SALT LAKE CITY _ So this is how the end of an era, or at least a radical outlier, looks:
As a whirlwind Auburn team seized a 20-9 lead over Kansas on another fast-break 3-pointer by Bryce Brown in their NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional game on Saturday at Vivint Smart Home Arena, KU coach Bill Self stood in a hapless, hopeless pose on the sideline. Exasperation radiating from his red face, he turned one way and then another. He seemed to start to speak to no one in particular as he perhaps sought an answer out of the literally thin air here.
Seconds later, Brown, ho-hum, did it again, and you already knew by then there was no solving this mess for KU.
The fourth-seeded Jayhawks trailed 51-25 at halftime after the fifth-seeded Tigers swamped them 26-1 in fast-break points on the way to an 89-75 dismantling.
In the process of being bulldozed, KU squandered a chance to play in the Sweet 16 at Sprint Center next week, where in essence it would have been playing with house money ladled in gravy after a season of flux.
The loss, which came after KU had offered some glimmers of hope by winning nine of its last 12, put an exclamation point on how much this season deviated from what's become routine under Bill Self and eluded him and his team (26-10) this season.
Not only did KU's streak of 14 straight Big 12 titles come to an end this season, but now so has another remarkable standard: The loss to Auburn, the Southeastern Conference Tournament champion that won its 10th straight game, extinguished a trend that had gone back to 2000 and had become a staple since Self took over in 2003.
Until Saturday, every Kansas season since the loss to Duke in 2000 had ended with either a conference title, advancing to the second weekend of the tournament and beyond, or both.
And now ... a humbling.
"You don't get a ring for winning a game in the tournament," Self said in the wake of Kansas' first-round romp over Northeastern.
Instead of adding more bling, the Jayhawks will head into an offseason of uncertainty with an ugly loss in their craw and little to console them by way of accomplishment.
Or as Self put it on Thursday when he considered the potential impact of this game: "Even though the year didn't go exactly as we had it scripted, I do think in our fans' minds and certainly in my mind, in our players' minds, it takes the sting off of that totally if you perform very well in the tournament."
So the sting will stick now as KU and its fans are left to wonder what might have been _ both in terms of if Udoka Azubuike hadn't been injured and Silvio De Sousa had been eligible and had they managed to make their way back to Kansas City and a de facto home game against the winner of the matchup Sunday between top-seeded North Carolina and ninth-seeded Washington.
That homecoming guaranteed nothing, of course, especially considering KU just lost to Iowa State in its last game at Sprint Center and was upended there as a No. 1 seed by No. 3 seed Oregon in a 2017 Elite Eight game.
Just the same, the possibilities sure would have been intriguing and might have produced one of the most enticing games of the tournament if the Jayhawks were taking on the Tar Heels and former KU coach Roy Williams.
Instead, KU added to the tournament thuds of some of the Big 12's most prominent prospects: Regular-season co-champion Kansas State, a No. 4 seed, fizzled out Friday in the first round against 13th-seeded UC Irvine, and in a 6-11 upset Big 12 tournament champ Iowa State tumbled to Ohio State later in the day.
Even with no seniors on a team that started five players, including four freshmen, who'd never played in an NCAA Tournament before, KU fans also are left to wonder what's ahead.
Azubuike, Dedric Lawson and Quentin Grimes, who struggled early but found himself some late in the season, all seem questionable to return. Perhaps others won't be back. And who's to say what's yet to come amid the lingering uncertainty of the FBI Adidas probe?
Now, roster turnover is a constant for program that currently has 11 players in the NBA, most of whom left before their eligibility expired. And as long as Kansas is guided by Self, one of the best to ever coach the game, the program will regenerate and remain in the upper echelon. You should bet next year Kansas will make its record 31st straight NCAA appearance.
But for the first time in 15 years, Kansas' season ended with no Big 12 title behind it, nothing of note accomplished in the NCAA Tournament and more questions than obvious answers.
And a sting that will linger for a program going into the offseason with less achievement or momentum than it has in nearly two decades.
