Robbie Gould of the Chicago Bears kicked off to start the second half of Super Bowl XLI, and the Free State High boys basketball players stopped celebrating their stunning Saturday night victory over Shawnee Mission East, the state’s second-ranked team.

At least they did if they listened to their coach, Chuck Law.

“I told them they had until 7:27 p.m. to celebrate, then they have to start focusing on Shawnee Mission Northwest,” Law said. “I told them I don’t care if Prince is performing then or whatever’s happening, at 7:27 Sunday night, which was 24 hours from when I was talking, they had to stop celebrating.”

The Firebirds’ feat was overshadowed during a wild day of college basketball upsets. Five of the nation’s top 12 teams lost on Saturday, and four of those came against unranked opponents. Free State joined North Carolina State, Florida State, USC and Colorado as unranked giant-killers.

“Across the board, it was really a team effort,” Law said. “We really played well together. There were a couple of spots in the second quarter where we got selfish and went into ‘me’ mode. We got that rectified. We had a good conversation during a timeout and a good conversation during halftime.”

Those who while walking their dogs in the neighborhood of Free State can hear Law correcting his players during practice might find that an interesting use of the word “conversation.”

“OK, it was more of a monologue for a minute in the second quarter,” Law allowed. “I was not really pleased with how things were going and with the tempo of the game. Their transition game is without peer in Kansas high school basketball. They get it, they fly. If you don’t take a good shot, if you don’t have good floor balance, they are going to get out and score on you.”

Law’s team upset a highly ranked team that gets it and flies. Sounds familiar. After coaching the Firebirds to victory, Law made his way to Allen Fieldhouse and watched Acie Law lead 10th-ranked Texas A&M to a mini-upset over Kansas University.

“He made some plays down the stretch,” Chuck said of Acie. “No relation as far as I know. … I’m going to run my guys (today in practice) for making me late by sending the game into overtime.”

Not only did the winning team in both of the games have a Law on its side, each came back from an 11-point deficit at the same stage of the game.

Free State avenged a 13-point, early season loss to Shawnee Mission East to pull off the upset.

“Shawnee Mission East is used to playing in front of packed houses and they play with a lot of energy and feed off the crowd,” Law said. “I told our guys they were going to be able to hear for the first time the echo of the ball bouncing and that it could be to our advantage. It was a small crowd, and it was split about 50/50.”

Law yearns to see his team play in front of a packed Free State gymnasium with the crowd muting the echo of the basketball, though he’s not expecting it at home games Tuesday and Friday.

Who knows? He might look into the stands and be stunned. As this past weekend demonstrated, basketball is full of surprises.