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Rylan Howe

Keith Langford answers reporters' questions in the locker room. Langford's final game as a Jayhawk ended as an opening round loss against Bucknell 64-63 Friday night at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, Okla. Langford scored six points in 26 minutes of play. For more photos of the game, see our photo gallery.

For the first time in their college careers, Kansas basketball players actually got to take a week off for spring break.

Not that they were too pleased about it.

Two weeks ago, when the Jayhawks were placed in the Syracuse region of the NCAA Tournament, the team envisioned its spring break would entail a trip to New York for the Sweet Sixteen and — if things went well — a match-up with an old coach named Roy.

Instead of Syracuse, Keith Langford went to Fort Worth, Texas, and Mike Lee headed to Portland, Ore. Instead of heading east, J.R. Giddens and Darnell Jackson headed south and returned to Oklahoma City, the place where the Jayhawks’ tournament run was cut short — before it could ever get started.

Bucknell 64 Kansas 63

The teams’ opening round loss was Kansas’ first since 1978 and one of the most disappointing in school history. The fact that the four seniors’ careers ended on Wayne Simien’s missed 16-foot turnaround jump shot at the buzzer added to the devastation.

“That is the toughest game I’ve ever been a part of,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “I don’t know how to feel. I’m a little mad. I’m a little hurt. I feel bad for the players. I’m a little frustrated. It’s a mixture of a lot of things.”

It was all over TV and newspapers the next day. Everyone saw their tears; everyone saw Aaron Miles hunched against a wall in the Kansas locker room and saw the disappointment on Self’s face.

What wasn’t seen was Giddens embrace Miles after all of the reporters left the locker room. The cameras didn’t capture the Jayhawks in the dining room of their hotel after the game. There was food there but nobody ate — they were too nauseated.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” Miles said after the game. “I can’t believe this is how my time at Kansas ended. Getting through the first round, that should be nothing.”

The next morning, as the players loaded their bags onto the team bus, two young fans approached Miles. He looked better than he had the night before but still seemed dejected and sad.

One of the little boys handed Miles a sharpie and turned around so his idol could sign the back of his T-shirt.

“You the man Aaron,” the little boy said.

“Thanks man, I appreciate it,” Miles responded.

Miles’ face brightened just a little for the first time since the loss.

Moving on

After arriving back in Lawrence last Saturday afternoon, Self made a point of meeting with all of the underclassmen before they went their separate ways for break. He talked to them about the loss and disappointment. Self said their attitudes were good.

Talking to the seniors though, was hard. He met extensively with Miles and Simien last Monday. Langford and Lee had already gone home.

“They spent a lot of time in here,” Self said of Miles and Simien. “We talked about the disappointment. Talked about how this is going to sting for a while. They all handled it pretty well.”

Self said he also talked to them about helping the younger guys make it through. Most, if not all, of whom are expected to be back on next year’s roster.

Talk that Giddens would jump to the NBA quieted after he told reporters he would

return for his junior season. Rumors have swirled that one

of the freshmen, such as New York native Russell Robinson, would transfer to a school closer to home. Self said he didn’t know exactly what would happen but he seemed optimistic about all of the underclassmen returning for next season.

“I’m not going to say positively this will happen or that will happen,” Self said. “But all the meetings were positive.”

Their legacy

Simien, Lee, Langford, Miles, they were all asked if this game would tarnish the legacy they built at Kansas.

All said that it shouldn’t, that legacies shouldn’t be defined by one game. But Simien knows better than anyone: at Kansas, people don’t take first-round losses well.

“It may,” Simien said of the losses effect on his class’s legacy. “Personally I still feel great about this group of guys ... this should by no means erase the things we have done in the past. But, for a lot of people it will be the main thing they remember.”

In several years, when people talk about these four seniors, will they be remembered for their 110-28 overall record, their two Final Fours and one Elite Eight, or their loss to Bucknell in the first round of their final NCAA Tournament?

“We did everything we could when we stepped out on the court,” Lee said. “Me, Wayne, and Keith and Aaron, we always wanted to win and we always played to win. So one loss messes that up ... I don’t see why it should.”

Self said he told the seniors the same thing after the game and again in their meetings last Monday.

“I don’t think you define careers or seasons based on one game even though it was a big game,” Self said.

Taking a break

A week later the devastation still hasn’t worn off. Self said it won’t wear off until the tournament is over.

“Every time you watch someone else play you are thinking you wish that were you,” Self said.

After all of the loose ends were tied up, the players had been talked to and he had replayed the game over and over again in his head, Self left for a break of his own. Last Wednesday he took his family on a short vacation.

“Nobody likes going through this,” Self said. “No coach likes this, fans don’t like it, families of coaches hurt. We all hurt, but we can learn from this.”

“You’ve got to have a pretty tough hide about yourself. In coaching you understand that these things can happen, but you never think they will happen to you.”