COLUMBUS, Ohio - You'd have to search a long time to find a better-looking basketball team than the Kansas Jayhawks.

They're the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament's West regional, and they look like they were ordered out of a basketball team catalog or were cast for a movie. Coach Bill Self's Jayhawks are long, lean and athletic. They sure look the part of a Final Four team, and anybody with cable TV has seen a lot of Kansas.

Then you have Southern Illinois, the Jayhawks' opponent in Thursday night's regional semifinal at San Jose, Calif. The SIU mascot is the Saluki, an elegant Egyptian hunting dog. But the basketball team more resembles a mongrel from the pound or even a pit bull.

On paper, there is no way a Kansas team full of NBA prospects like Julian Wright won't style their way past Southern in San Jose. But that was the case the last two years for Kansas - against Bucknell and Bradley, respectively - and you know what happened. Beauty lost to the beasts.

SIU won't be awed. This is a team hardened by being an underdog, a team that doesn't have a single player who was recruited by a powerhouse like Kansas. SIU's Tony Young, of Schaumburg, also had an offer from Chicago State. The Salukis aren't going to change a thing just because they're playing the No. 1 seed.

"I don't know what everybody else thinks, but we just play hard whether people see us or not," Young said. "We're going to continue to play hard and do what we do."

Virginia Tech was lucky to escape from Illinois 54-52 in Friday's first-round game. The Hokies play in the ACC and had some impressive victories. They beat North Carolina twice and won at Duke. But they weren't prepared for the lock-down defense they saw from the Salukis on Sunday at Nationwide Arena. They were held to a season-low 48 points in a 15-point loss.

"I love their defense," Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. "I love their attitude. It's their mind-set. They invade your personal space on the ball."

When the Jayhawks (32-4) take the floor against the Salukis (29-6), they will get a close look at a not-so-pretty team. They will see Bryan Mullins' oft-broken nose, Young with scars from his stitches and Tony Boyle's bruised cheek. And they'll eventually encounter Randal Falker's elbows.

Kansas against a Missouri Valley team will be interesting. Self turned down an ESPN game in Lawrence with Wichita State in 2005. The Shockers ended up in the Sweet 16 and Kansas lost to Bradley. The NCAA is the only group that can bring the Jayhawks and the MVC together.

Kansas could win the NCAA championship. Wright, Brandon Rush, Sherron Collins and the other Jayhawks are an impressive group that has played great basketball since a few early-season stumbles. But don't expect the Salukis to roll over and play dead.

Self knows they won't. Sunday, after defeating Kentucky, he called Southern an "elite" program. He remembers how his 2001 Illinois team had to battle to defeat the Salukis 75-72 in a Las Vegas tournament. This team is better, he said.

"They are definitely a team that could go to the Final Four," Self said.

They're just not a pretty one.

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