PITTSBURGH – It had been a while since Syracuse played like the team that spent all season ranked in the top five.

In the second half Saturday, the top-seeded Orange looked like that group and maybe even better, pulling away to a 75-59 victory over eighth-seeded Kansas State in the third round of the East Regional.

“The second half, we made shots. We haven’t done that lately,” Orange coach Jim Boeheim said. “Our offense was not good in the first half. We had to pick it up on the offensive end. Our defense was very good the first half. We got killed on the boards. … Second half we did a much better job on the boards.”

Scoop Jardine had 16 points and eight assists, Dion Waiters had 18 points and James Southerland added 15 for the Orange (33-2), who didn’t wait until the final minutes to seal the win as they did in the second round against 16th-seeded North Carolina-Asheville.

“I think we picked it up on both ends of the floor. Especially on the defensive end, we got what we wanted. We were able to get transition baskets,” said Kris Joseph, who had 11 points. “There was a lot of space on the offensive end. We got open shots, open looks; we knocked `em down. This is the way I like us to play. Everyone was involved. The scoring balance – it was really balanced tonight. That’s how we’re supposed to play.”

They hadn’t looked that way lately, even in their wins.

Syracuse scored fewer than 70 points – it averages 74.5 – in five of the last seven games. The Orange shot better than 46.5 percent from the field – their mark for the season – only once, and the stretch included 3-point performances of 1 for 15, 5 for 20 and 3 for 14. Against UNC-Asheville, they shot 44.6 percent overall and 5 for 23 on 3s, and that included making one of their first 13.

“We won. We won the game. It don’t matter,” Jardine said. “It don’t matter if we played good or bad. We won and advanced. That’s what this tournament’s about. We saw a lot of upsets. A No. 2 lost to a No.15 seed. That’s what this tournament is about. We don’t worry about how we’re playing; we just worry about getting the `W.’ We’re advancing to the Sweet 16. That’s all that matters when we get there, too.”

Syracuse plays Vanderbilt or Wisconsin in Boston on Thursday night in the regional semifinals.

Rodney McGruder had 15 points for the Wildcats (22-11), who struggled from the field against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone defense.

Neither team had its leading rebounder. Syracuse’s 7-foot Fab Melo, the Big East Defensive Player of the Year, was declared ineligible by the school for the rest of the tournament earlier in the week. About 20 minutes before the start of this game, Kansas State announced that Jamar Samuels would be held out over an eligibility issue.

“It was tough playing without him, especially one of our seniors. He’s one of the main leaders of the team,” McGruder said. “It was just tough, you know. It’s tough that he would never get to play another game in a Kansas State uniform. He missed his last game.”

Among those in the crowd at Consol Energy Center was Vice President Joe Biden, who went to law school at Syracuse.

This is Syracuse’s 17th appearance overall and third time in four years in the round of 16. The Orange, who had already set a school record for wins in a season, were ranked No. 1 for six weeks.

Southerland was 5 of 6 from the field in the second half, and Jardine and Waiters were both 5 of 9.

“It’s all a rhythm thing. James got in a rhythm; Scoop in the second half got in a rhythm. That’s what we want to see,” Joseph said. “We don’t want to take contested shots. We want easy, open shots. That’s what we got.”

With Waiters going 7 of 7 and Joseph 7 of 8, the Orange finished 23 of 29 from the free throw line, while the Wildcats were 13 of 19.

Rakeem Christmas, who moved into Melo’s spot in the starting lineup, had eight points and 11 rebounds for Syracuse, which shot 66.7 percent in the second half, including making all five of its attempts from behind the 3-point line.

Boeheim, whose 889 wins rank third on the Division I list behind Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight, earned his 47th NCAA tournament victory, tied with John Wooden for fifth place.

Jordan Henriquez had 14 points and 17 rebounds for Kansas State, which dominated the rebounding throughout, finishing with a 41-32 advantage. Henriquez had 11 of the Wildcats’ 25 offensive rebounds, but they were able to turn them into only 20 second-chance points.

Henriquez had trouble defensively and had to sit for 4 minutes in the second half because of foul trouble.

“They dragged me away from the rim,” he said. “ When I did contest, they usually got into my body, hit me with a pump fake, drew a couple fouls on me early in the second half.”

– Associated Press –

OMAHA, Neb. – Kansas coach Bill Self hardly broached the topic of fellow No. 2 seed Missouri’s upset loss to Norfolk State on Friday. He figured there was no need – his players already knew.

He made sure to mention another No. 2 seed, Duke, also went down.

“The Duke game was going on and there was 5 seconds left or 20 seconds left when I finished doing my pregame,” Self said. “I told them then, `Hey, Duke’s getting ready to get beat, too.”’

It served as a warning to the Jayhawks.

They most certainly heeded it.

Thomas Robinson bullied his way for 16 points and 13 rebounds, and the second-seeded Jayhawks rolled to a 65-50 victory over Detroit in the second round of the Midwest Regional.

“I didn’t make a point of it because sometimes you make a point, it could add pressure, saying it’s possible. But I did say, `Hey, the one thing is we have to make sure Detroit doesn’t play well,” Self said of the earlier upsets. “When teams get comfortable anything can happen.”

After the first 15 minutes, Detroit never looked comfortable.

Doug Anderson led the Horizon League-champion Titans with 15 points before fouling out with 11:06 left. Ray McCallum, the son of the Detroit coach, added eight points on 4-for-15 shooting.

“I’m really proud of my guys,” said Detroit coach Ray McCallum. “We played one of the truly great teams in the country tonight, and that really, pretty much tells the story.”

Elijah Johnson added 15 points and Tyshawn Taylor had 10 for the Jayhawks (28-6), despite spending much of the second half in the locker room with cramps. Self said that Taylor received IV fluids during the game and should be 100 percent for Sunday night’s game against Purdue.

Kansas toyed with the Titans (22-14) early on before ramping up the defense, eventually holding them to 32 percent shooting and 3 for 17 from beyond the arc.

“They do a good job of not letting you get in the paint. That’s one of the strengths of my game,” the younger McCallum said. “I felt like I got good looks. It was just one of those games.”

McCallum said he watched Norfolk State’s win over Missouri on the same floor in Omaha earlier in the day. He also knew that Lehigh had upset the Blue Devils.

Kansas restored some order on one of the maddest days of March Madness.

The Jayhawks used a 13-2 run late in the first half to seize control and opened the second half with a 16-4 charge that allowed them to coast the rest of the way.

“I think Missouri grabbed our attention more than anything. We were sitting there watching the game chilling at the hotel. We were definitely shocked and surprised,” Taylor said.

This is the third time that Kansas has opened an NCAA tournament in Nebraska, and both times before it was the start of a title run. The Jayhawks played their opening games in Lincoln in 1988 and Omaha in 2008, when they won their most recent national championship.

They certainly looked like title contenders against Detroit.

After a basket by McCallum and a steal that turned into a soaring reverse dunk by Anderson, the Titans had managed to pull ahead 21-19 with 9 minutes left in the first half.

It wound up being their high point of their night.

Robinson answered with a dunk of his own – he had four dunks en route to 12 first-half points – to start a 13-2 run by Kansas. Robinson added another dunk a couple minutes later, and his basket with 2:22 remaining in the half made it 32-23.

The Jayhawks managed to build their advantage using some creative lineups.

Johnson sat all but eight minutes of the first half, and 7-footer Jeff Withey and fellow starter Travis Releford also sat long stretches, while seldom-used guard Naadir Tharpe was given the most minutes he’d played in a game since mid-February.

Self went back to his starters in the second half, but the Jayhawks didn’t slow down.

Johnson drove to the rim for a basket, and after Anderson answered for Detroit, Robinson got loose for a bunny, Withey went to the foul line and Johnson’s open 3 made it 42-26.

Detroit coach Ray McCallum had no choice but to call timeout.

It didn’t do much good.

The 3-pointers started falling for Kansas in short order: Releford unloaded one for his first points of the game, Johnson hit his third, and Teahan let one go in transition from just in front of the Kansas bench, making it 53-28 with just over 13 minutes remaining

Many in the arena cleared out in the closing minutes as Detroit played out its season.

The Titans were making their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1999, when they beat UCLA as a No. 12 seed, but the regular-season Big 12 champions made sure it was a short stay.

“We went through a 20-minute stretch I thought we played really, really well,” Self said. “I’m happy with our guys. It was a good win, especially on a crazy day in the tournament.”

– Associated Press –