Kansas guard Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk (10), bottom, is dogsled by his teammates following his game-winning bucket, on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017 at Allen Fieldhouse.

During his one and only season at Kansas State 10 years ago, basketball coach Bob Huggins said that both teams have to win games for any series to constitute a rivalry. Since Kansas was winning nearly all the games at the time, he concluded, it wasn’t a rivalry. He was right.

Huggins had three shots at Kansas that year and couldn’t come away a winner. His culture-changing presence and the recruits he left behind elevated the program. Frank Martin and Bruce Weber were able to coach the Wildcats to a pair of victories against Kansas at Bramlage Coliseum, a building in which the schools have split the past six games.

When Michael Beasley led K-State to an 84-75 victory on Jan. 30, 2008, over the eventual national champions, it broke a 24-game Manhattan winning streak for Kansas.

Ever since that game, it has felt more like a rivalry, especially in Bramlage, where the school wisely seats the students close enough for their antics (generally not too obscene) to be seen and heard.

Still, the series lacked controversy, a moment on which a rematch could hang its hat, a hook that would make the next clash a must for basketball fans in all 50 states, not just in the state that one Bill has dominated for decades in football, the other Bill and Roy before him in basketball.

That moment arrived Tuesday night, when Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk invented the Euroasian step and hit the game-winning shot to defeat the aggressive visitors from Manhattan, 90-88, in Allen Fieldhouse.

The inbound pass went to Devonté Graham because Frank Mason was double-covered. The defense collapsed on Graham, leaving an open path for Svi, who took the pass roughly 75 feet from the hoop, executed two long power dribbles and picked up the ball. Not-at-all slowly he turned, step by step, inch by inch, and threw the game-winner off the glass as the red light on the backboard shined.

Imagine the horror of the three referees when they went to the monitor to confirm the obvious, that Svi had released the shot in time, only to discover the far more obvious: Svi had done the best Gale Sayers impersonation anybody in this town had seen in decades.

The refs didn’t enforce the rules in Chuck Norris fashion. In portraying Cordell Walker, Texas Ranger, Norris didn’t just blow the whistle on rules offenders, he beat them, often to death.

As of Thursday night, a tweet from senior walk-on Tyler Self (@T_Self11) had been retweeted 878 times, and had 1.9 K likes: “Svi’s statline: 11 points, 2 assists, 10 rushing yards, 1 game winner.”

Perfect.

No telling what the creative K-State students will have in store for Svi in the form of chants, cardboard posters, maybe even costumes for the occasion, scheduled for Feb. 6 at 8 p.m., the day after the Super Bowl, but a much bigger game in this 85-mile slice of pastoral heaven that separates the schools.

If the athletic department had a sense of humor, which it probably doesn’t because, well, it’s an athletic department, it would look into bringing Nancy Sinatra to town armed with a purple Sharpie for a white-boot-signing party. You know, buy the boots and wear them to the game for a boot-out.

Surely, every time Svi touches the ball, the students, maybe even the band, will have something loud to send his way.

Players and coaches from both squads won’t give the rematch any thought until it’s upon them, but it will reside for the next month in the back of many other minds, a sure sign of a genuine rivalry.

It will be interesting to see how Svi responds to the relentless attention from the fans. If he responds with the game of his life and drops 30 on the Wildcats, KU boosters will worship the ground he walks on. In their eyes, it will be a performance worthy of a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. NCAA rules might prohibit him from playing himself in the movie, in which case Christoper Walken could portray him.

Twice the performer as two-man folk band Aztec Two-Step, Mykhailiuk has rattled off eight consecutive double-figures scoring games, is averaging 11.1 points and boasts a .457 3-point shooting percentage. At 6-foot-8, he walks tall for a player with such refined perimeter skills.

Conventional wisdom suggests that K-State should have the edge because it will be determined to even the score after being denied the opportunity to win the game in overtime, or even with about two seconds remaining had the travel been whistled.

Disagree.

Sure, the home crowd gives Kansas a huge advantage, but any team that visits Allen Fieldhouse plays with an underdog’s free mind, has nothing to lose in the sense that gives them any shot to win.

The Jayhawks will be so tired of hearing about the Svi steps by the time the game rolls around they’ll play as if they have something to prove as well. The majority of the pressure, for a change, will lie on the shoulders of the Wildcats.

I like Kansas in the rematch, but don’t expect it to be a cakewalk.