Down a bucket in the final three minutes.

On the road against a quality opponent

Best player fouled out.

Those are the undeniable ingredients of an upset. The things that make great teams sometimes lose to good teams. Which is why Kansas should be applauded for escaping Texas Tech Saturday with the slimmest of victories.

Final score: Kansas 80, Texas Tech 79.

Here are three takeaways from the back-and-forth affair:

1. Josh Jackson was awesome

One of the reasons Kansas is a smart pick to win the national championship is because the Jayhawks have two legitimate All-American candidates and go-to players. One is Frank Mason, of course. But Mason fouled out Saturday, at which point Jackson became the focus of everything. When KU was in a timeout, score tied, final seconds, Bill Self designed a play that asked Landen Lucas to set a screen to free Jackson. As instructed, Lucas set the screen, Jackson popped free, got the ball in isolation, drove and got fouled. The projected top-five pick of the 2017 NBA Draft, who is just a 54-percent free throw shooter, then missed the first free throw but made the second with 2.8 seconds remaining.

Here it is:

And that, as they say, was that. Kansas left the court at Texas Tech winners and remained alone atop the Big 12 standings. Jackson finished with a career-high 31 points on 15 shots. He also had 11 rebounds and four assists.

2. Frank Mason's rough outing didn't cost KU

Mason didn't merely foul out; he was also mostly bad in the 26 minutes he played. The leading candidate for National Player of the Year took 13 shots, made only four and finished with 12 points, five rebounds and zero assists. But it didn't matter because one of Self's luxuries is that he has another high-level point guard in Devonte Graham, and Graham guided KU's offense in the final minutes while finishing with six assists. Bottom line, some teams need certain players to be good to avoid losses. But Kansas is not one of those teams.

3. Poor Texas Tech

The Red Raiders are top-45 at KenPom. So they are absolutely a quality team -- one that owns a win over West Virginia. But the record doesn't show it because they've lost so many close games. Seven of their nine losses are single-digit losses. Three are one-possession losses. The past four losses have come by a total of 10 points.

Brutal.

Just brutal.

Regardless, I think, Texas Tech fans can feel good about the future of their program. Tubby Smith left Chris Beard a good team, and Beard has done a good job with it. You can't tell from the win-loss record. But Big 12 coaches know that a trip to Lubbock this season is far from an automatic win.