At game's end Saturday, once Oklahoma State wrapped its arms around another Final Four berth, engineer Joe Riddle cued up a 9-year-old piece of tape from the team's last such trip via a regional in East Rutherford, N.J. The voice of the late play-by-play announcer wafted through their headphones and over the Cowboy Radio Network. It was a moment, to use Bill Teegins' favorite words, for cryin' out loud. "It was a tribute to Bill and our engineer, Kendall Durfey," color commentator Tom Dirato said haltingly over the telephone this week. "It kind of just made the moment ... that much nicer."

The plane crash of Jan. 27, 2001, changed the way folks from Ada to Woodward, from Altus to Watonga got their radio word about Oklahoma State football and basketball. The voice of those teams for the previous decade was killed along with Durfey, a broadcast engineer who shared duties with Riddle, two Cowboys players, four team personnel and two pilots, when a chartered Beechcraft KingAir 200 Twin Turbo crashed 40 miles east of Denver after a game at the University of Colorado.

The day resonated three years and two months to the day that John Lucas III converted a 3-pointer to send not only Oklahoma State to San Antonio, but also Cowboys hearts and minds racing.

"We all have lost members of our own family, for whatever reason," said Dirato, Teegins' sidekick and the radio network's longtime director. "While you learn to move on -- because those people in that plane, those family members, would want you to move on -- you try to do the best you can.

"But it will never leave us."

For Dirato, the pain is even more acute.

He was supposed to be on that plane, alongside his partner and engineer.

Yet Cowboys coach Eddie Sutton noticed how Dirato's bad back had flared up and commanded him to accompany the team on one of the two chartered jets.

No wonder Dirato keeps referring to "those of us left behind," as if it were so much a catchphrase like Teegins' gee-min-ee and oh, brother.

On his jacket lapel, the color commentator wears a "10" pin to commemorate the lives lost that day, the same as the Cowboys' coaching staff. "A respectful sign. An outward sign," he called it.

"They are indeed an inspiration to us every day. Even in July, when nobody's thinking about basketball. Heading into the Final Four, they're just as inspirational."

His "10" pin also coincides with the number of years he worked alongside the late Teegins, an Oklahoma City sports anchor at KWTV-TV and a seven-time state sportscaster of the year.

"Bill and I, it was one of those rare broadcasting situations. It was a good match," said Dirato, who was an Oklahoma City sports writer before joining the university staff in 1980. "We both understood that we're not the show. We had a great way of playing off each other and being dry wits. And it was something that happened from the get go, which is hard to do."

He got it!

"And Bill is ... Bill was ... a guy, what you saw when he didn't have on the microphone was what you got when Bill was on the air. Genuine. Down to earth. A tremendous representative for Oklahoma State."

Other Big 12 broadcasters filled in the rest of that season, donating their fees to a Bill Teegins Memorial Scholarship. His widow, Janis, wrote a memoir, "He Got It! My Life with Bill Teegins." Even while the university community erected memorial statues such as a weeping Cowboy and covered Gallagher-Iba Arena walls with notes, archrivals began to pay their respects as well: Oklahoma wore orange T-shirts in warmups emblazoned with "We Remember" and the names of the 10 who perished.

Four days after the crash, Dirato boarded another King Air plane to fly to the funeral for trainer Brian Luinstra.

"Some accidents, things are unexplainable," he said. "We all understand that accidents in this life happen. There are degrees to how horrific they are."

Assistant coach Kyle Keller was supposed to be on that turbo-prop with Dirato and the 10. Then came the switch, with reserve players Nate Fleming and Daniel Lawson swapping seats with them from the jet to the King Air. As Dirato tried to explain to the TV cameras the next day: If I had an overview of the general plan that was going to happen, I would have traded the 56 years of my life for someone who is 20 years old.

Dirato and third-year play-by-play man Dave Hunziker will work side by side from the Alamodome this weekend. To think, when the Cowboys made the Final Four in Seattle nine years ago, Teegins considered it the best broadcasting time he ever had. Dirato does think of him, indeed. All 10.

"It's forever," he said. "They're with us every day."

Saturday. Monday night. On the championship stand.

That would make the sorrowful memories ... well, a little bit nicer.

"We tend to think we honor these gentlemen day in and day out," he said. "Those of us left behind are always mindful. But, sure, a victory would have that much more meaning.

"I'm sure they're all antsy getting ready to watch that game Saturday.

"They'll have a front-row seat."