KANSAS CITY, Mo. —

A Missouri woman waited 50 years to take part in a cherished graduation tradition.

Connie Puett graduated from KU in 1972 but she never got to take part in the tradition of walking down the hill to the stadium on graduation day. That is until Sunday.

"Was walking down the hill everything you thought it would be?" sister station KMBC asked Puett.

"It was actually more than I thought it would be," said Puett, a retired teacher.

Puett graduated in 1972, but because of bad weather on graduation day, everything was moved inside to Allen Fieldhouse. There was no walk down the hill to the stadium like generations of KU grads have done before.

"It is the tradition at KU to walk through the campanile and, you know, down the hill to graduation," Puett said.

It wasn't just the class of ‘72. The class of 1970 never got to walk down the hill either.
So when the KU Alumni Association began planning 50-year class reunions, the university said yes, allowing those graduates the chance to finally walk on Sunday with the class of 2022.

For Puett, who's spent the last 50 years watching her husband, son, daughter, and her daughter-in-law walk down the KU hill, this was a big deal.

“And it was just after walking through, I wasn't sure what to expect, you know, walking down the, I was always on the other side on the lawn, cheering on family members," Puett said. "You know, it's like it really went too fast except it like took forever to get all of these graduates down the hill so it was awesome."

Puett said she is forever grateful to the KU Alumni Association. They tried to do that two years ago, but COVID-19 got in the way. There were about 60 graduates who finally walked down the hill. There were some anxious moments, especially when it rained early Sunday but the sun came out and it was a wonderful day.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The University of Kansas men's basketball will not play in the rest of the Big 12 tournament after player tested positive for COVID-19, the university said Friday.

According to the team, KU will remain in Kansas City, Missouri, to prepare for the upcoming NCAA Championship.

“Obviously we are disappointed and our players are disappointed that they can’t continue to compete for the Big 12 championship,” KU head coach, Bill Self, said. “While we have been fortunate to avoid this throughout the season, there are daily risks with this virus that everybody participating is trying to avoid. We have followed the daily testing and additional protocols that have been set up for us, unfortunately, we caught a bad break at the wrong time. I look forward to preparing my team in probably a unique way for next week’s NCAA Tournament.”

The team will continue to be tested on a daily basis per the NCAA guidelines and contract tracing is underway.

The Jayhawks were set to play in the Big 12 Conference Tournament semifinals at 8:30 p.m. tonight against the Texas Longhorns.

On Thursday, the Jayhawks defeated the University of Oklahoma Sooners 69-62.

It's not clear if it will affect the Jayhawks' ability to play in the NCAA Championship tournament.

In a previous interview with 41 Action News, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said the team would continue to take precautions heading into the tournament.

"We're still very well advised to be cautious and I think we'll, we'll do that health and safety is continues to be first," Bowlsby said in part. "And certainly we haven't had any instances of transmission that we know of within the athletic environment but it's, it's still good to be safe and I think you'll see those, those safety precautions implemented during the course of the tournaments."

KU did not release the name of the player who tested positive for the virus.

This story originally reported by David Medina on KSHB.com.