No fight this time from Marquette, Richmond

When the North Carolina-Marquette Sweet 16 game mercifully hit halftime, studio analyst Greg Anthony summed up Marquette's performance perfectly: "You cannot play the game of basketball worse than they played the first half."

The Golden Eagles were down 40-15 and were probably less competitive than the score indicated. But Anthony's quote could have been attributed to the other regional semifinal, which was equally as ugly.

Richmond was pounded 41-22 in the first half by Kansas and didn't hit double digits until there was 6 minutes and 20 seconds remaining in the first half.

Fellow studio analyst Charles Barkley stayed quiet as Anthony chastised Marquette's play so he could comply with Turner/CBS' positivity mandate, which basically tells the analysts not to be too critical of the college athletes. But there was no doubt he was thinking the same thing.

While both Kansas and North Carolina were favored in their respective games, their opponents failed to live up to the expectations that had been set by the first weekend of play and even the first collection of Sweet 16 games Thursday night. With the exception of a few games, most of the underdogs have come out scrappy against their higher-seeded opponent and that's what got Marquette and Richmond to the Sweet 16 in the first place.

"You know, we just got down and it was a big lead and we fought and fought and fought in the second half and tried to cut it down as much as possible, but we dug ourselves a hole," Marquette guard Darius Johnson-Odom said.

But somehow those teams that fought their way into the Sweet 16 forgot to show up in the first half. North Carolina and Kansas to put Marquette and Richmond in such a deep deficit that even when they started to play better in the second half, it was impossible to make up the difference.

Now, credit Marquette and Richmond for not giving up. Both teams could have easily caved and let the game get more out of hand than it already was. But the Golden Eagles and the Spiders showed that fighter's spirit that has gotten them through most of the tournament.

Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. Marquette still lost 81-63, its worst loss since Louisville defeated it in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament. Richmond's 77-57 loss was the Spiders worst loss since losing by 20 to Temple back on Feb. 17.

It's unfortunate that Kansas and North Carolina actually faced more spirited competition in their first two games and even more unfortunate for fans who had become spoiled by the rousing down-to-the-wire action that has defined this year's NCAA tournament.

"We just let them dictate the tempo tonight and I think that's what it was," Richmond guard Kevin Anderson said. "They came out real aggressive on us, and we let them stay aggressive and never dictated the tempo."

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Following pregame tunnel altercation, Kansas punishes Richmond

In hindsight, Richmond should have probably let it go right away.

On the other side, Kansas should have probably waited a little longer.

Before taking the floor Friday night in San Antonio, the Spiders huddled in the tunnel as part of their pregame ritual. Meanwhile, the top-seeded Jayhawks attempted to exit the tunnel by squeezing around them on both sides.

In the middle of it, with the bodies getting a bit close, and just like that, the shouting and shoving began.

Pinning fault squarely on one side is a bit tough. It certainly appeared that Richmond was the first side to resort to shoving, but the conspiracy theorist might argue that Kansas ran out prematurely with the goal of getting into the Spiders' heads.

Kansas technically got the mind games started on Thursday, when players from both sides crossed paths in the Alamodome between practices and media sessions. During a brief exchange, Marcus Morris coldly said "You boys better be ready."

After Richmond's Kevin Anderson and Kansas's Brady Morningstar both deflected questions in the postgame press conferences about the spat, KU coach Bill Self tried to shoot down the notion that bad blood was ever even there.

"That's not true," he began. "Our media made a big deal out of nothing yesterday. But that's not true, at all. Today what happened was that, you know, I don't know if you guys know this, but both teams walk down the same hallway. So both teams came out at the same time to go on the court. So, typical stuff, but it wasn't anything. And I didn't think there was any trash talking at all."

Uh, right.

Judging by the Jayhawks' reactions during the mini-altercation on Friday, the favorite to emerge from the Southwest regional clearly hadn't lost any of that edge.

After trailing 5-4 in the early moments, KU ripped off a 27-4 run, essentially burying Richmond by the time the game was 14 minutes old. The Jayhawks led by 19 at the half, and the only drama that remained was waiting to see if TBS would unearth video of the pregame incident.

In a halftime interview with Craig Sager, KU coach Bill Self said he'd made his players wait to exit the floor for the locker room until Richmond's players had cleared the tunnel, leading viewers to assume he was trying to avoid another dust-up.

Coincidentally, the footage was finally shown three minutes into the second half as Anderson was shooting a pair of technical free throws, after Morningstar was whistled for unsportsmanlike behavior upon drilling his third 3-pointer of the game.

He hit the shot, then the refs took control, as Kansas was still yapping excessively, even with a comfortable double-digit lead. It was the final moment of even moderate intrigue in a 77-57 rout.

After the bracket crumbled around Kansas in the first weekend — No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 3 Purdue, No. 4 Louisville and No. 5 Vanderbilt all got axed early — Self's club, in turn, likely faced more pressure than any regional favorite entering the Sweet Sixteen. The Southwest was the only region without three of its top four seeds remaining in the second weekend.

The Jayhawks took that pressure and, after the Spiders threw some excess gas on the flames, responded in the right way.

KU out-rebounded Richmond 40-33, held the Spiders to 22-of-65 shooting and 4-of-26 accuracy from long range. They also forced 11 Richmond turnovers, converting most of them into easy buckets. Chris Mooney's Princeton-style offense was rendered completely ineffective in the first half, as KU clogged lanes, dominated the glass and forced an up-and-down, hurried pace right from jump.

The Morris twins only had to combine for 18 points and 13 rebounds in the effort. Backup forward Thomas Robinson had 12 and 14, respectively, while Morningstar poured in 18 points off of 7-of-11 shooting. The Jayhawks had assists on 22 of their 30 field goals — including 10 from erratic junior Tyshawn Taylor — and only committed nine turnovers.

It was clean and dominant, and you can argue that a good portion of it was provoked by Richmond.

If that edge carries over into Sunday for Kansas, a trip to Houston will be all but a certainty.

Ryan Greene also covers UNLV and the Mountain West Conference for the Las Vegas Sun. Read his Rebels coverage and follow him on Twitter.

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