Oklahoma City — They got tossed into a mosh pit. They got pulled into a mud-wrestling match. They got trapped in a steel cage, where even the smallest advance was treacherous.

No. 2 Kansas features a slew of sinewy athletes who prefer the wide-open spaces where they can skitter and sky and slice up opponents like a scythe. Yet the Jayhawks were rarely able to do that Friday against Oklahoma in a Big 12 tournament quarterfinal. They instead found themselves bound to earth.

Their most versatile player and leading rebounder, Julian Wright, was saddled with foul trouble. Their most dynamic performer and leading scorer, sophomore forward Brandon Rush, was sitting on three points. Their fast break was shut down, their offense was stagnant and they led the Sooners by only two at halftime.

"But one thing we have done a good job of in recent times is forget about our bad play and move forward to the next play, so to speak, or the next half," coach Bill Self said.

"The way our team is built, we can play poorly for a while, but we're a good spurt team. So if we can just keep grinding and grinding and grinding, you can go on a 12-2 run or something and all of a sudden the other team's chasing you."

Last March, when they won this tournament, the Jayhawks were also a good spurt team. But many of them were freshmen and knew little about dirty work or dirty fingernails.

Now they're older, more experienced and better able to adjust their ways, and that is a major reason they are among the favorites to win the national championship next month in Atlanta.

To ascend to that level, to even reach the Final Four, they surely will be forced to survive games like the grinder they faced against the Sooners. They will be asked to get themselves bloody and to win a brawl that is not to their liking.

But that's exactly what they proved themselves capable of doing with a second-half performance that was simply dominating. Kansas (29-4) delivered a 64-47 victory over Oklahoma, which was thoroughly undone by the part of the game synonymous with blue-collar work.

The Jayhawks' active, aggressive, ever-attacking defense energized them, breaking open the game and sending them on to a 67-61 semifinal victory Saturday against Kansas State.

Consider. The Sooners missed their first five shots of the second half and failed to score their first basket until nearly five minutes were gone. They then missed eight more in a row, leaving them 1-for-14 with more than 14 minutes gone, and they did not get their second bucket until just 5:10 remained.

With 3:28 to go and his team up 24, Rush went to the bench for good. He had scored 13 of his 16 points in the second half, the Sooners just 12. For the half Oklahoma shot 20 percent (4-for-20) and 0-for-4 on three-pointers.

"We're a better grind team this year," Self said.

Said Wright: "Last year we were a promising team," Wright said. "This year we think we can take it to another level, and that's what we're doing."