St. Louis ? Drew Gooden had a king-sized chip on his shoulder entering Saturday’s Kansas University-Stanford second-round NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional game at Edward Jones Dome.

“I was pissed off, pissed off most at answering stupid questions from the media after the Holy Cross game,” Gooden, a junior forward, said after the Jayhawks bounced back from a shaky 70-59 victory over the Crusaders with an 86-63 win over the Cardinal.

“It was the worst day I’ve had answering questions. Everybody acted like there was some problem with our team. All that was ammunition.”

Gooden finished with 15 points and six boards in 28 minutes.

“I hope you guys rip us after this game,” he told the media, “so we’ll be ready for the Sweet 16.”

He grinned when he said that. But make no mistake, he hasn’t enjoyed negative reviews in the press from KU’s previous two games. Also, some Jayhawks felt the fans had lost faith in the team that went undefeated in Big 12 regular-season play.

“Like I said, people ripping us made us angry. It was all firepower,” Gooden said. “We’ve been showing people all year. We had two bad games and people thought we were going to roll over and be out of the tournament.”

KU junior Nick Collison, who had 17 points and 13 rebounds, also was upset at recent talk the Jayhawks might be ready to bow out of the postseason.

“You do get sick of the media saying some things. I saw an article in the Journal-World  a guy was talking about how we’ll be all right in 2003 because we’ve got a lot of guys back.

“It was like the season was going to end. He said, ‘Collison takes a disappearing potion in big games.'”

Collison didn’t disappear Saturday, scoring eight points in KU’s 15-0 surge that opened the contest.

“We were pissed off at how we played and how things were going,” Collison said of the reason for Saturday’s 15-0 start. “Everybody was laughing at us saying, ‘Kansas is going to lose again.’ The way we played today it takes away all doubt. We can play well.”

KU coach Roy Williams also felt there were some doubters that the Jayhawks could reach the Sweet 16 a second straight year.

“I did not read the article, Nick did,” Williams said of a Bill Mayer column in Saturday’s J-W. “It is amazing to us. We were 30-3 before this game and even people in Kansas were sort of saying bad things about this team.”

People are saying good things today about the Jayhawks, who will take a 31-3 record into next Friday’s game against the winner of today’s Illinois-Creighton game.

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Hinrich update: Kirk Hinrich, who hurt his left ankle in Thursday’s win over Holy Cross, but was able to play after non-stop treatment the past two days, was touched by a generous act on Saturday.

“Two girls brought me a get-well card. I thought that was nice,” Hinrich said.

“It was funny to hear all the talk (about his injury). I just want to thank our doctors and trainers. They did a great job working with me the past two days.”

Trainer Mark Cairns said: “He just had a lot of treatment and did everything Dr. (Larry) Magee asked him to do. It was nothing fancy, ice packs and compression and electrical stim. I did a few hands-on things to take away muscle spasms, nothing fancy.”

One thing is for sure. Hinrich came a long way in two days.

“When I was lying on the X-ray table Thursday night I wouldn’t have believed I could play,” Hinrich said. “But the next morning it felt better and I kept getting stim (electrical stimulation) and ice treatments. I just feel fortunate I was able to go.”

 Assistant sports editor Gary Bedore can be reached at 832-7186.