Missouri, after all, claimed the Big 12 North title by beating Kansas head-to-head less than 50 miles from the Kansas campus at Arrowhead Stadium. The Tigers had a far more substantial strength of schedule than the Jayhawks and finished ahead of them in the polls, as well as in the final Bowl Championship Series standings (Missouri at No. 6, Kansas at No. 8).

"The frustration's not hard to understand," Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said.

But simply put, the choice was the Orange Bowl's and the Orange Bowl's alone. And its officials say that it came down to this: Kansas had one loss, Missouri two, and the Tigers lost by three touchdowns to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship.

Unfair as it might seem, it reflects the realities of the quirky BCS system. In the 10 seasons of the BCS, only one conference title-game loser has been invited to a BCS bowl.

"Those (title) games are kind of interesting," Orange Bowl official Larry Wahl said. "If you win, it can elevate you into the national championship game (as it did Louisiana State). If you lose, it can knock you out."

Wahl also pointed out that Kansas trailed Missouri by a scant margin (.7763 to .7589) in the final BCS standings.

Yet to Missouri faithful, among others, the choice remains puzzling, if not infuriating, and naturally is compounded by the Rose Bowl's selection of three-loss Illinois, which also lost to Mizzou. But the Rose Bowl was seeking its traditional Big Ten vs. Pacific 10 matchup.

In the aftermath, conspiracy theories have abounded.

Was the Orange Bowl offended by remarks made by Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill at a pre-Big 12 title game pep rally last week in San Antonio? Before several thousand Missouri fans and with Orange Bowl reps nearby, McCaskill recounted to the crowd how she had told the bowl, "No thanks, not this year ... we've got bigger plans."

Or words to that effect, based on the assumption that then-No. 1 Missouri would win to advance to the BCS national championship game.

"I have not heard that," Wahl said, laughing. "That's one of those things that would not influence our committee."

Then there's an unsubstantiated rumor that Kansas athletics director Lew Perkins guaranteed the Orange Bowl 30,000 ticket sales. That would be a direct violation of Big 12 rules, which state, "It is not permissible for (ADs) or other university representatives, or others acting on their behalf, to guarantee or otherwise commit to the purchase of tickets above the contract amount without the prior consent of the Conference."

Attempts to reach Perkins were unsuccessful, but Beebe said he had spoken with him about the matter and that Perkins said he did no such thing.

Wahl also said he had no knowledge of such an offer. Moreover, he noted that after Kansas and Virginia Tech were given their allotments of 17,500 tickets apiece, only 2,000 seats remained in the 72,000-seat stadium.

"That sounds like a Missouri message board (topic)," said Wahl, adding, "We were close to a sellout (including tickets to be distributed to the teams) before the teams were announced."

But at the very heart of the tempest for Missouri fans is Perkins' actions on Saturday night before the bowl selections.

According to The Kansas City Star and The Associated Press, among other media outlets, Perkins said he had worked the phones with bowl officials "all night long."

The AP referred to Perkins as "lobbying," but the word wasn't in a quote, and AP reporter Doug Tucker said Friday the word choice was his, not Perkins'.

If it sounds like irrelevant semantics, it's not. Big 12 rules stipulate:

— It is not permissible for an athletics director or any institutional staff member to initiate communications with a bowl representative for purposes of expressing institutional preferences related to the selection process. ...

— The preference of member institutions to participate in a particular bowl shall be expressed only through a formal process for discussion. That process will involve the Commissioner or Senior Associate Commissioner, or both.

The reason for those rules, Beebe said, is to prevent "bidding wars" and an exercise in the "free market."

But it's important to note that the term "initiation of contact" refers not merely to calling but to the notion of "expressing institutional preferences related to the selection process."

In discussions with Perkins afterward, Beebe said he found that Perkins only had communicated with the bowls but had not done anything that would constitute a violation of rules. Beebe considers the matter closed.

Still, the rules seem to have gray areas.

One longtime Big 12 insider said it's entirely appropriate for an athletics director to communicate with bowls, even expressing how many tickets may be sold, as long as it's not building one case over another.

While declining to speculate on what Kansas did or didn't do, Missouri athletics director Mike Alden said he interprets the rules thusly:

"We have a policy that precludes us from facilitating communications and coordinating any discussion directly with bowl representatives," said Alden, adding that he believes there's a difference between the letter of the rules and the spirit of them.

Wahl, of the Orange Bowl, said he had no knowledge of whether Perkins had spoken directly to an Orange Bowl official on Saturday. But Beebe said that in itself wouldn't constitute a violation, and he added per policy that Perkins had kept him "in the loop" about who he was talking to and what he was saying.

Wahl also said he was uncertain whether anyone from the Orange Bowl had spoken with Alden on Saturday. But he noted the bowl had representatives there and assumed conversations had been held with Missouri officials.

After the game, Beebe said, he anticipated that Kansas would be chosen over Missouri because of the lopsided score. He advocated for both teams all along, he said, emphasizing the enthusiastic fans of both schools.

But in the end, after the Rose Bowl opted for Illinois and the Sugar Bowl took Georgia to preserve bowl ties to conferences they've long been affiliated with, the Orange Bowl says it chose Kansas because of the aftertaste of the Big 12 title game and Kansas having only one loss.

"When it came to splitting hairs, those were the hairs that were split," Beebe said. "I don't blame Missouri, I don't blame Kansas, and I don't blame the Orange Bowl."