It looked like a frat house exploded.

That’s one way to describe the mess of beer cups, beer cans, beer bottles and anything else beer-related you can think of on Massachusetts Street following Kansas University’s basketball victory Sunday evening that sent the Jayhawks to the Final Four.

Curt Talken, a parks and recreation employee who was finishing cleanup efforts Monday morning, had an even simpler description.

“It looked like a real good party,” Talken said.

A crew of about 15 employees from the city’s parks and recreation and the public works departments started cleaning at about 7:30 a.m. Monday. About two hours later, it looked like Massachusetts Street again.

Crews – who fought strong morning winds – filled an entire trash truck with debris and employed the use of a street sweeper to get the area clean. Talken said most debris were contained to the block of Massachusetts Street between 10th and 11th streets.

Parks and recreation leaders said the only lasting damage appeared to be most of the planters that had trampled vegetation around the 10th and Massachusetts intersection.

Ernie Shaw, acting director for parks and recreation, said that means many flower bulbs likely won’t bloom this year. But he said other spring flowers can be planted to help replace the lost color.

“But we definitely won’t be doing that until after next weekend,” Shaw said, alluding to possibly an even larger celebration if the Jayhawks have success in the Final Four.

Shaw said he also was pleased that it appeared revelers stayed out of the trees, which in past celebrations have been damaged.

He said his only concern was the amount of glass, including glass pitchers from nearby bars, on the streets.

“The plastic cups and stuff we can deal with, but the glass is really the worst to clean up,” Shaw said.

Saying it on a shirt

While revelers were whooping it up downtown Sunday night, some paused to buy Kansas Final Four T-shirts, hot off the presses.

Brian Hoffman, owner of Sports Dome, 1000 Mass., and his employees ran out to the streets with their 84 preordered Final Four T-shirts immediately after Sunday’s game.

Sports Dome sells only officially licensed merchandise and will have about 10 different designs of Final Four T-shirts this week.

“We had five left. We did it for about an hour, and then we shut it down,” he said.

Hoffman, who hopes to sell about 1,000 Final Four T-shirts this week, was somewhat disappointed with Monday’s business.

“I thought we’d be a little bit busier because of what was going on last night,” he said.

“I think people are recovering. Hopefully they get a good 24 hours of sleep and are out spending and shopping tomorrow.”

Down the street at the Joe-College.com store, 734 Mass., Jayhawk fans find a different sort of T-shirt – the unofficial kind. Ashley Barkey, a KU student, bought two shirts – one that says “Beat the Tar out of Benedict Williams” and the other that tells KU to “Beat the Tar out of Them Heel-billys.” The store printed a few new shirts Sunday night and early Monday morning.

“You’re supporting them in a different way, in kind of a funny way,” said KU student Tanner Delapena. “It’s got a hometown feeling to it rather than just a general shirt that you can get anywhere in the nation.”