By Ashley Dunkak
What goes around comes around after all. KU humiliated K-State in Allen Fieldhouse, and on Monday night the Wildcats returned the favor.
Last night, the Jayhawks were unrecognizable, even to Bill Self, who referred to his crew as “a team that doesn’t deserve to be ranked No. 1 in the country” and declined to put a positive spin on the game besides joking that KU held K-State to 48 points if Jacob Pullen hadn’t played.
I thought that if this game came down to who wanted it more, the Wildcats would have a chance. Between the crushing loss to Colorado and the lingering embarrassment from being manhandled by the Jayhawks in Lawrence, there was plenty of motivation for K-State.
But I never in a million years would have expected the Wildcats to completely control the game for 40 minutes and win by 16 points. I could not believe that with four minutes left in a game against the No. 1 team in the country, our senior point guard was getting a breather on the bench.
For me, there were three moments when the fact we were winning this game sunk in, bit by bit. I really thought I was dreaming – it had been a long weekend and longer Monday – but these events brought me back to reality.
1) I got a text message reading, “If I get arrested for storming the court, will you come bail me out?” (My reply, of course, was yes.)
2) Frank Martin took a timeout to empty the bench with 50.3 seconds to play. How cool for those freshman to see the court in a win over KU!
3) People jumped over the table where I and all the other media people were sitting to get on the floor. Everywhere I looked, there were camera phones immortalizing the magic.
As a student, I feel I’m obligated to admit this was the best Valentine’s Day ever. As a journalist, I covered one of the biggest upsets in college basketball, and it sure was fun.
My final conclusion from all this? It’s pretty useless to try to predict what is going to happen next for this team. We’ll probably be wrong, and it’s a whole lot more fun to be surprised anyhow.
