Zags repeat cruel history with defeat

OAKLAND, Calif. – It ended for Adam Morrison the same way it ended for Ronny Turiaf – in tears, a jersey tugged over his face, sprawled inconsolably on a court in March with dreams not just unfulfilled but stolen away.

It came a year and a weekend later, but with no less heartbreak.

After a few moments, Morrison was hauled to his feet by UCLA’s Aaron Afflalo and Ryan Hollins, in almost the exact fashion Texas Tech’s Ronald Ross had tended to Turiaf in that memorable second-round tableau last year. And it was difficult to suppress the thought:

They could strike a statue of this scene at Gonzaga.

Basketball games are sometimes lost more than they are won and there is a word for that, and being the competitors they are the Zags have no doubt already cursed it among themselves as they did a year ago.

But, of course, they left so many teams cursing likewise this remarkable season.

“This team has been so incredible for digging games out, making the big shot, making that last stop,” sighed Gonzaga coach Mark Few. “It finally caught up to us in the end.”

Actually, it cascaded over them, leaving them stunned, vacant and beaten – 73-71 losers at the hands of UCLA in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA basketball tournament and victims of a brand of Bruins toughness of even a different sort that once took the school to 10 NCAA titles in 12 years.

And no one felt emptier than Morrison, whose college career almost certainly came to an end Thursday night, despite a 24-point performance marked again by one defining shot.

But this time, that shot came too early.

With the Bruins making their predictable charge early in the second half after being a mess for the first 20 minutes, Gonzaga’s lead had been whittled to six points with about 151/2 minutes to play.

Here Morrison rose up to take a 3-pointer from the right wing and took a hard whack on the elbow from Afflalo – his fourth foul – yet still managed to bury the shot, along with the foul shot for a four-point play.

The lead was still 10 points with 5 minutes to play – but Gonzaga never made another point. Three of Morrison’s seven missed shots came in the last 3 minutes – all tough, all under duress, but shots he has made often as not this season.

“We had control of that game for most of the game,” Morrison said. “It just happened in a blur, but that’s the way the game works. If you don’t execute down the stretch, you pay for it and we just had a few missteps. You have to take your hat off to UCLA.

“I hate losing, period. In anything. Especially basketball. So obviously, I’m going to let it hang out and that’s what I did.”

He was speaking of his face-down breakdown after teammate J.P. Batista’s off-balance 16-footer to tie the game bounced hard off the glass at the buzzer. But the tears had started to come even before that, when the Bruins came up with two quick steals in the last 12 seconds of the game and the last of a Gonzaga lead that had once reached 17 points disappeared.

One second the Zags were a win from the Final Four, and the next they were one of the tragically disposed in which March Madness so cruelly traffics.

At that moment, Morrison – often derided as something less than the most sportsmanlike of competitors – got a full appreciation of graciousness, courtesy of Afflalo and Hollins.

“That’s just a sign of a great program and great people,” he acknowledged. “They had enough guts as a man, in their moment of victory, to pick someone up off the floor. If I could thank them, I would. That’s more than basketball.”

And so was UCLA’s comeback.

The Bruins are not a gifted offensive team and Gonzaga – derided for its defense this week and virtually every week this season – managed to make them look less than ordinary in that first half. UCLA was better at it after intermission, but mostly what the Bruins did was ratchet up their defense – holding GU to 36 percent shooting, and zero percent when it counted.

And that’s mostly a function of desire and will.

“We had the ball in the people’s hands we wanted to have the ball in,” Few said. “Adam had one where he drove down the lane and he makes that thing 95 of 100 times. He’s made it all year. That’s why we’re here. He had a step-back that I’ve seen him make 1,000 of those.

“We had Derek (Raivio) wide open in the corner once. Either of those three shots would have effectively ended the game.”

The Zags will mourn this loss in much the same way they did the Texas Tech game in last year’s tournament, which they lost with a poor performance at the free-throw line. As he should, Few tried to “protect them a little bit in a vulnerable moment” – only to find that a fellow competitor, Afflalo, did it even better.

“I just felt for him a little bit,” he said, recalling going to comfort Morrison. “He’s a great player. There’s really no reason for him – outside of the fact that he’s a competitor and wanted to win, he has no reason to cry. He’s a great player. He’s going to have a great career.

“He should definitely keep his head up. I mean, that’s hard to say, you know, when you won the game and your opponent lost. But I just really wanted to see him in a good mood.”

Maybe later. But not for the Zags, not in this cruel month.