ATLANTA _ In the jubilation after a depleted and dwarfed and dissed Kansas State team had gritted past Kentucky on Thursday at Philips Arena, K-State coach Bruce Weber urged star guard Barry Brown Jr. nearby to go into the stands to join family and friends.
Testifying to both Brown's coachability and the sheer euphoria of the 61-58 win that slung ninth-seeded K-State into the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight for just the second time since 1988, Brown sprinted towards a courtside table and hurdled it and basked in the purple people.
"Enjoy the moment; you don't get to do this all the time," Weber said, adding, "Those are the snapshots you'll have in your mind for the rest of your life."
Even as Brown was going into the stands moments after making the game-winning basket, 88-year-old Ernie Barrett was being summoned down from his seat to join the team ... some 67 years after the Wildcats had exacted what he considered vengeance against Kentucky from the 1951 national title game.
This was a snapshot, after all, that "Mr. K-State" had had in his mind all his life since the 68-58 loss in the game in which Barrett's injured shoulder stifled him.
" 'Coach, you've got to get revenge for me,' " he told Weber before the game _ just like he did before the 2014 NCAA Tournament game that was Kentucky's ninth straight win in as many times in the series between the schools.
When it happened, alas, Barrett didn't quite storm the court as he hinted he might in a pre-game conversation.
Instead, he savored it in the stands before joining the team in the locker room to celebrate and glance ahead to playing 11th-seeded Loyola Chicago and its Overland Park, Kan., Blue Valley Northwest grads Clayton Custer and Ben Richardson on Saturday.
Here's hoping Barrett and 98-year-old Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt meet pre-game ... but that they don't quite hug.
"He hugged everybody, and when he hugs you, you might be hurt after he hugs you," Weber said. "It doesn't matter, whatever he is, 80, whatever he is, that dude has some strength. ...
"I don't know if he had tears, but it sure looked like it."
As for the blood and sweat, that was furnished by a KSU team that by game's end was down four players (three had fouled out, including Xavier Sneed, the leading scorer of the night, and Dean Wade's foot injury limited him to 8 minutes).
That meant the K-State was relegated to playing five guards that were 6-foot-4 or under against Kentucky's beanstalks, and that pretty well tied into the themes of the night.
Find a way.
When that height difference was the reality, Weber's adaptive mindset was ... "we thought we could get under them."
No one would say Kansas State is as talented as Kentucky to begin with, let alone four men down.
But it sure could play harder and smarter and more together, and it could get more tips and deflections and floor burns and charges taken and 50-50 balls.
It could take pride in backing up Weber's contention that it's the best defensive team in the NCAA Tournament, one that held Kentucky to 19 of 54 field goals (35.2 percent) and clamped it down enough to control the pace yet again.
"It was a physical game," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "And it kind of got us a little bit out of rhythm, and it wears you down."
And it could rest in good conscience no matter what happened.
As a pre-game motivational point, Weber, a Wisconsin native, turned to legendary Green Bay Packers football coach Vince Lombardi.
As he recalled the quote, it was about that "you've got to play your heart out in your finest moment. You've got to lay it all on the line and play to exhaustion."
To be precise, the actual quote goes: "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle _ victorious."
But Weber's interpretation had a resonance of its own, and why shouldn't he get to put his own spin on it?
Particularly considering the results on Thursday and how underappreciated _ even maligned _ he'd been at K-State for so long.
Now K-State has a chance to emerge from this crazy South region that for the first time in the modern history of the bracket had none of the top four seeds advance _ a tone set by 16th-seeded UMBC beating Virginia before K-State knocked out the Retrievers.
Now, Weber stands a win away from becoming the 14th coach to take two schools to the Final Four and joining the likes of Roy Williams, Larry Brown and Lon Kruger.
The Wildcats have been to four Final Fours, the last in 1964, and with their combination of guard play and defense and sheer will infused by Weber and his staff there's no reason now that they can't crack through again.
Toward more snapshots they'd have for the rest of their lives.
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