Kansas rolls, readies for Ohio State
IT IS TEST TIME for No. 9 Kansas. Jeff Withey had 17 points and 13 rebounds, Ben McLemore added 14 points and the Jayhawks tuned up for a big weekend matchup at No. 7 Ohio State by romping over visiting Richmond, 87-59, on Tuesday night.
IT IS TEST TIME for No. 9 Kansas.
Jeff Withey had 17 points and 13 rebounds, Ben McLemore added 14 points and the Jayhawks tuned up for a big weekend matchup at No. 7 Ohio State by romping over visiting Richmond, 87-59, on Tuesday night.
Travis Releford and Naadir Tharpe each added 11 points, and Elijah Johnson had seven assists for the Jayhawks (9-1), who will ride an eight-game win streak into Saturday's rematch of last year's national semifinal, won by Kansas.
"Now we'll find out how good we are," said Kansas coach Bill Self, whose team has romped to eight straight victories since losing to Michigan State at Atlanta's Georgia Dome on Nov. 13. "Let's be serious: The season starts Saturday. Now, we can go up there and hopefully take a real enthusiastic team up there, hunker down, see how tough we are and find out a lot about ourselves."
The Jayhawks used an 18-0 first-half run to bury the Spiders, allowing them to push their home winning streak to 28 games.
Derrick Williams had 14 points for the Spiders (9-3), who had been 7-3 in their last 10 games against ranked opponents.
Richmond appeared stunned by the boisterous Allen Fieldhouse crowd of 16,300 in the opening minutes, allowing the Jayhawks to get out to a quick lead. The Spiders' three-point shooting allowed them to crawl within 15-11 with 11 1/2 minutes left before everything suddenly went cold.
The Jayhawks led, 39-18, at halftime and were merely in it for style points in the second half, at one point putting together another 18-2 run that made it 73-35 with 5:21 left. Kansas went through the motions down the stretch.
In other games *
At Ohio State, Deshaun Thomas scored 21 points - missing nine straight shots at one point and making five in a row at another - to lead the No. 7 Buckeyes (9-1) past Winthrop, 65-55. Derrick Henry had 12 points to lead the Eagles (4-5).
* At Arizona, Mark Lyons scored 17 points and the No. 4 Wildcats (9-0) beat Oral Roberts, 89-64. The Golden Eagles (5-5) were led by Warren Niles' 22 points.
* At Bowling Green, Gary Harris and Denzel Valentine scored 12 points apiece to lead No. 20 Michigan State (10-2), 64-53 over the Falcons (5-5), who were led by Chauncey Orr's 16 points.
* At San Diego State, Xavier Thames scored 17 points and Chase Tapley added 15 as the No. 18 Aztecs (9-1) defeated Point Loma Nazarene, 76-49.
* At North Carolina State, Lorenzo Brown's 24 points lifted the No. 25 Wolfpack (8-2) over Stanford, 88-79. The Cardinal (7-4) was led by Dwight Powell's 23 points.