VERY BIG EASY: Kansas routs Marquette to reach final

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Apr 6, 2003 by Ric Anderson Capital-Journal

KANSAS 94, MARQUETTE 61

By Ric Anderson

The Capital-Journal

NEW ORLEANS --- Call it voodoo, call it black magic, call it whatever you want, but Kansas had it on Saturday in the national semifinal.

How else do you explain the Jayhawks' 94-61 rout of Marquette? How do you explain a team taking a 43-point lead on an opponent that ended Kentucky's 26-game winning streak in the Midwest Regional final?

How do you explain why a team with suspect depth and with former starter Wayne Simien on the bench recovering from shoulder surgery made such fools out of an opponent that was ranked No. 9 in the last Top 25 poll?

Shoot, KU guard Keith Langford was on the Louisiana Superdome floor for most of the night, and even he was left shaking his head.

"Nobody expects to come out in a national semifinal game and have that happen," Langford said after scoring a game-high 23 points. "I can't really explain it. I think we came out and attacked early, really got to the basket and might have had them on their heels a little bit."

A little bit? In a city bursting with tarot readers and voodoo dolls, the Golden Eagles got zombified. They suffered the fourth- worst defeat in Final Four history --- the biggest blowout is 36 points --- and could easily have set the record had coach Roy Williams not begun pulling his starters with 6:16 left.

"Kansas, it was their night," Marquette All-American guard Dwyane Wade said. "It wasn't Marquette University's night."

For about six minutes, Wade and his teammates looked like they actually belonged in New Orleans. The Golden Eagles hustled back on defense like their shorts were on fire, handcuffing KU's transition game and scrapping out of a 5-0 deficit to forge a tie at 12 with 13:57 left.

Then it was like somebody dumped out their water coolers and refilled them with a local drink known as the Hand Grenade, an unholy combination of watermelon-flavored punch and grain alcohol.

You could probably run your lawn mower on the stuff, but it doesn't work for a basketball team.

At least not Marquette, which became inexplicably sluggish on defense and started giving up transition buckets like strands of five- for-a-buck Mardi Gras beads.

"We were paralyzed a few times with our standing around and not getting back," Marquette coach Tom Crean said.

When Langford pounded home a breakaway stuff with 7:01 left to put the icing on a 27-6 run, all that was left to do was start plying Marquette fans for cut-rate tickets to Monday's game.

Because then, things got completely silly. The Jayhawks ended the half on a 13-2 run. They started the second with a 14-2 spurt.

"I would never have believed that," KU All-American Nick Collison said. "Not only from the fact that it's the Final Four, but also that Marquette played so well in their other games. I thought that even if we played well, it was going to be a dogfight."

It wasn't, of course, largely because hardly anybody in an Eagles uniform was having the kind of out-of-body experience that so many Jayhawks were enjoying.

Wade wasn't embarrassing by any means. He led Marquette with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting and showed enough moves and creativity to justify his All-America status.

But with the exception of 6-foot-10 forward Robert Jackson, Wade had practically nobody around him. Wade and Jackson, for instance, combined for 8-of-18 shooting in the first half. The rest of the team? Uh, 3 of 25.

Everywhere, KU players simply killed their counterparts.

Point guard Travis Diener, who entered as the Eagles' third- leading scorer, went 1-of-11 from the floor. Aaron Miles scorched the nets for 18 points on 7-of-12 accuracy.

Steve Novak, a reserve 3-point specialist for Marquette, went 0 for 5 from beyond the arc. KU's Michael Lee hit all three of his shots.

"Today, we were really able to play our game, which is to push it up the floor real fast," Lee said. "And I think Marquette had no answer for our transition game."

The Jayhawks will meet Syracuse, a 95-84 winner over Texas in the evening's second semifinal, at 8:18 Monday night.

That's when Langford would like to make real magic.

"I haven't lost focus," Langford said. "Believe me, I'm not going to be in awe of the situation."

Ric Anderson can be reached at (913) 796-6352 or randerson@cjonline.com.

See JAYHAWKS, page 12C

Jayhawks: 'I would never have believed that'