For several days, the Jayhawks head coach suspected that 6-foot-11 All-Americans don't grow on trees. Last night's 76-65 loss to an unheralded University of Hawaii team in the Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic final strengthened that belief.

Not that Williams is using LaFrentz's broken finger as an excuse for No. 2 Kansas' first regular-season nonconference road defeat since Dec. 17, 1994 -- vs. Indiana -- a span of 113 games. Far from it.

But it could take some time for the Jayhawks to find themselves -- and the missing 21 points and 11 rebounds LaFrentz averaged before his injury.

"The period of adjustment for us should have ended three nights ago because we're playing games whether we have him or not," Williams said. "We can't keep looking over to the side and saying, 'Well if we had Raef, if we had Raef, if we had Raef.'

"We don't have him. And the guys we do have in there have to be willing to step up and be players for us. And if they're not, then we have to find somebody who can. And if that doesn't happen, then we're going to struggle."

The Jayhawks struggled down low for most of the evening. Hawaii power forward Eric Ambrozich finished with 18 points and nine rebounds. He generally outplayed Kansas postmen Lester Earl and Eric Chenowith.

Earl grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds, but was only 3-for-9 from the field. The 7-foot Chenowith, who broke LaFrentz's finger Friday in practice, was 2-for-8. He finished with only six points and six rebounds.

"They played zone and we became too content passing it around the perimeter," Williams said. "We had no inside game whatsoever. I've got to do a better job with Eric and Lester. I think we scored five baskets from our starting four and five men (Earl and Chenowith) on 17 attempts.

"Then that made us even more tentative. Now we're starting to shoot 3-point attempts all the time. There was nothing we did on the offensive end of the floor that was very effective for us."

Much like in the Ohio State game, Paul Pierce and Billy Thomas did the bulk of the scoring. Pierce finished with 22 points and nine rebounds. Thomas, who was only 4-for-14 on 3-pointers, had 14 points. He and Pierce were named to the all-tournament team.

"They did a good job defending us with that zone and creating steals out of it," Thomas said. "I still had some good looks, I just wasn't dropping the shots as well as I did in the first two games."

Pierce also struggled somewhat. He was 8-for-17 with two 3-pointers, but both came after the game had been decided. Unlike in the semifinal win over Vanderbilt, Pierce didn't play large enough to make up for the loss of LaFrentz.

"We didn't go down low often enough and we couldn't make enough of our outside shots to make up the difference," Pierce said. "We can't worry about not having Raef with us. That's behind us now.

"We have to focus our efforts and play even better until he is able to come back. I'm not thinking about it because it doesn't do any good."

The Jayhawks also were without starting forward T.J. Pugh, who went down six games ago with a stress fracture. He will be X-rayed Monday to determine how much longer he'll be out.

"When you don't have the two guys who won the starting post spots in the beginning of the season, you know it's going to be a problem for you," Williams said. "But it's part of the game.

"I don't know when we will get him (Pugh) back. When we get back, they'll take the boot off and X-ray it again and see how the healing process goes. They'll make a decision at that time."

Until then, life goes on. Williams can only hope his team responds better on the road in the upcoming Big 12 Conference campaign.

"I really thought we would be fired up and enthused to play in front of this crowd," Williams said. "And that we would be very focused. But we weren't. And that could be troubling later on down the road."