New Orleans ? It looked easy, so easy, in the Big Easy.

But Kansas University’s basketball players insisted it was anything but simple after they treated Marquette like Emporia State, UNC Asheville, UMKC or any cream puff on the Jayhawks’ regular-season schedule, annihilating the Golden Eagles, 94-61, in Saturday’s Final Four national semifinal at the Superdome.

“If you want to call it easy, you can. It’s probably the toughest blowout I’ve ever played in,” sophomore guard Keith Langford said after exploding for 23 points off 11-of-14 shooting, including 17 points the first half as KU (30-7) stormed to the fourth-largest margin of victory in an NCAA Final Four game.

“Some things may look easy,” Langford said, “but it took a lot of effort to do what we did tonight.”

The Jayhawks rocked on offense — Aaron Miles and Kirk Hinrich scored 18 points apiece, Michael Lee contributed 13 and Nick Collison 12 with 15 rebounds — and rolled on defense, rendering Travis Diener (five points, 1-of-11 shooting) and Dwyane Wade (19 points, 7-of-15) non-factors.

“Nobody expects to come out in the national semifinals and have that happen,” Langford said. “I can’t really explain it except to say we came out and attacked.”

The Jayhawks’ performance, which propelled them into Monday’s 8:22 p.m. NCAA Tournament title game against Syracuse, was definitely pretty.

“It was perfect for about 30 minutes,” said junior forward Jeff Graves, who scored five points and grabbed nine boards in 27 minutes.

In fact, after 25 minutes, the Jayhawks led by 43 points (77-34) and were en route to nailing down the biggest margin of victory in Final Four history.

Instead, by playing no starter more than Langford’s 32 minutes — Collison and Hinrich logged 26 and 25 minutes to rest for Monday’s title game — KU fell just short of the 36-point record set by Princeton over Wichita State in the 1965 third-place game. KU did bag the second-biggest win in a national semifinal, falling one point short of the record of 34 points set by Cincinnati against Oregon State in 1963 and Michigan State over Penn in 1979.

Kansas University's Keith Langford dunks in front of Marquette's Todd Townsend for two of Langford's game-high 23 points. The Jayhawks routed the Golden Eagles, 94-61, Saturday in New Orleans, setting up a national championship-game showdown with Syracuse.

KU’s 29-point halftime lead (59-30) was the second-largest intermission lead in Final Four history, trailing the 33-point lead Michigan State had in 1979.

“Needless to say, the first 25 to 30 minutes were sensational,” KU coach Roy Williams said after leading KU to its first appearance in the national-title game since 1991. “Even though we played so well, we realize they missed some open shots.”

Indeed, Marquette made 25.6 percent of its first-half shots to KU’s 60 percent and lagged by 29 at the break. The Golden Eagles (27-6) hardly resembled the squad that walloped Kentucky by 14 points in the Elite Eight.

Marquette made one of eight threes to KU’s 6-of-12. Hinrich hit three treys in the first half en route to 15 points.

“The biggest thing for us,” Williams said, “is we kept attacking. It was something we talked about throughout the course of the entire season and emphasized it in the locker room today.”

Williams wasn’t the only locker-room preacher before the game.

Seniors Collison and Hinrich, who didn’t want a repeat of last year’s Final Four semifinal loss to Maryland, fired up the squad.

“We were really focused,” sophomore Michael Lee said after hitting three three-pointers in three tries and scoring 13 points, including hitting two threes the first half. “We got together with ourselves before the game — Nick and Kirk stepped up verbally. They said, ‘Leave nothing on the court.’

“Nick personally came up to me and said, ‘Fire it. If you’ve got the open shot, fire it.’ That gave me a lot of confidence to take the shot if it was there.”

The Jayhawks, who hit 53.5 percent of their shots to Marquette’s 31.1 percent, were sparked out of the gate by Miles, who opened the scoring with a three.

“They were sagging on Nick and trying to stop him. I think it helped my confidence and the team’s confidence when I hit that shot,” Miles said.

Yet it had been tied 7-7, 9-9 and 12-12 six minutes into the game.

That’s when KU took off, embarking on a 23-4 run to grab a 35-16 lead at 7:49. Hinrich had 10 points and Langford six in that stretch in which KU hit eight of nine shots; the Eagles 1-of-11.

By halftime, Langford had 17 points, Hinrich 15 and Collison 10 rebounds as the Jayhawks closed the half on an 18-4 run and actually opened the second half with the same 18-4 run.

That’s an amazing 36-8 surge.

“I cannot remember any time we’ve done that kind of thing,” said Williams, whose players actually were asked if they felt sorry for Marquette in post-game interviews.

“Nope,” Langford said.

“Nope,” Collison said.

“We are a team of runs,” Williams said. “We feel we have some kind of a mentality on the offensive end that we can get some things going and make a run or two during the course of the game — 18-4, 18-4 is pretty impressive.”

Not that Williams was counting points.

“It was 7-7 and I made up my mind I wasn’t going to look at the score the rest of the half and I didn’t,” Williams said. “Running off at half, I had a hard time finding the scoreboard but I felt we were in pretty good shape. To look up and see that margin emphasized how well we had played.”

The Jayhawks appeared to be wearing Rollerblades as they stormed past the Eagles for easy layups.

“It’s not us running faster than anyone,” Langford said. “It’s just the fact we’re going to continue to do it. I think a couple of possessions (early) they kind of celebrated the score. We got a couple easy baskets because we kept pushing.”

The Jayhawks pushed and prodded defensively, stifling Wade and Diener, who played well against Kentucky last week. Beefy center Robert Jackson scored 15 points with nine boards, while three-point bomber Steve Novak missed all five three tries in a two-point game.

“We had some steals and forced some turnovers,” Williams said — the Jayhawks snatched seven steals and forced 11 bobbles. “Our defense got us some easy ones on the break.”

KU finished slowly, scoring 12 points the final 12 1/2 minutes, but by then it was a formality. Collison and Hinrich rested the last eight minutes, Langford the last 6:16 and Miles the last 4:42.

“It’s definitely nice to sit and watch,” Collison said. “I would have never believed that would happen. Just the fact it’s the Final Four and it’s Marquette, a team that’s played as well as anybody lately in beating Pittsburgh and Kentucky. Monday night it will be a different story, but we will be ready.”