In a game that was as exciting as any I’ve ever seen, our emotions were on a rollercoaster ride until the final buzzer sounded, sending Lawrence into a frenzy.

Things looked pretty grim in the final two minutes of the game, as the Jayhawks were down 60-51 with just over two minutes remaining in regulation. We were with friends, watching the game, and you could feel hope trying to slip out the back door. But the Jayhawks ended up taking a gamble that worked, slowing down the game by sending Tigers to the free throw line and and banking on misses by a team famous this year for their poor free-throw percentage. It worked. Superstar guards Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts missed 4 out of five of their final free throws in regulation, giving the Jayhawks the only window they needed — a three point deficit and 10 seconds to tie the game.

Even so, people were starting to leave the party, camcorders packed up, coats on, tears in eyes.

“Guys, 10 seconds is plenty of time. This is the National Championship — they can do something with 10 seconds. . . ”

And, as people started filtering toward the door, the rest of us watched the final possession in regulation unfold. After Sherron Collins bobbled ball, and then got enough control to get it to (Super) Mario Chalmers, I just knew that when Chalmers launched his shot, it was gonna go in. It had to!

And it did.

Out party erupted, grown-ups and kids running around like fools, hugging and kissing each other, like we had just won the game.

In fact, we had. The wind went out of the Tigers’ sails, and the Jayhawks took advantage, jumping out to a six point lead in overtime and controlling the pace in OT. Looking back, I can see the outcome in overtime was never really in question. But we all held our breath, doing superstitious things like standing in the exact place we were in when Chalmers’ shot went down, willing the Hawks to victory.

When the final buzzer sounded, we all jumped into cars and headed for Massachusetts street, along with 40,000 other people, where controlled and joyous chaos reigned.

I walked the streets with my son, Anthony, a kid who plays basketball and would love nothing more than to someday have people rioting in the streets after HE wins a national championship. We were with another mom and three of her kids. We lost my husband, and our teenagers were on their own, but that was OK, because the trip up and down Mass. Street was nothing but constant entertainment. Music was blaring; people were dancing on top of cars; huge groups were breaking out into chants and cheers; random strangers were hugging, kissing (and I mean REALLY kissing). We let the boys lead the way, and they got their fair share of college girl hugs and kisses, plus all sorts of high-fives and “bro’s” from guys.

It was all good, too. Everyone was just happy to be there, and no one was causing any trouble or grief. Even the cops were high-fiving and taking pictures with fans. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many drunk people who were so NICE to be around! In fact, it was almost hard to tell who was drunk and who wasn’t.

Anthony and I ended up hitching a ride home with our friends at 1:15AM — the rest of the family filtered home over the next hour, all curfew rules suspended for the night.

As you may suspect, school attendance is waaaaay down today in the Lawrence public schools (KU just flat-out cancelled classes). And plenty of people took the day off work to recover and/or welcome the Jayhawks home. Me? I’m going about my normal day, because those of us who are out and about can’t talk about anything else and I’m lovin’ every minute of it!

All is right in the state of Kansas. Not only did KU win, but the KState Beasleys lost to Wisconsin, in a game that was never really in question after half-time. Early in the day, before the games began, commentators were gushing fantastic about how Michael Beasley and Bill Walker were capable of carrying the Wildcats into the Final Four. Anyway.

KState’s brush with greatness is over. Beasley can start looking for a condo in Miami.

And then there was the one who got away from KState. After leaving KState at the altar last year, Bob Huggins went to West Virginia, where his Mountaineers sent Duke packing, and punched themselves a ticket to the Sweet Sixteen.

Stanford beat Marquette in OT yesterday, with their coach watching from the locker room after being ejected after two technicals.

Texas A&M ALMOST killed their giant. But UCLA squeaked by them with a 4-point win, after being down by as much as 10. It would have busted my bracket completely, since I have UCLA in the Final Four, but I wouldn’t have minded seeing Turgeon’s boys pull out the win. I like what Turgeon did at Wichita State, and think he’s headed in the right direction at A&M. Plus he’s a former Jayhawk. What’s not to love?

And speaking of giant-killers, how about Davidson? Took down the mighty G-Town Hoyas today. I’ll be lovin’ these guys until KU has to face them in the Elite 8. Until then…

Stephen Curry, will you marry my daughter?

My basketball day started when I watched the KU game at my desk. I’ve got a double monitor, so I had the game going on one screen, while I worked on the other. After a few minutes, I just kept the corner of my eye on what was obviously gonna be a KU victory. Looks like their next match-up will be against UNLV on Saturday.

Otherwise, I just kept track of the afternoon scores. And then went to work out.

By the time I got home. . .

The KState Beasleys were pulling away from USC in the second half. They ended up with a convincing enough victory, in which Beasley scored his 27th double-double of the season. His brilliance in the service of the Wildcat Nation is futile, though. I’d advise Wildcat fans not too read too much into this win.While watching the Michael Beasley show, we’d been keeping track of the Duke game via the helpful little score-trackers at the top of the screen, and the big news was that Duke was in a neck-and-neck nailbiter with Belmont. Once the Wildcats had their game in hand, CBS switched to the Duke/Belmont game.

You may remember that I have a little bias against Duke, which is pretty much in proportion to the media bias FOR Duke. So I was really pulling for the underdog Belmont Whatevers, (even though I picked Duke in my brackets as a practical matter).

Wouldn’t it just be the case that Duke would pull it out, though. That darn Gerald Henderson got himself a coast-to-coast drive at the end o the game. The Other Guys had the same opportunity, but couldn’t pull it off. They got the big game heebie-jeebies.

The Duke win is good for my brackets, but bad for my sense of righteousness.

THEN: UCLA destroyed Mississippi Valley State. When UCLA was up by 37-12, I swear I heard Greg Gumbel say “If UCLA holds on and wins this game, they’ll face Texas A&M on Saturday” ????????? Well, hold on, they did. The final score was 70-29. How is it even possible to only score 29 points in the NCAA tournament?

Don’t answer that. . .

George Mason got beat by Notre Dame. The Mason loss messed me up a little bit in the brackets, and that’s what I get for trying to pick an upset. My usual policy is to stay away from upset picks, but GM had a little recent history going for them in this regard. I think I’ll stick with my policy next year.

Early in the second half, Cal-State Fullerton was rolling right along with Wisconsin, in a nip-and-tuck game. The KState Wildcats were on site, scouting. And praying that Wisconsin bites the dust. The Badgers (what a mascot) widened the gap to 10 points, though, with about 12 minutes to go, and managed to keep a healthy distance for the rest of the game. Bummer for the Travelling Beasleys.

The West Virginia Mountaineers beat the Arizona wildcats, 75-65. They’ll move on to play the Duke Blue Devils. My bracket says Duke will survive another one and then go down at the hands of Xavier in the third round.

As I wrap up this post, I’ll just note that the local Kansas City CBS station is treating us to the very unlovely sight of about a MILLION drunk KState Fans celebrating their victory by screaming and jumping around some bar. How excited they all are! They’re talking about how they want another match-up with KU in the Elite 8. But, hello? Did you all forget you’re in the NCAA tournament? Wisconsin and Georgetown are there to play. Let’s worry about one game at a time, Kitties. Meow.

My overriding thought during the game was that the Jayhawks will need to have a couple of things go very differently to make a deep tournament run this year.

To begin with, Darrell Arthur needs to stay out of foul trouble and stay in the game, preferably for at least 30 minutes — we need our best big guy. Our ‘Hawks also need to be more consistent with both making AND defending the three-ball. It might not hurt to deploy a 3-2 zone at times, serving the dual purpose of intimidating shooters and potentially keeping Arthur out of foul trouble? Not that I’m gonna do too much second-guessing of a WINNING basketball coach who obviously knows his business much better than I do. . . but what’s the fun of watching a game if you can’t play arm-chair analyst?

Anyhow. . . the game only killed about half of the time we had between games, thanks to a poorly managed division schedule in our tournament. So we went to a mall after the game, and I managed to feel better after buying about $30.00 worth of different chocolate treats for the family (including a chocolate-covered twinkie that I decided I have to try).

I felt even better after we got back to the gym and Ant’s team won their game 56-30, sending them to the championship game.

And the good feelings just kept coming. . . after Ant’s game, I checked my phone and found a text message from Snacky. It said “KState Lost HaHa.” Turns out Baylor beat them 92-86. So at least I can rest assured that the kitties aren’t going to edge past us in any rankings.

But I’ll hand it to KState — they went out with a bang. Michael Beasley broke the record for freshman double-doubles previously held by Carmelo Anthony. Beasley now has 23. He scored 44 points, which is the most points scored ever in a Big 12 game. Beasley’s teammate, the highly expressive Bill Walker, scored 31 points.

If you’re adding, that means Beasley and Walker scored 75 out of 86 KState points. And they still lost. WOW. I’m not even sure how to comment on that, except to say that next year is going to be a GIANT buzz-kill for the Wildcat nation. I’ll also direct your attention to the fact that KState’s AD has resigned and is moving on. Hmmmmmm.

AND finally. . .

The big NCAA basketball news is that previously unbeaten Memphis is no longer unbeaten, thanks to the Tennessee Volunteers. Let’s face it: the fate of every unbeaten team is to get beaten. Of course, I missed that game completely because it was going on while mama’s baby was kickin ass — but I got to see the highlights.

Because it was pretty amazing to see their entire starting lineup foul out one by one down the home stretch in tonight’s loss to Wake Forest.

Or, on second thought, maybe my props should go to Wake Forest?

Yeah. . .

Emotion, hunger, desire. The Demon Deacons had it and used it. For the first time since the 2004-05 season, they beat a top five team.

It was a meaningful win for Coach Dino Gaudio, who took over the program when his best friend, and WF’s former coach, Skip Prosser, died last summer. Fans were nuts, players came to play and the writing was on the wall for this one.

Said freshman Jeff Teague, who scored 26 points in the Demon Deacons’ victory:

“I watched them on TV [and] I dreamed about Carolina and Duke.” He noted that he and teammate James Johnson (24 points and 16 rebounds) “talked about that when we first got here, ‘Playing Duke, they’re going to pressure you.’”

“That’s why I want to play. I’m not an All-American or nothing, but I want to go out and try to beat one.”

Well, he did. They did.

And I would have enjoyed every minute of the Demon Deacons’ performance tonight even if there wasn’t anything in it for KU’s rankings.

‘Cause I love when the underdog gets over.

While KState backers are still taking out full-page ads in local papers to celebrate the Wildcats 1-24 record against KU at THEIR HOUSE, the Jayhawks just won another big one.

Yeah, Baylor’s now a BIG one (17-5 overall, and 5-3 in the Big 12). Looking back to the last few years, who would have thought it. . .

But I give credit where credit’s due, and Baylor is the deal this year.

Final score was KU 100 — Baylor 90. Halftime score was KU 36 — Baylor 33. What a second half! Note to Jayhawk fans: that was 100 points, with NO three-point shots made.

Next up for the Jayhawks (23-1 overall, and 8-1 in the Big 12) . . . Texas.

As for Baylor. . . all respect for Coach Scott Drew and his up-and-coming program. Bringing that program from the depths of disgrace to where they are now is an amazing act of leadership. Kudos!

They were all doing the happy dance in the Little Apple. In fact, it wasn’t more than an hour after the victory that Ballard’s Sporting Goods, in Manhattan’s Aggieville, was selling t-shirts emblazoned with the score of the game. A regular season game, mind you.

And here in Lawrence there have been an obnoxiously larger than normal number of people sporting purple Wildcat gear around town in the last few days, daring us to sneer at them, as we usually feel quite free to do — particularly during basketball season.

Well, I didn’t like it at all, but I tried to understand and appreciate the hoopla surrounding this Wildcat victory. As a KU fan, I’ve never had to experience the humiliation of having one of our BIGGEST rivals come and beat us IN ALLEN FIELDHOUSE for 24 years straight. The Wildcat nation has, though, and there was no shame in their game as they rode the high.

To Wildcat fans, I say “Carpe Diem” (that means “seize the day,” guys). Hell, it’ll probably be ANOTHER 24 years before KState can repeat the series of questionable hires that resulted in Walker, and then the incomparable Beasley, gracing the middle of nowhere with their fleeting presences. I have to wonder if anyone in the Wildcat Nation is acknowledging THESE brutal probabilities: Michael Beasley is projected to be the #1 NBA draft pick in 2008 (translation for KStaters: he won’t be wearing a Wildcat uniform next year); Bill Walker will probably enter the NBA draft as well (projected as a mid- to late-first-round pick); the KState recruiting class of 2008-2009 is JUST THIS SIDE OF NONEXISTENT at this point in time.

But it’s still 2008, and the Wildcats have a season to finish. There are games to be played, and won, if January 30, 2008, was any indication.

As it happens, one of those games was played today. The Wildcats headed for Mizzou, hoping to carry the momentum of their HISTORIC win against the Jayhawks with them.

And . . .

They lost. To a Tiger team that was short two of their starters in the aftermath of a recent nightclub after-hours altercation. Now, that’s what I call a buzz-kill.

For Wildcat Nation.

However, it’s probably one of the few times in history that KU fans have cheered for Mizzou.

The Jayhawks, on the other hand, headed for Colorado today for a date with the Buffaloes. Not spooked by the loss that ended their streak of 20 victories, the ‘Hawks were back to their winning ways, beating the ‘Buffs 72-59.

All is now right with the world. And the Wildcats still have to face the music in Allen Fieldhouse on March 1st.