At the end of the Wichita State and South Florida game on Tuesday in Tampa, players for the Shockers celebrated. They had just snapped a two-game losing streak, so there was high-fiving on the court — respectively, of course — before the team went to shake hands with the Bulls players.

At the same time, back in the Sunflower State, Kansas State and Kansas were battling in the Sunflower Showdown inside Allen Fieldhouse. Not even five minutes after the buzzer sounded in Tampa, and before we could even flip the channel to ESPN for the game in Kansas, all hell broke loose.

If you want to know exactly how not to act at the end of the basketball game, grab a pen and notepad, turn on your projector, and study that film from Lawrence, because it was absolutely bonkers.

To paint the picture and give you a Bob Ross-esque perspective of the incident, here’s what you need to know. K-State guard DeJuan Gordon stole the ball from Kansas’ Silvio De Sousa with four seconds remaining, went down for a layup, and got swatted into oblivion. De Sousa then preceded to stand over Gordon, taunting him. That’s when the wheels came off of the bus.

As the scene progressed, K-State’s Antonio Gordon and James Love rushed off of the bench, and then, before you knew it both benches were cleared like in an MLB brawl. The main aggressiveness came from Love, who wasn’t even in uniform, and De Sousa — both of whom were throwing punches. You had a male KU cheerleader holding a security guard back. And then somehow De Sousa went full Randy Orton and grabbed a chair with full intent to harm.

Fast forward a few seconds and you have what appears to be Love on the ground in front of the student section, KU guard Marcus Garrett and forward David McCormack coming towards him, along with De Sousa and the now-infamous stool. Dive a little deeper in, and it appears Garrett is kicking whomever is on the ground while McCormack appears to be trying to curbstomp him.

To make it even more poetic, the person that brought Love to the ground was actually a KU fan in the handicapped section. On top of that, you have a poor woman on the ground screaming for her life, students in the student section throwing up the bird, and other students looking on in shock and awe.

Now that you get the picture, why was this the wrong way to act? Well, the whole thing was idiotic. People can argue that Gordon should’ve never stole the ball, but what happened to playing until the buzzer no matter how much you’re down? Everything that happened was fine until De Sousa started taunting a non-engaged Gordon on the ground. Instead of doing so, De Sousa should have accepted his block and walked happily back to his bench in victory. The teams would have shaken hands and left the court peacefully. But no, all hell broke loose and now suspensions are going to be harsh.

So here’s the real takeaway — Wichita State is the most respectable basketball team in the state of Kansas, and it’s obvious. Bill Self really does have a lack of institutional control (see FBI files) and now K-State, down 20-plus, is out here begging for a fight with steals in garbage time — even though they shouldn’t get the full blame for playing hard. But still.

So at the end of the day, you have to congratulate the Shockers for winning and losing with dignity. You’ve never seen WSU in a brawl, and likely never will, considering Gregg Marshall’s reputation with his strong institutional control (see no FBI file). 

You didn’t see the Shockers brawling with Cincinnati last year after the game, and even though there was a scuffle during the game, the two teams still shook hands respectfully at the conclusion.

Good job, Wichita State. Way to know how to act in a public place.