No. 1 Kansas overwhelms Richmond

SAN ANTONIO -- Ramping up for perhaps the biggest game in school history, 12th-seeded Richmond huddled in the tunnel. That's when the Kansas players came trotting past and the trouble started.

Shoves were traded. Words were exchanged. Security appeared. It ended quickly without a fight, and the Jayhawks went on their way. And the game itself wasn't much different.

Brady Morningstar scored 18 points and Kansas, playing like the dominant No. 1 seed in a historic NCAA regional full of underdogs, knocked off Richmond, 77-57, on Friday night to move one victory from returning to the Final Four for the first time since its 2008 championship.

"We were trying to get past, and they were shoving us," Kansas guard Mario Little said of the pregame encounter. "But we tried to let our play do the talking, and I think we did a good job in the first half."

The Spiders passed up open shots, bounced balls into the Kansas bench and found themselves down 31-9 with more than six minutes left before halftime.

The Spiders looked jittery in the school's second round-of-16 appearance. The Jayhawks, meanwhile, were calm and confident in reaching a fourth regional final under coach Bill Self.

"We weren't able to slow them down in any way," Spiders coach Chris Mooney said. Justin Harper had 22 for Richmond.

"We didn't really play that well tonight, so finishing like that is tough," Richmond center Dan Geriot said. "There was a lot left in there for us to have competed a little better."

Thomas Robinson had 12 points and 14 rebounds and Marcus Morris scored 13 for Kansas. The Jayhawks have yet to be tested in this tournament, winning by an average of nearly 18 points.

The Southwest Regional is the first in NCAA history with three double-digit-seeded teams. Kansas will play 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth, which beat 10th-seeded Florida State in overtime, 72-71.

It's given the Jayhawks what appears -- at least on paper -- to be an easy-looking path toward the Final Four. The Jayhawks can make it to Houston next week without having beaten a seed higher than ninth-seeded Illinois.

If that happens, Kansas will join Michigan State in 2001 and North Carolina in 1991 as the only schools to get that far without having to beat a seed higher than nine. And only five teams have reached the Final Four by feasting on teams seeded eighth or lower, according to STATS LLC. One of those schools? The 2008 Jayhawks.

That run ended in the Alamodome, with Self winning his first title at Kansas. Three years later, the Jayhawks looked every bit at home in San Antonio.

Self downplayed the pregame tunnel dustup as "typical stuff, but it wasn't anything." Spiders guard Kevin Anderson, who had 14 points, said both teams were just eager to play and chalked it up to the usual aggression.

Still, Self waited for Richmond to exit through the tunnel at halftime before letting his players walk down the same tunnel toward the locker room. Kansas led 41-22.

The Jayhawks shot 48 percent from the floor and made 9 of 19 three-pointers. Morningstar was 7-for-11 from the floor, including four three-pointers.