OMAHA, Neb. _ Kansas, for the third straight season, is one win from advancing to the Final Four.
The Jayhawks, the top-seeded team in the NCAA Tournament's Midwest Regional, downed No. 5 seed Clemson, 80-76, in a Sweet 16 battle on Friday night at CenturyLink Center.
The victory, which looked like it was going to be easy (KU led by 20 early in the second half), turned out to be difficult as the Tigers cut the gap to six points with 2:27 left and four with 14.5 to play.
The Jayhawks' win sets up an Elite Eight contest on Sunday against another ACC team _ either Syracuse or Duke, who played later Friday night _ with the winner advancing to the Final Four a week from Saturday in San Antonio.
KU (30-7), which has fallen short the past two seasons, losing to Villanova and Oregon as the No. 1 seed in consecutive Elite Eight contests, got 14 points and 11 rebounds in 25 foul-plagued minutes from a seemingly healthy Udoka Azubuike.
Malik Newman scored 17, Devonte Graham had 16 (with four assists, five rebounds and four fouls) and Lagerald Vick added 13. Svi Mykhailiuk contributed nine points and Silvio De Sousa scored nine to go with six rebounds.
Graham played just 34 minutes because of foul trouble as KU improved to 13-2 against ACC teams in the 15-year Bill Self era. KU is 1-0 versus Clemson, 4-7 against Duke and 3-3 versus Syracuse.
Gabe DeVoe scored 31 points and had nine rebounds, Marcquise Reed had 13 points and Shelton Mitchell 12 for Clemson (25-10), which had routed Auburn by 31 points in last week's second round. DeVoe also had five turnovers for the Tigers.
KU, which is 2-5 in Elite Eight games under Self, improved its NCAA Tournament record in CenturyLink Center to 6-1. The Jayhawks advanced to Final Fours in 2012 and 2008 after winning first- and second-round contests in Omaha. KU lost to Wichita State in the second round four seasons ago.
Azubuike, who sprained his left MCL on March 6 and played 22 minutes in last week's second-round victory over Seton Hall, scored 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting and grabbed six rebounds while playing 13 minutes. KU led Clemson 40-27 at halftime. De Sousa had six points and six rebounds in six minutes as the two big men combined for 16 points and nine rebounds in the half.
That lead ballooned to 20 points at 49-29 with 18:07 left, as KU's Vick, Newman and Graham knocked down 3s in the early moments of the second half. Clemson cut the deficit to 13 points, at 70-57, with 5:57 left. DeVoe hit two free throws to cut the margin to 72-61 and David Skara scored to make it 72-63 at the 3:17 mark. The score was 74-68 at 1:55.
Graham then missed the front end of a one and one but Clemson's Mitchell missed a 3 that could have cut the gap to three.
The Jayhawks' perimeter players were effective. Vick had eight points and three rebounds, while Mykhailiuk and Newman had seven points apiece. Graham had just two points on 1-of-7 shooting in the half but contributed four rebounds and four assists in his usual 20 minutes.
KU was 4 of 13 from 3-point range in the half and shot 47.2 percent overall to Clemson's 35.7. The Tigers were 2 of 7 from 3-point range. DeVoe scored 12 points with four rebounds but had four of the Tigers' eight turnovers the first half.
KU grabbed an early 11-4 lead thanks in part to four points from Newman and three from Vick.
