Richmond tops Morehead St., gains Sweet 16

DENVER -- There were no emotional outbursts when it was all said and done. Instead, the Richmond players exited the court in the same businesslike manner with which they had entered it.

Victory was a foregone conclusion long before the final buzzer sounded, and the 12th-seeded Spiders' 65-48 win over No. 13 seed Morehead State Saturday night was just the next step in their quest to go deep in the NCAA Tournament. "We're in this tournament to win it all," guard Kevin Anderson said.

Led by Justin Harper's 19 points, the Spiders (29-7) did what Rick Pitino's Louisville team could not, beating the Eagles (25-10) in the Southwest Regional to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1988.

Their plan had been simple: Double-team Kenneth Faried every time he touched the ball and force him to work.

"He's such a beast on the glass, just a force down low," said Harper, who, like Faried, could have a future in the NBA. "We just tried to do our best to make it hard for him and not give him any easy looks early."

The strategy was flawless. Despite finishing with 11 points (surpassing the 2,000 mark) and grabbing 13 rebounds for the 86th double-double of his career, the Newark product struggled to get into an offensive rhythm.

"They really didn't do anything to me that I haven't seen," said Faried, who finished his career with 1,673 rebounds. (He has the most rebounds of any player since 1973, when the NCAA began allowing freshmen to play.)

"But it was kind of frustrating at times. Where you thought they were switching, guys just wouldn't switch . . . I was kind of staggering with my offense. The whole team, we couldn't get in a rhythm."

"It's kind of a sagging man-to-man, and sometimes it's a matchup zone," Eagles coach Donnie Tyndall said. "It's very complicated to really run any set offense against it."

But the loss didn't diminish the strides that Morehead State has made under Tyndall.

"If you would have said we've done what we've done in five years, no one would have believed you," said the coach, who took over the program in 2006 after a four-win season.

Said Faried: "This means a lot for us as a team, as a program. But it means a lot more for the fans.''