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Coach Bill Self bites his lip in frustration at the end of the game Friday in Oklahoma City, Okla. KU lost to a 14-seed, Bucknell, for the first time in school history. For more photos of the game, see our photo gallery.

College basketball analysts everywhere are calling the 2005 NCAA Tournament one of the biggest Cinderella stories in recent history.

Cinderella put on her dancing shoes March 18 when No. 14 Bucknell knocked off No. 3 Kansas, and No. 13 Vermont defeated No. 4 Syracuse.

From there, top seeds were eliminated like Donald Trump’s apprentices. Boston College, Connecticut and Wake Forest, like Kansas, all failed to move on past the first weekend.

All were defeated by teams that were hot. Momentum is the key to advancing in the NCAA Tournament. Teams have to be talented, but momentum pulls off upsets.

No. 10 seed North Carolina State finished with a losing record in the Atlantic Coast Conference but knocked off Wake Forrest in the ACC Tournament to advance to the championship game. They defeated UConn in the second round in the NCAA Tournament.

West Virginia finished fifth in the Big East Conference, but defeated Boston College and Villanova in the Big East Tournament to advance to the tournament finals. West Virginia pounded Wake Forest and fell just seconds short of a trip to the Final Four.

In losing five out of their last eight games, the Jayhawks didn’t have that momentum. Kansas peaked at the wrong time this season.

When he looks back on it, Kansas coach Bill Self points to victories against Georgia Tech and at Kentucky as landmarks of the season. Both of those victories took place in the first 10 days of January. He reminds people that the Jayhawks did win the league — although they dropped four of their final six conference games to allow Oklahoma a share of the title.

“If you go 10-1 in the nonconference with Wayne out and you beat Georgia Tech and Kentucky and you win the league championship,” Self paused. “I would say this was a really great season with a really, really bad ending.”

The stinging 64-63 loss to Bucknell was one of the most embarrassing in school history. But the Jayhawks’ play in that game was not inconsistent with the way they had performed in last few regular season games.

The Bucknell game was close for all 40 minutes. Kansas trailed at half and turned the ball over 13 times.

The kicker though: Kansas went scoreless in the final 8 minutes and 44seconds of the game.

Sound familiar?

In Kansas’ final four regular season losses, the Jayhawks fell by a combined 15 points. In three of those games, the Jayhawks trailed at halftime. They turned the ball over at least 12 times in each of those games, which led to lengthy scoring droughts.

On paper, this Kansas team had all of the ingredients of a capable tournament team: the All-American candidate that was good for a double-double each game, the leadership, the experience, the depth. Momentum and energy don’t show up on paper though.

Finishing the season 2-4 and losing senior guard Keith Langford, the team’s second leading scorer, hurt the Jayhawks’ momentum.

Self was asked if he thought the Jayhawks suffered from fatigue.

“I don’t buy that,” Self said. “But I think we played like that, and I think injuries make you look tired.”

The Jayhawks finished the season 23-7, won the Big 12 title and earned a No. 3 seed in the Syracuse region.

NC State finished 7-9 in the ACC and were a No. 10 seed in Syracuse. But when the Wolfpack look back on the 2004-05 season, they will consider it a success. They reached the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1989.

Self said he was proud of the Jayhawks’ season. But he knows why this year will not be ranked among Kansas’ best.

“I don’t think you can have a great year unless you play well in March,” Self said.

“Sorry coach Flannery”

Some of the Kansas players were so stunned after their first-round loss to Bucknell, they forgot to shake the hands of the Bucknell players.

Self was unaware of the slight until after the game, addressed the team and placed a personal phone call to Bucknell coach Pat Flannery.

“I called Pat Flannery and said ‘I haven’t even talked to players about this.’ I don’t know exactly how it played out,” Self said. “Pat told me ‘don’t sweat this because our players were on the court celebrating like they won a championship, so don’t worry about waiting for us to stop running around.’”

What did he say?

In the locker room after the Jayhawks’ loss to Bucknell, Langford said something that raised a few eyebrows. Granted, the senior guard has said many of those things in his career, but this comment’s timing earned some extra attention: “Now I can sit down and express myself and say what I really want to, let people know how I really feel, get a lot of things off my chest,” Langford said.

Self said he didn’t find out about the comment until a couple of days after the game. When he heard it, he wanted to know what Langford meant by the comment.

“I called him and I called his mother, because I was unable to run him down, and asked him to clue me in on what this meant,” Self said. “It would lead me to believe he was going to say something about his unhappiness the last couple of years.

“He told me, and he was emphatic about this, he said, ‘No, that’s not what I meant at all. I don’t have any problems with anything with the basketball program. There are some things I wish people knew.’”

Self said Langford could have been talking about a number of issues, but he suspected it was health problems, which have plagued Langford during the last two NCAA Tournaments.

Time to beef up

Add this year’s recruiting class — Mario Chalmers, Julian Wright and Micah Downs — to the Jayhawks’ five freshmen this season and the Jayhawks will have eight young players next season.

Self said the team will begin working out immediately after spring break to add some mass to those young bodies. Somebody is going to have to fill in for senior forward Wayne Simien’s 20 points and 10 rebounds.

“We need to get in the weight room and get bigger and stronger,” Self said.

Self said the current freshmen along with the incoming freshmen are going to have to work hard to develop into replacements for the graduating seniors.

“We have to have one or two develop into all-league type performers,” Self said. “If you do that, all of the sudden, you have yourself quite a team.”