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Updated: Sunday, March 23, 2003 12:20 AM EST
NCAA BASKETBALL RECAP
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(2) Kansas 108, (10) Arizona St 76
ARIZONA ST. SUN DEVILS
Arizona St. Sun Devils
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KANSAS JAYHAWKS
Kansas Jayhawks
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OKLAHOMA CITY (Ticker) -- Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison and Keith Langford made sure there would not be anything scary about the second round.

Led by their three best players, the second-seeded Jayhawks easily advanced to the "Sweet 16" of the West Region with a 108-76 rout of 10th-seeded Arizona State in the second round.

After narrowly defeating 15th-seeded Utah State in the first round, the Jayhawks (27-7) looked like a different team Saturday, never trailing and leading by as many as 39 points as they reached the "Sweet 16" for the third straight season.

"I thought it was sensational," Kansas coach Roy Williams said. "It was the performance we hoped we'd have. We'll enjoy it for the next 24 hours or so, but we want to stay hungry."

Hinrich, who was limited to eight points in the first round, erupted for 24 to lead the Jayhawks, who shot a school-record 67 percent (40-of-59) for an NCAA Tournament game.

"We took great shots tonight," Hinrich said. "We got into our running game and kept going at them. We made things happen, and that's the key to our offense. I felt we had really good preparations for the tournament and this game. We were in it from the start, and we were in control. That was the key."

Collison finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds and Langford added 19 points for Kansas, which will face Duke on Thursday in Anaheim, California.

Collison, Hinrich and Langford combined for 35 points in the opening half, helping the Jayhawks build a 47-31 lead. The Jayhawks shot 60 percent (18-of-30) in the first half.

"We were hoping we could have run our offense better against Utah State, and we did tonight," Langford said. "We just made up our minds that we would be more aggressive and not lay back on the other end. We didn't settle for the outside shots like we did in our first (NCAA) game, and we took it inside the whole night. We also scored a lot of points off our defense, and that was big."

Kansas had its most impressive offensive showing in the tournament since a 110-52 rout of Prairie View in 1998.

Jason Braxton netted 17 points and freshman Ike Diogu and Tommy Smith each had 13 for Arizona State (20-12), which looked nothing like the team that played well in the first round against Memphis.

"Against the Memphis team, we were the aggressor and took the fight to them," Arizona State coach Rob Evans said. "Against Kansas tonight, they came at us and they were the aggressor. We kind of got ourselves in a hole and when you're playing against a good team it's pretty hard to dig yourselves out."

From the start, the Jayhawks exploited the Sun Devils' soft defense. Collison had eight points, including a dunk and two layups as the Jayhawks jumped to a 16-4 lead less than seven minutes into the contest.

Collison finished 9-of-12 from the field for the second straight game. Led by the 6-9 senior, the Jayhawks amassed 56 points in the paint.

The lead ballooned to 27-8 with 10 1/2 minutes left in the opening half on Langford's jumper from the left side. Another jumper by Langford provided a 34-12 cushion with 6:46 left before intermission.

Diogu, the Pac-10 Conference Freshman of the Year who had a big game against Memphis, was one of the few bright spots for the Sun Devils. He had 10 points and five rebounds in the first half, but received little help from his teammates.

"It seemed like in the second half, we just let them take it to us," Diogu said. "(Kansas forward Jeff Graves) just guarded me like nobody else has guarded me."

After getting blitzed at the start, the Sun Devils tried to recover and used a 19-9 run, capped by two foul shots from Kyle Dodd to pull within 43-31 with just over a minute left in the half. But Michael Lee and Aaron Miles made four free throws in the final 51 seconds for the Jayhawks.

Miles also had an effective game, scoring 18 points on 5-of-7 shooting. Lee finished with 10 to lead the Jayhawks' reserves.

About the most interesting thing after halftime was to the precision that the Jayhawks ran their offense with. After missing four of their first five shots, they made 21 of their final 25 attempts from the floor to shot 76 percent (22-of-29) over the final 20 minutes.

Shawn Redhage made a 3-pointer with 15 1/2 minutes left to pull the Sun Devils within 55-41, but the Jayhawks needed less than four minutes to reel off a 20-6 run that all but put away the game. Hinrich fueled the spurt with seven points and Miles had five.

Kansas led by 39 points in the waning moments, the last time at 103-64 on a basket by Lee.


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