As the curtain came down on the home portion of a season that not long ago looked like a failure, the Kansas University women’s basketball players deserved to take a bow for a job well done.

Seniors Shaquina Mosley and Sharita Smith said goodbye to Allen Fieldhouse in stylish fashion Wednesday night, staging an entertaining near mega-upset against Oklahoma, ranked 11th in the country.

In the end, size prevailed and the Sooners won, 76-70, but the sentiments of Mosley, KU’s leader, appeared to match those of the 3,813 who paid to see the Jayhawks.

“I think we played really hard against OU to get beat by only six in a game people probably thought we were going to get beat by 30,” said Mosley, who played 40 minutes. “I think we played really well. We played as a team, and we stuck together. We’re really proud of that.”

No reason not to be proud. Remember, this is the same Kansas team that started the Big 12 season winless in its first nine games, then won three of its next four. The Jayhawks got so much better in such a short period of time, that if you shut your eyes and listened to the roar of the crowd, you could see a bright future for third-year coach Bonnie Henrickson’s program.

Afterward, the words of Oklahoma’s Sherri Coale, the most stylish coach in the history of basketball, didn’t have that auto-pilot, coach-speak feel to them.

“I thought they fought and scrapped and competed on every single possession for 40 minutes,” Coale said. “Bonnie’s doing a terrific job with these young kids. They’re playing real hard for her. They played with great energy and emotion all night long, played with pride for those seniors that you can tell they’re going to miss. They just did a terrific job, and we were fortunate enough to make enough plays down the stretch to be able to win the game. It was a battle, every play for 40 minutes.”

In the end, the team with the sophomore center who as a freshman was a first-team All-American won. Courtney Paris totaled 32 points and 13 rebounds and could have scored far more if she had done better at the free-throw line than 8 for 16.

“She’s just a dominant force, and what I really liked about her performance tonight, when push came to shove and we had to have a basket, there wasn’t one soul in this gym who had a wrong impression about where we were going with the basketball,” Coale said. “We all knew. KU’s players all knew. You guys all knew. The people in the stands all knew. The cheerleaders. The girl who was having her 10th birthday on the baseline, she knew. Everybody knew. And we were still able to get the ball to Courtney.”

Paris is a demoralizing force for opponents, except that Kansas refused to be demoralized.

Smith, who came into the night averaging 2.5 points and one rebound, contributed nine points and five rebounds. Freshman Sade Morris wanted a big night against her hometown school and doubled her scoring average with 13 points.

Now if Henrickson can pluck from the recruiting class of ’08 a McDonald’s All-American who would like to have the offense built around her for four years, the crowds will more than double, and the days of homecourt upset bids will be history.