The night Wichita State and KU fans were cheering for each other’s teams | Opinion

Joe Biden’s out of the race for president and the AfterShocks are out of The Basketball Tournament.

If you’d asked me on Saturday if I thought I’d be writing that sentence on Tuesday, I’d have probably quoted the Magic 8 Ball: “Don’t count on it.”

But the unthinkable happened on Monday night at Koch Arena. The AfterShocks, No. 1 seed in the TBT regional, fell to No. 5 seed Team Colorado.

If you don’t follow basketball closely, you may be asking “What the heck is this guy talking about?” So I’ll tell you.

The Basketball Tournament is an annual event that matches a field of 64 teams in a winner-take-all tournament with a $1 million prize.

Many of the teams are organized around alumni from a particular university, including three Kansas teams: the AfterShocks, who of course are built around alumni of Wichita State University; Mass Street, grouped around KU alumni; and Purple Reign, centered on former K-State players.

The AfterShocks are entirely made up of players in overseas pro leagues.

The WSU alums on the roster are Markis McDuffy, Italy; Conner Frankamp, Spain; Alterique Gilbert, Finland; Trey Wade, Poland; Rashard Kelly, France and Darral Willis Jr., Japan.

Stunning upset

The Tournament has become an annual ritual in Wichita and the go-to sporting event of the summer for off-season basketball-starved fans.

The AfterShocks have never won it all, but are kind of TBT royalty anyway. They’ve been a perennial contender since they started participating in 2019, and Wichita holds the record for attendance at a TBT game, around 7,200.

Their Monday night matchup drew an official attendance of 3,868 — a mix of Wichita State yellow-and-black and KU blue.

And the roundhouse was rocking.

The Wichita State partisans cheered on Mass Street as the former Jayhawks defeated Florida TNT in the first of the night’s back-to-back games.

Most of the KU fans stuck around to return the favor when the AfterShocks took the court against Team Colorado, University of Colorado alumni who seem to be trying to win the award for least-imaginatively named team.

The highest decibel levels of the night came during a 12-0 run to start the third quarter than rocketed the AfterShocks to a 44-33 lead, their biggest of the night. But then the wheels came off with multiple turnovers by the AfterShocks to start the fourth.

TBT games use something called the “Elam ending” to decide games.

The way it works is at the first stoppage of play after the four minute mark, eight points are added to the leading teams score and the first team to get there wins the game.

At the start of the Elam ending, Colorado needed eight to reach a target score of 65. AfterShocks needed 10.

The whole gym expected the AfterShocks to win the race to 65.

Alas, though they pulled within a point, Colorado closed out the Elam ending with a final score of 65-61.

Bummer. Especially since the same Colorado squad knocked Purple Reign out of the tournament on Saturday.

One more game to go

On Wednesday, Kansas (as in the state) will get one last chance to send Team Colorado home, when Mass Street takes the court for the regional final against them.

Among those cheering for that to happen will be the AfterShocks.

Of the Mass Street fans who pulled for the AfterShocks on Monday night, “Their support means a lot,” AfterShocks coach Zach Bush, himself a former WSU player, said after the game.

“I hope they (Mass Street) know we were pulling for them in their game and we hope they advance out of here and go as far as they can, ‘cause at the end of the day we’re all from the same state . . . and it’s best when all three programs (WSU, KU and K-State) are at their best.”

Wednesday’s game will be at 8 p.m.

Rock Chalk.