OKLAHOMA CITY ? This “house divided” stuff is overrated.

So reports Brenda Sniezek, a Kansas University graduate whose husband, Bob, graduated from the University of Missouri.

You wouldn’t have known Saturday in Oklahoma City, where mom and the family’s five children — Madeline, 9; Mary, 7; Henry, 5; Martha, 3; and Helen, two months — made it to the KU pep rally in Bricktown with all the right equipment: KU pompoms, KU stickers, KU face paint.

Martha even sported a KU cheerleader outfit.

“We don’t have any Missouri clothes,” said Brenda Sniezek, a season-ticket holder who attends games at Allen Fieldhouse with another lucky member of the family. “The mother is the one that purchases the clothing. I cannot — I will not — buy MU things.”

Bob Sniezek, by the way, didn’t make the Oklahoma City trip. He was in Dallas on business, undoubtedly watching his beloved Tigers drop their second-round game to Marquette.

Just as Madeline predicted in her bracket.

“I don’t have them going very far,” she said with a sly smile. “I have the Jayhawks winning it all.”

Snapping out of it

More from “As the Hot Tub Swirls” …

Brittany Bedene and Amy Goodwin, on spring break from high school in Pittsburg, figure they’ve had a pretty good week. Saw a couple of basketball games. Scored some autographs from their favorite KU players. Shared a hot tub with Kirk Hinrich at the hotel.

But it couldn’t last forever.

Amy — the persistent Hinrich fan — managed to pose for a picture with her idol Saturday morning in the hallway at the Marriott Oklahoma City.

“He’d just woken up, I think,” said Amy, who once made a Hinrich “shrine” out of a pizza-box lid. “He still looked great.”

But Brittany missed out. Her man Nick Collison — object of her home-decorated “Nick’s Chick” sweatpants in the suitcase up in her room — spotted the KU forward outside the team meeting room and sidled up for a photo. It was a memory that would last a lifetime.

“But the camera didn’t work,” Brittany said, moping on a bench in the hallway. “It didn’t go off, and I started crying like an idiot. I had to go upstairs.

“It’s soooo embarrassing.”

She decided to wait for another chance. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty.

Finally, Collison emerged. Brittany and Amy converged, this time with a different camera. The folks stood by with backups, just in case.

“Sorry,” Collison said, passing them all by. “I think I’m late for the bus.”

Roll call vote

State Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, enjoys taking a timeout from the Kansas Legislature by following her Jayhawks on the road.

Mixing in with 19,000 fans at Ford Center, she has found, offers a welcome respite from tussling with a few dozen legislators over a troublesome financial mess.

“Right now we’re working on the budget and finding money to fund all the things the state needs — education, K through 12, social services, what we’re going to do with highways. There’s just so many things,” said Ballard, attending Saturday’s game with her husband, Al.

Time change

The NCAA pushed back Saturday’s scheduled 4:30 p.m. tipoff of the Oklahoma-California game 30 minutes, and the move unintentionally may have helped hundreds of fans make it to their seats on time.

Thousands of ticketholders waited in line outside the Ford Center when the original game time arrived, as security personnel increased their checks of peoples’ bags and personal belongings compared to Thursday’s opening sessions.

Tim Allen, tournament manager and associate commissioner for the Big 12 Conference, said he didn’t know the reasons behind the time change or the stepped-up security.

“If that’s what they’re doing, we’re supportive,” Allen said.