Omaha, Neb. ? Kansas at 7:40 p.m. Sunday will meet Purdue, a 72-69 winner over St. Mary’s on Friday night. Purdue (22-12, 10-8 Big 10) led by as many 13 points before holding on for the victory.

Terone Johnson, a 6-2 sophomore, scored 21 points and Lewis Jackson, a 5-9 senior 18 points.

Robbie Hummel, a 6-8 senior from Valparaiso, Ind., who chipped in 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds in 32 minutes, happens to be one of the feel-good stories in college basketball.

Hummel — he averages 16.3 points and 7.1 rebounds a game — has twice come back from right ACL surgery. He tore the knee ligament on Feb. 24, 2010, at Minnesota and missed the last eight games of his junior season in which he was named All-Big Ten. He tore it again at practice the ensuing October and missed the entire 2010-11 season.

KU is 2-2 all-time against Purdue. The two split NCAA Tourney games in the 1990s. Purdue beat KU, 83-78, on March 24, 1994 in a Sweet 16 game in Knoxville. KU won, 75-61 in a second-round game on March 15, 1997 in Memphis.

Tharpe plays a lot: Naadir Tharpe, who played 13 minutes, went 0-for-3 from the field.

He has played double-figure minutes in six games all year: 19 versus Towson, 17 vs. Howard, 12 vs. Texas Tech and 10 vs. South Florida and Florida Atlantic. He took just 12 shots during the entire Big 12 season, making six. He hadn’t taken more than one shot in a game in seven games, since going 1-3 vs. Texas Tech on Feb. 18.

KU coach Bill Self on Tyshawn Taylor’s cramps: “I didn’t really know what was going on. He told me in the first half he was starting to cramp, which isn’t really a good sign to be cramping up in the first half. All they did was they went back and put IVs in him, and he just didn’t respond very well. He’s been sick, under the weather, dehydrated. The doctor said he should be fine by Sunday without any problem.”

Dooley update: ESPN.com lists KU’s Joe Dooley as a possible candidate for the Tulsa head coaching job. Other possible candidates: Oral Roberts’ Scott Sutton, Valparaiso’s Bryce Drew, UT-Arlington’s Scott Cross, UT-San Antonio’s Brooks Thompson and Harvard’s Tommy Amaker. Dooley has also been listed as a candidate at Rhode Island.

Tidbits: KU improved to 4-4 on neutral courts this season. … The Jayhawks are 4-0 all-time vs. Detroit. … KU has won 28 games for the third straight season … The Jayhawks won their 27th opening-game win in the tourney in 29 years dating to 1978. … KU is making its 23rd consecutive trip to the NCAAs, longest streak in the country. … KU last was a No. 2 seed in 2003. … KU is 3-0 in CenturyLink Center.

Releford’s brother: The Releford brothers won’t be playing against each other in the 2012 NCAA Tournament.

Trevor Releford, brother of KU’s Travis Releford, missed a deep jumper at the final horn as Alabama fell to Creighton, 58-57, Friday in a second-round Midwest Region game in Greensboro, N.C. Releford finished with 14 points for ‘Bama.

The Crimson Tide called a time out with 2.4 seconds left despite the fact the team was about to get an open look on its final possession. starting with eight seconds left when CU missed a free throw. The final shot for Releford was rushed and off balance. He would have had a deep open look had the Tide not called time.

“I don’t know if he got fouled or not,” Releford said. “I wanted them to advance but they had a good season.”

MU falls: Being sent to a site close to home certainly didn’t help No. 2-seed Missouri, an 86-84 loser to No. 15-seed Norfolk State. The crowd of 16,843, which included a lot of KU fans, was on Norfolk’s side.

“The crowd doesn’t have any bearing on us mentally to the game,” said MU guard Michael Dixon, who had 22 points and five assists. “That’s just something that happened and we weren’t too worried about it.”

Norfolk State became just the fifth No. 15 seed in NCAA history to win a first-round game and the first since 2001. Later, Duke became the sixth No. 2 to lose. Lehigh handled the Blue Devils on Friday.

Of Missouri’s loss, Tyshawn Taylor said: “I watched a lot of the game. I was shocked and surprised, not upset, but shocked. In the tournament, seeds don’t matter,” he added.