If you were looking live at Allen Fieldhouse on Monday night, you were treated to the college basketball game of the year, one of the top college basketball games of the decade and perhaps one of the best No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchups since a duo from 1974, when Notre Dame snapped UCLA 88-game winning streak during the regular season and then, two months later, No. 1 N.C. State beat No. 2 UCLA in double overtime in the NCAA tournament. It was No. 1 Kansas (in the AP poll) vs. No. 1 Oklahoma (in the USA TODAY Coaches’ poll), which was odd enough, but was also the rare No. 1 vs. No. 2 game (both team were No. 2 in the poll in which they weren’t No. 1) conference game that didn’t feature Duke and North Carolina.

The whole thing was a sublime 55 minutes of basketball. There were more ebbs and flows than a Tarantino whodunnit. Just when you thought you knew what would happen, you were proven wrong, and then again and again. There were, of course, controversial calls, techs, big shots, missed free throws, made free throws and majestic individual play. It was everything you hope you’ll get when you flip on any sort of sporting event.

It was a triple-overtime marathon with five players putting in more than 50 minutes. The game included Kansas leading by 11 points and, at another time, Oklahoma, which hadn’t won in Lawrence in 22 years, leading by 10. It had Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield dropping 46 on 8-15 from beyond the arc (tied for the most points ever for a visiting player at Allen), including an insane rattler that somehow dropped with Kansas up 102-98 in the third extra session. It was a game that went down to the final seconds four separate times. And, best of all, it was such a great college basketball throwback that the two best players on the court — Hield and KU’s Perry Ellis — were seniors. And, oh yeah, Brent Musburger and Dick Vitale were courtside for the action. In short, it’s almost guaranteed that nothing that happens on the NFL’s wild-card weekend will come close to touching the passion, excitement and exhaustion of one of the biggest Big Monday games ESPN has ever had the privilege of airing.

There’s been far too much criticism of college basketball in recent years, some for good reason, most for not. Forget the critics. They can watch the NBA or soccer or whatever else catches their fancy. More power to ’em. Me? I’m sticking with the greatest game in the land, one in which the top-tier talent still gives us a highly-skilled game with back-and-forth drama and the type of uncontrolled emotion the NBA doesn’t see until May, if at all.

The coaching remains phenomenal and the game is as healthy as it’s been in years, especially with big-time teams using senior-laden rosters to reach the upper-parts of the rankings. So ignore all the haters. As long as you were watching KU-OU on Monday night, why would it matter if others weren’t enjoying the show too? You were texting your friends, you were checking reaction on Twitter, you were waking up your wife with various, flabbergasted expletives (just me?) and isn’t that what sports is all about? Sure, you’d love others to love what you love, but, hey, it’s their loss.

In the end, KU simply held off a dog-tired Sooner team, perhaps aided by the raucous crowd in Kansas, and took home the 109-106 thriller they’ll be talking about for years. (It was just the second triple-overtime game between a No. 1 and No. 2 team and the first in more than a half-century.) And now, just like every year when you assume Bill Self and the Jayhawks can’t do it again — they can’t win another Big 12 title — KU take a massive step to doing it again, even if we’re still in the first week of January. Remember, Self has more Big 12 titles (11) than he does home losses (9). So even though Oklahoma is one of the nation’s top teams and will be around deep into March, it’s still the Jayhawks’ conference to rock and chalk.

The death of college basketball has been completely exaggerated. Oklahoma and Kansas didn’t prove this on Monday night, they simply reaffirmed it. Oh, and if you missed it, they’ll do it again on Feb. 13, this time from Norman. Set your DVR now.