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Wright, Rush spark Kansas romp

Dec 20, 2006 - 6:30 AM LAWRENCE, Kansas (Ticker) -- Kansas didn't need much time to shake off the effects of a 10-day layoff.

Julian Wright and Brandon Rush scored 15 points apiece as No. 12 Kansas coasted to an easy 94-43 victory over Winston-Salem State.

The Jayhawks (9-2) used an 18-0 run midway through the opening half to take command en route to a 45-21 lead at the break.

"The last 10 days have been really cool," Rush said. "We've been practicing real hard, not taking any days off, doing what we needed to do for this game and for Saturday's game (vs. Boston College). I think we got a lot better of these last 10 days."

Wright scored 10 of his 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting in the opening 20 minutes for Kansas, which had five players in double figures.

The Jayhawks opened the second half with a 13-2 run to stretch the lead to 58-23 on freshman Darrell Arthur's jumper with 15:07 to play.

Arthur scored 13 points and Sherron Collins and Sasha Kaun added 11 apiece for Kansas, which shot 59 percent (38-of-65) from the field.

"I thought we played well, we had 29 assists," Jayhawks coach Bill Self said. "The competition wasn't as stiff in comparison to what we're going to see on Saturday, but I think that we forced them to play poorly for the most part.

"I thought we shared the ball, pushed it pretty well. ... This was a good game for our guys to get some rust off."

The loss extended a pair of dubious streaks for Winston-Salem State, which is in its second year of competing at the Division I level. The Rams (1-14) absorbed their 11th consecutive defeat and stumbled to 0-12 on the road this season.

Freshman Darius Floyd led Winston-Salem State with 17 points, hitting 5-of-10 3-pointers, and Curtis Hines added 10.

"We started out hot, we had some threes go down. We were just trying to feed the hot hand," Floyd said. "This was like nothing any of us have faced before. We heard a lot of talk coming into this game about this place. I think we can learn from this experience."