No hang-dog expressions.

No could-haves, should-haves or would-haves.

Thousands of fans cheer the arrival of the Kansas University men's basketball team during a welcome-home rally in Memorial Stadium.

The moment Kansas University basketball fans Tuesday afternoon saw the bus bearing their beloved Jayhawks pull into the south end of Memorial Stadium, they shrieked their overwhelming approval of the team’s 33-4 season that ended just shy of a national championship.

“I think everybody should be very proud of them,” said Leavenworth resident Marsha Smith, who taught business to freshman forward Wayne Simien when he attended Leavenworth High School. “They were one of the final four teams in the nation.”

Faithful fans about 5,000 of them, a University Relations spokesman estimated joined Smith on Tuesday afternoon at the stadium. There, they showed Coach Roy Williams and his boys that national championship or not Jayhawk fans aren’t of the fair-weather variety.

“The team’s been great this year,” said Lawrence resident Bob Byrne, bundled in a KU coat to fend off the afternoon’s chilly winds.

He sat next to his 2-year-old son, who was waving a crimson-and-blue pompom.

“I wanted to get my little boy, Luke, some of the Jayhawk fever,” Byrne said. Though Luke was born in Lawrence, Byrne said he and his family would be moving soon. “I’m going to try to get him vaccinated to be a Jayhawk so it never wears off.”

At the Tuesday afternoon event, junior forward Drew Gooden held the trophy awarded to the Jayhawks for being a national semifinalist.

Adding fuel to an already enthusiastic rally, a B-1B bomber piloted by a four-man crew of KU graduates from the 184th Bomb Wing at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita twice swept low over the stadium a fly-by salute to a fantastic Jayhawk season.

After the deafening roar had subsided, longtime Jayhawk radio announcer Bob Davis quipped, “That’s how it felt following the Jayhawks this year.”

Ryan Brooks, who will graduate from KU in May, left his afternoon class Tuesday and walked to the stadium for what might be his last chance to welcome back the Jayhawks. Though he said he would have loved to see KU beat Maryland Saturday night and then walk all over Indiana in Monday’s championship game, Brooks already is looking ahead to the 2003 national title.

“If they all come back,” he said, referring to the possibility that junior forward Drew Gooden might bail early for the NBA, “they could win it next year.”