OKLAHOMA CITY ? Tommy Smith could barely catch the numbers of those Kansas University speedsters.
“They’d catch the ball and be gone,” said Smith, a 6-foot-10 Arizona State senior. “We’d take a step, and it looked like they were at halfcourt.”
Kansas ran virtually at will in crushing the Sun Devils, 108-72, in an NCAA West Regional second-round game Saturday night at the Ford Center.
“One of our keys to victory was to stop their transition game,” Smith said, “and we didn’t do a good job of that.”
Arizona State, the region’s No. 10 seed, started slowly, missing 12 of its first 15 shots and made only one real run. Late in the first half, the Sun Devils had an opportunity to cut a deficit that had grown to as many as 22 points to 10, but two fouls and a turnover ruined the chance.
“Once they had the lead on us and we didn’t cut it to 10 points right before the half when we could,” ASU coach Rob Evans said, “it kind of demoralized us.”
Then when Kansas shot 76 percent in the second half — including a stretch of 14 straight baskets without a miss — the Sun Devils’ attitude remained sullen. KU finished with an astonishing 67.8 field-goal percentage.
“They were getting layups, and my teams don’t usually give up layups,” Evans said. “Kansas is a good shooting team, but the shot chart shows a lot of points were in the paint.”
Almost half of the Jayhawks’ points — 56 — were in the paint.
Arizona State was only a shadow of the team that stunned No. 7-seeded Memphis, 84-71, in Thursday’s first round.
“Against Memphis, we took the fight to them,” Smith said. “Kansas took the fight to us and got us in a hole.”
Ike Diogu, the Pac-10 Conference freshman of the year and the Sun Devils’ leading scorer and rebounder, settled for 13 points and seven boards.
Asked if KU’s Jeff Graves had done anything in particular to slow him, Diogu replied: “He guarded me like everybody else has guarded me.”
Nevertheless, Diogu wasn’t even the Sun Devils’ leading scorer. Guard Jason Braxton came off the bench to score 17 points. Diogu and Smith had 13. No other ASU player was in double figures.
“They were taking advantage of every mistake we made,” Evans said. “We didn’t play as well as we have been playing, but a lot of that was due to Kansas. They were the aggressor and they were the best team.”
Arizona State wound up with a 20-12 record.
“It’s a pretty tough feeling right now,” senior guard Kyle Dodd said. “It’s not the way we wanted to go out.”
