Currently: - Game info: 9:50 pm EST Thu Mar 27, 2003
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA (TICKER) —Second-seeded Kansas tries to get coach Roy Williams over a huge hump on Thursday when it meets No. 3 Duke in a West Region semifinal in a matchup of programs that have combined for five national championships.
While Williams has won 415 games in his career, he is 0-3 against Duke and coach Mike Krzyzewski. Kansas last beat Duke on April 2, 1988 under coach Larry Brown en route to its second national title. Williams took over in the 1988-89 season.
The two schools have met four times in the NCAA Tournament and the Blue Devils have won three matchups. Duke won the last one with a 69-64 triumph in the second round of the East Region on March 19, 2000.
The Blue Devils lead the series, 6-1.
Williams, a former North Carolina assistant, has plenty of knowledge about the Duke program.
“The way they’ve done it, with true student-athletes,” Williams said. “They’re awfully difficult to recruit against, I can tell you that, because we haven’t had very much success recruiting against them. Nick Collison’s the only player we’ve ever gotten that they wanted. They’ve gotten a lot of other ones that we wanted. It’s been very difficult to recruit against them.”
Kansas (27-7) played perhaps its best game of the season in Saturday’s 108-76 rout of Arizona State. Kirk Hinrich scored 24 points and Nick Collison added 22 for the Jayhawks, who shot a season-high 68 percent, which is a school record.
Collison has played well to this point and is shooting 75 percent (18-of-24) in the two games. Keith Langford scored 41 points in the first two games.
Duke (26-6) survived a tough matchup with Colorado State in the first round before Dahntay Jones scored a career-high 28 points in an 86-60 rout of Central Michigan in the second round. Freshman J.J. Redick netted 26 points and made five 3-pointers for the Blue Devils, who forced 40 turnovers in the first two games.
Krzyzewski appears to be most concerned about Collison’s effect on this ballgame.
“Collison’s completely different than those two big kids,” Krzyzewski said. “Collison is a very versatile player. He can go outside and inside, he plays at the high post. Because he’s involved in screening opportunities for his teammates, you don’t know where to find him all the time.”
Krzyzewski is 10-3 all-time in regional semifinals.
The winner will meet Arizona or Notre Dame in Saturday’s regional final.