By DAVE SKRETTA Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, MO. – Top-seeded Kansas was on the ropes, turning the ball over about as often as it was putting up shots, and had allowed North Carolina to build a comfortable lead by halftime.
Bill Self followed his team into the locker room and, undoubtedly, delivered quite a message, even though his answer dripped with sarcasm when he was asked later to describe it.
"I told them, 'Hey, just keep doing what we're doing, we'll be fine,' " Self said with a grin.
The Jayhawks were fine indeed, but only because they flipped the script.
They played better on defense, protected the ball on offense — making shots didn't hurt either — and behind the impassioned play of Travis Releford and Jeff Withey, pulled away from the eighth-seeded Tar Heels for a 70-58 victory Sunday in the third round of the NCAA tournament.
"We played miserably the first half and they took us out of everything," said Self, whose team trailed the Tar Heels 30-21 at the break. "The second half, we played really, really well."
Much to the chagrin of former Kansas coach Roy Williams, whose Tar Heels were knocked out of the tournament by Kansas during its 2008 title run and again last year, when the Jayhawks went to the Final Four.
