Downtown deflated after regional-final loss

By Steve Vockrodt     Mar 25, 2007

Moments after Saturday night’s Kansas University basketball game ended, Massachusetts Street suddenly clogged with honking cars.

Drivers sounded their horns, not for KU basketball, but instead for the lone man on Ninth and Massachusetts streets holding a sign that read “Honk for hemp.”

Unlike 2002 and 2003, when the Jayhawks made it to the Final Four, the cars filling Lawrence’s downtown strip carried downtrodden fans elsewhere following KU’s fourth-round loss to UCLA in the NCAA Tournament.

For one KU fan downtown, a Jayhawk victory seemed like a sure thing.

But when Aaron Dopf watched UCLA pull away late in the game, he and other fans at Red Lyon, 944 Mass., realized there would be no celebration Saturday night.

“When it got under 3 minutes, the crowd got real deflated,” Dopf said.

It was easy for Dopf, a KU graduate student, to pinpoint the reason for KU’s loss.

“It was an ugly game,” he said. “We turned the ball over too many times. We missed easy baskets.”

The game’s outcome wasn’t entirely unexpected for Dana Pauzauskie, another KU student who watched the game downtown.

“I had a feeling we would lose,” she said, standing outside the Red Lyon. “But I’m not a sports buff.”

A group of 11 devoted KU basketball fans could be found across town at Drury Place at Alvamar, a retirement home near Kasold Drive and Bob Billings Parkway.

Among those seated around a television in the center’s reception area was Marnie Argersinger, Lawrence’s second female mayor in 1977.

She’s watched many great KU basketball teams, and she said this year’s team was among the best.

“But tonight, the intensity isn’t there,” she said. “But I think the Salukis took away their zip.”

Seated nearby, Ala Nyman offered her analysis of KU’s performance.

“I don’t know what the matter is tonight,” said the 1939 KU graduate and member of the long-defunct Jay Janes pep club. “They just met a better team tonight.”

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