In Sean Miller's eyes, it was only a matter of time before his Xavier team wore down the undersized underdogs from Portland State on Friday night at Taco Bell Arena.

"A lot of times if you're a good defensive team you can really get into the other team's heart in the second half, and I thought that really happened," the coach said.

He was right, and that's how the fourth-seeded Musketeers thumped the Vikings of the Big Sky Conference 77-59 in their East Regional game.

Portland State (23-10) kept things close and even took a 25-24 lead, but the Musketeers (26-7) used a spurt to take a seven-point lead at halftime and the Vikings never got closer.

"I just thought Xavier was a real solid team," Portland State forward Jamie Jones said. "They're big and physical, and I think they took us out of some stuff."

The Musketeers also were brilliant on offense. They shot a gaudy 53.7 percent from the field and matched Portland State from behind the arc by making eight 3-pointers.

"What I didn't expect was them to shoot so well, and they came out and hit 6-of-12 in the first half," Portland State coach Ken Bone said. "They played with a lot of poise. When they got a good look, they buried it."

Xavier placed four players in double figures, led by C.J. Anderson's 14 points. Derrick Brown, B.J. Raymond and Dant Jackson scored 13 apiece.

"I think that we were efficient because we were able to move the ball," said Jackson, who also was a big factor in keeping Portland State's leading scorer, Jeremiah Dominguez, scoreless in the second half.

Dominguez had all of his 13 points in the first half and attempted three shots after halftime.

"They just made every shot difficult for me to get off," Dominguez said.

Jones led Portland State with 16 points and Andre Murray chipped in 14.

"I'm proud of the guys," Bone said. "I felt like we were extremely focused and ready to go and did the best we could. I thought they left everything on the court and we just happened to run into a very good Xavier team. They were difficult to stop on one end and hard to get good shots off against on the other."

Nick Jezierny