LAWRENCE, Kan. • Perhaps no one game can define a series 105 years and 266 previous games in the making.

But the mesmerizing, deafening, unpredictable affair at Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday was at least a substantial synopsis of what it all has meant, a game that featured 14 ties and 18 lead changes, set against a backdrop of cold finality as the last scheduled game between Missouri and Kansas.

"We're never going to be part of something as big as this game was tonight," Kansas forward Thomas Robinson said.

In an epic ending, fourth-ranked Kansas rallied from a 19-point second-half deficit to shatter No. 3 Mizzou 87-86 in overtime in front of 16,300 hoarse spectators.

"We had the game in our hands, just like they apparently had the game in their hands in Columbia," MU senior guard Kim English said, referring to Mizzou's 74-71 win after trailing by eight late. "We gave them a gift."

But just like in Columbia, the reversal of fortune was as much about the gritty comeback of the winner as it was the lapses of the loser.

"We couldn't make a free throw, we couldn't catch the ball, we couldn't do anything," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "But when it counted, we made every big play."

With a victory that came only after MU couldn't get a shot off following Tyshawn Taylor's free throws with 8.3 seconds left, Kansas staked a claim to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and its eighth consecutive Big 12 title.

Kansas is 24-5 overall and 14-2 in the Big 12, two games ahead of MU (12-4) atop the league.

The Tigers, who are leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference next year, are 24-5 overall after suffering their first back-to-back losses of the season.

"This loss doesn't define our season," English said, adding, "This isn't football. We're not out of the national championship running with a regular-season loss."

But that wasn't much consolation in the moment as the Tigers dropped their 13th in a row in Lawrence, dating to MU coach Norm Stewart's last season.

The teams could see each other again in the Big 12 tournament finale.

But KU will always have this one, the exclamation point on a series it now leads 172-95.

"That's an 'I was there' game," said KU director of basketball operations Barry Hinson .

For a long while, it shaped up as a "I wish I weren't" one for Kansas fans.

With the score tied 31-31 with under 5 minutes left in the first half, the Tigers zoomed away on a 13-1 run capped by a Marcus Denmon 3-pointer to take a 44-32 lead into intermission.

Phil Pressey opened the second half with a jumper to complete a 15-1 run, and the Tigers nearly blew the game open from there.

A no-look pass from Pressey to Ricardo Ratliffe completed a 7-0 run within the broader 24-5 romp and, wham, MU led 55-36.

But soon came KU's monumental comeback.

An English layup made it 67-51 with 10:51 left, but that would be the last Tiger basket for 7 minutes as Kansas went on a 15-2 run.

That started with a Kevin Young dunk and featured six-of-six free-throw shooting by a KU team that had made only 10 of its first 20.

"When you're living at the free throw line, you're scoring while the clock is stopped, it's easy to chip the lead away," Denmon said.

KU finally tied it 75-75 with 16.1 seconds left on a three-point play by Robinson after a foul on Dixon, a play Haith said he'd like another look at.

As Dixon put it, "My hand was on top of the ball, and he caught it and it went through my hand. And I got the foul."

Seconds later, Robinson emphatically blocked Pressey's move to the hoop at the buzzer to send it to overtime — despite emphatically hitting Pressey, too.

"He was mugged?" Haith echoed a questioner, smiling and adding, "Hey, some of the bounces don't go your way."

Taylor hit a 3 to open OT and give Kansas its first lead since the first half, but MU went back ahead, 84-83, on a Denmon 3. And the Tigers led 86-85 on his basket before Taylor's two free throws with 8.3 seconds left.

MU had one last chance, but Dixon got tangled up with the ball and couldn't get a look or get it away to Denmon in time for a shot.

"I drove and Thomas Robinson kind of bumped me a little bit, and I dribbled the ball off of my body," Dixon said, adding that he got turned and was momentarily "kind of disoriented."

The same might describe college basketball fans who can't understand how this series could come to an end.

"I think that would be sad," Haith said.

But Kansas is steadfast that MU's decision to leave changes the dynamics of the relationship and the reason to play.

"The next coach may play them. The next president, the next AD may force me to play. Who knows?" Self said, adding, "We're their past. ...

"But for it to end like this is pretty cool. ... We saw the best they had to offer in Columbia, (and) they saw the best that we have to offer, maybe for the next 10 years."