Tulsa Tulsa/Kansas Kansas Men's College Basketball recap on ESPN

The tall guy was just about everybody in the front court for Kansas (No. 8 ESPN/USA Today, No. 10 AP) against undersized Tulsa on Saturday night. Using their overwhelming size advantage, the Jayhawks got 24 points from 7-foot-1 Eric Chenowith and 21 from 6-9 Drew Gooden and routed the Golden Hurricane 92-69.

"It was three guys 6-7 and shorter guarding me, Eric and (6-9) Nick Collison down low," Gooden said. "You'd be dumb not to take advantage of that."

Collison had 19 points for the Jayhawks (9-1), who led from start to finish to the delight of a capacity crowd of more than 16,000 who braved wintry weather to watch Kansas in its only home game of December.

Chenowith, who also had 14 rebounds, was half a foot taller than Tulsa's biggest starter.

"Eric was really good -- 24 and 14 are big-time numbers," said coach Roy Williams. "I yelled at him once because he took a jump shot on the baseline. If you're 7-1 and the guy guarding you is 6-7, then you shouldn't take jump shots. You can't play dumb."

Tulsa (6-3) tried to offset Kansas' size advantage with a zone defense and plenty of 3-point shooting.

"My biggest concern about the game was their size," said coach Tulsa Buzz Peterson, who played at North Carolina when Williams was an assistant coach there. "Their big guy pretty much had a double-double at the half. We went to zone early which I don't like to do, and then Hinrich started hitting all the 3's and I didn't know what else to do."

Point guard Kirk Hinrich had 15 points and was 5-of-6 from 3-point range.

Collison, who had a career-best 23 points against DePaul earlier in the week, even hit his only 3-pointer of the year, giving the Jayhawks a 68-43 lead with 12:49 to go.

Chenowith, who had only 1 point in a 84-53 loss to Wake Forest nine days earlier, was 7-of-11 from the floor and missed only one of 11 free throws.

"Aside from that one jump shot, he was sensational," said Williams.

Tulsa, forced to fire away from long range most of the game, hit just 39 percent and was outrebounded 43-30.

Dante Swanson had 21 points for the Golden Hurricane while David Shelton, Kevin Johnson, and Greg Harrington had nine apiece.

Chenowith scored five points during an 11-0 run midway through the first half that gave the Jayhawks a 31-15 lead and a budding rout of the defending Western Athletic Conference champions.

But after Gooden's tip-in made it 42-23 a few minutes later, Swanson and Harrington each made two 3-pointers while the Jayhawks could only get a dunk by Chenowith. That cut the lead to 44-35, then Collison made a spinning underhand shot and sank a free throw and ended the half with a tip-in for a 49-35 halftime lead.

"Chenowith will always have good games when guys are not his size," said the 6-6 Shelton. "When you are that big it's easy to turn around and shoot."

ALSO SEE
Men's College Basketball Scoreboard

Tulsa Clubhouse

Kansas Clubhouse

AUDIO/VIDEO
video
Kirk Hinrich throws it up to Nick Collison, who knows how to finish.
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Nick Collison goes underneath for the score and the foul.
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Tulsa's Marcus Hill feeds Charlie Davis in the lane for a hoop and a trip to the free-throw line.
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Nick Collison makes a nice touch pass to Drew Gooden for the Kansas hoop.
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