Wichita bars ring with cheers during epic game

For a couple of hours Sunday, the streets of Wichita were nearly vacant.

But the bars were full.

And Kansans everywhere cheered like crazy, bit fingernails and threw jabs back and forth at friends who cheered for opposing basketball teams. It was Wichita State University vs. the University of Kansas, the teams’ first meeting since 1993 and the first in the NCAA Tournament since 1981.

In the end, WSU prevailed 78-65. The Shockers advance to the Sweet 16 in Cleveland, where they will play Notre Dame on Thursday.

During Sunday’s tense game, blood pressures spiked and eardrums might have occasionally been shattered.

“My heart is beating so fast,” Judy Stanley said as she rooted for the Shockers at Old Town’s Heroes Sports Bar and Grill nearly three minutes before the game’s final buzzer sounded.

She didn’t want to jinx anything.

“We have a good chance, but it’s still not over,” she said.

Nevertheless, her sister Joyce Gregory, who also cheered for WSU, was feeling a little sad.

“All these boys on this team have such good hearts, and they work together so hard, I want them to go on,” Gregory said. “I’m sorry for Kansas. Those boys have hopes and dreams, too.”

The Fox and Hound Bar and Grill in the Waterfront – the WSU Alumni Association’s official gathering spot – was standing room only. The bar’s host, Kelly Standridge, said it was one of the largest crowds he had seen there.

Black and yellow was everywhere. Occasionally the crimson and blue of KU supporters could be seen in the crowd.

Curtis and Lindzy Kirkpatrick sat at a table with a paper Jayhawk. Curtis Kirkpatrick is a WSU graduate; his wife, Lindzy, is a KU grad.

“Either way it goes, Kansas will come out ahead,” Curtis Kirkpatrick said.

By halftime at a packed Larry Bud’s Sports Bar and Grill at 21st and Woodlawn, KU supporter Kevin Shields said the game was going exactly as he thought it would.

“I thought it would be a close game, and I think it will continue to be a close game,” Shields said. “This game will probably be decided in the last minute of the game. I still think KU will win.”

His friend Chip Budde said, “We’ve got two fantastic basketball teams that deserve to be where they are, and it is a shame they are playing so early in the tournament.”

At Larry Bud’s, Kevin Lowe and Steve Barton – both cheering for WSU – were exuberant.

“It is great we are winning,” Lowe said.

Things got exciting, Barton admitted, when KU’s Perry Ellis had to temporarily leave the game during the first half with a bloody nose after an inadvertent elbow from WSU’s Fred VanVleet.

“It was rough but part of the game,” Barton said.

There were moments that had less to do with the game but were still memorable. For instance, there were long, loud boos at Heroes when television cameras at the arena in Omaha focused on Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who sported a T-shirt bearing both a Shocker and a Jayhawk over his pink button-down shirt.

And when WSU scored, there were patrons at Heroes who did victory dances in the aisles between tables.

Jenn Hernandez wore a black and gold Shocker T-shirt with a WuShock tattoo on her face.

“I think the Shockers have played amazingly well,” Hernandez said. “They are just so efficient, and their defense is tight.”

But as the seconds ticked down to the end, Stanley said: “I didn’t want the Kansas teams to play each other, but if one had to go, I really wanted it to be KU.”

This story was originally published March 22, 2015 at 9:16 PM with the headline "Wichita bars ring with cheers during epic game."