With her blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, Susanne Karsten stood out in the crowd at Northwestern University's Welsh-Ryan Arena. She was sitting in a sea of rowdy Thornwood High students, who were there to vocally punctuate Thornwood prep stud and NBA-bound Eddy Curry's every monstrous highlight.

But you better believe Karsten was in the right place. And she had come a long way to get there. Sonny Vaccaro's Roundball Classic was the first time she had seen her son, Julian Sensley, play high school ball in two years.

Up until 1999, Julian lived with Susanne in Kailua, Hawaii. But in the hope of getting more attention from college recruiters, he transferred to St. Thomas More Prep in Connecticut. Mission accomplished. After averaging 24 points and 15 rebounds this season, the 6'8", 220-pound forward accepted a scholarship to ball at Cal next season.

But for Julian, success was bittersweet. "It was hard all this time without my mom around," said Sensley, who speaks with his mother almost daily. "I felt like I had to do something." That's when he called Sonny Vaccaro. And called and called and called. When Julian was selected for the game, he worked the Adidas mogul day and night trying to arrange for Mom to make the eight-hour flight from Hawaii to Chicago. "This was special for them," said Vaccaro. "I wanted to do everything to make this happen."

Mom and son tried to make up for two years in one weekend. Along with the other players, they took a trolley-car tour of Chicago, had lunch on the 95th floor of the Hancock Building and attended a silent auction and black-tie affair for the game. "This weekend has been unbelievable for me," said Karsten, almost at a loss for words.

When the game's P.A. announcer introduced the starting lineups and hollered out "Julian ... 'The Jewel' ... Sensley!" his mom adjusted the zoom on her camera and took nearly half a roll of film. She can never have enough mementos of her boy -- back in Hawaii, Karsten spends most of her spare time searching the web for articles on Julian. She beamed with pride as her boy went for 16 points and five rebounds in the game.

At the after party in the Adidas suite in the Downtown Marriott, Sensley, Karsten and Vaccaro posed for pictures. "I'll take care of your son, I promise," said Vaccaro. The next morning mom and son said goodbye at 4:30 a.m. in the cold Chicago morning, promising never again to let two years slip by.

Chris Palmer is a writer/reporter at ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at christopher.palmer@espnmag.com.