sherron Collins took the ball and drilled a guarded three from NBA range. The next possession, he did the same thing. Collins and his younger teammates then proceeded to make all the plays necessary to close out the game.

But how did they shrug off all the factors I thought might hurt them?

In his postgame interview on ESPN, Collins gave the answer. As it turned out, he didn’t think too much about Blake Griffin. Nor did he consider adding a 52nd conference championship to Allen Fieldhouse’s rafters. Neither the stage nor the crowd got to him.

Collins and his teammates did what myself and other media members seem consistently unable to grasp — they disregarded everything and just played.

Sometimes, I love being wrong.

— — Edited by Grant Treaster