He Left It All on the Court

OAKLAND —  Adam Morrison couldn’t believe it, and who could blame him?

The best player in college basketball this season, the nation’s leading scorer, the mop-top Pete Maravich clone who was going to lead rag-tag Gonzaga through this regional and beyond, had just been shot down at mid-court in the Arena.

Not literally shot down, mind you, although it sure looked like it.

The game was over, UCLA had come back to win, 73-71, and Bruin Bedlam broke out Thursday night on its way to spilling into Friday morning.

At the time UCLA was improbably advancing to Saturday’s regional final game against Memphis, Morrison was in full advance to a hardwood floor.

He began writhing seconds after teammate J.P. Batista’s last-second basket banged off the backboard.

How did it happen?

A 17-point lead gone like that?

Everything he worked for demolished by a couple of frenzied seconds?

Gonzaga led every second of the game except the last nine.

In dreams, though, it’s still not over -- that’s how the great ones think.

Morrison gets the three-quarter-court pass in the opponent’s end, the way Duke’s Christian Laettner did in 1992 against Kentucky.

There were 1.9 seconds left Thursday -- plenty of time for a miracle.

Like Laettner did in that NCAA regional game at Philadelphia, Morrison would have time to receive the pass, take a bounce, turn around and end this comeback nonsense with a game-winning, or at least tying, basket.

But that’s not the way it shook out.

Morrison didn’t get the ball, it went to Batista.

“Obviously I was calling for the ball,” Morrison said. “But we got a great shot with J.P. down way farther than I was. I mean, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

In the aftermath, Morrison was left in the back court, first on his wallet, knees tucked into his arms, head buried.

He is not a player to hide his emotions in victory or defeat -- and so the tears flowed.

Gonzaga’s 20-game winning streak was over; the chance to get to its first Final Four pick pocketed.

Morrison rolled over on his side, as if his appendix had just burst.

“I hate losing, period,” he would say later. “Anything, especially basketball.”

Morrison, averaging 28.2 points per game, was “held” to 24. He made 10 of 17 shots, but he’ll remember missing a couple of late ones.

So the floor beckoned.

Interestingly, one of the first people to lift him up was UCLA guard Arron Afflalo. Then Bruin center Ryan Hollins, all 7 feet of him, went over to help Morrison to his feet.

It was the ultimate show of respect.

“I just saw him laying there in tears a bit,” Afflalo said. “I just felt for him a little bit. He’s a great player. He had no reason to cry, outside of the fact he’s a competitor and wanted to win. He’s going to have a great career. He should definitely keep his head up.”

Morrison didn’t know he was being lifted up by Bruins -- at least not at first.

Later, after he gained his composure, he would reflect on the gesture.

“That’s just a sign of obviously a great program, and great people,” Morrison said. “They had enough guts as a man to come over in their moment of victory, pick somebody off the floor. If I could thank them I would.

“That’s just a sign of, you know, great people and great players. That’s more than basketball.”

The worst part of the NCAA tournament is that it always ends badly for every team except the champion.

Some losses hurt worse than others, and Thursday’s will ache for decades.

Ten years from now, in the midst of possibly an all-pro career, Morrison might wake up in a sweat at some swank NBA hotel after a flashback of the UCLA defeat.

He’s a junior, with another year of eligibility left, but Morrison might be off to the NBA come summer, and his last NCAA moment has been poisoned.

“He’s one of a kind,” Mark Few, his coach, would say.