Anaheim, Calif. ? The door to Arizona’s locker room opened slowly. There was not a sound from inside.
Salim Stoudamire was slumped on a stool, a towel over his face. Rick Anderson weeping, was consoled, embraced, by assistant coach Rodney Tention. Anderson’s sniffing was all you could hear.
Nobody moved.
Finally, a newspaper reporter took a knee in front of Andre Iguodala, and the recovery began. Isn’t that what the psychologists say? It’s better if you talk about the unhappiness. Don’t let it eat you up inside.
“Next year,” Iguodala said, “I’m going to be a leader. Next year, I’m going to have to step up so we don’t go through this again.”
The Wildcats did not want to talk about next year Saturday. They wanted to cut down the nets, bend over with joy and milk this year for another 10 days.
But the road to the Final Four always ends with a sobering swiftness, and next year arrives much too soon.
Lute Olson coached this team to a 28-4 record and spent 13 weeks as the nation’s No. 1-ranked team. Saturday, in the grimness of a losing locker room, Olson didn’t stop coaching.
He did not break down and give in to the sadness. He was, as always, a coach.
“We let it get away,” he told his team. “You just can’t get in the kind of holes we got in. “
And then Olson got to the tough stuff. He cleared his throat and told his club how much they appreciated what seniors Luke Walton, Jason Gardner and Rick Anderson have meant to Arizona.
And that was it. The charter plane to Tucson was to leave in two hours. Andre Iguodala, Channing Frye and Hassan Adams had been promoted to positions of leadership.
Kansas won 78-75 in an absorbing game that ran for 2 hours 30 minutes, much longer than an average game. There was nothing average about this game. It was hard to let it go.
“They beat us,” Iguodala said, “but I don’t look at it like that. I look at it like Luke, Jason and Ricky are gone. That hurts more than losing.”
The Jayhawks won because Keith Langford slashed to the hoop for a lead-extending layup with 75 seconds remaining, the final points of the game. They won because Kirk Hinrich was the best player on the floor for 40 minutes, always with an answer when KU wobbled.
Arizona probably would have beaten every other team in the country Saturday.
Unfortunately, Kansas was on the schedule.
“There are always two sides to the story,” said Frye, who got in early foul trouble and didn’t find his stride. “One team cuts down the nets and the other team puts its shirts over its head and cries.”
It’s not a stretch to think Arizona will be back at this game, the Final Four qualifier, this time next March. The Wildcats are blessed with a young core of talent as good — possibly better — than at any time in Olson’s years in Tucson. But all it takes to appreciate the difficulty of getting to the round of eight is losing it.
What is more difficult in amateur sports than being one of the Final Four in college hoops?
“I’m still sick about losing the Elite Eight game here in 1998,” assistant coach Josh Pastner said. “It’s natural to take a loss at this level hard and I think we all do. I think of that ’98 loss (to Utah) more than I think about winning the national championship a year earlier against Kentucky. I remember losing to Duke in the 2001 championship game more than I remember beating Michigan State to get there. Now you start the what-if game.”
What if Stoudamire had not gone bust? What if Walton had shot a three-pointer with 43 seconds remaining — trailing 78-75 — instead of attempting to back into the paint, drawing a clear charging foul? What if KU’s Jeff Graves had not been in the right place at the right time so often, grabbing 15 rebounds, almost all of them significant?
The what-if game is a losers game. Kansas was better. Arizona is out.
“Once you get in the water,” said Frye, taking some responsibility, “you’d better learn how to swim. I didn’t. It just didn’t happen.”
When Walton returned from a formal round of interviews, as per NCAA regulations, he found that Frye was sitting in his locker. How ironic. If only by accident, it was as if he had already been replaced. He walked to a corner, took another seat, and talked when he didn’t feel much like talking.
What won’t be replaced is Walton’s character and broad shoulders. He is one of the most special players in two decades of Lute Olson basketball in Tucson. When does a guy like Luke Walton come your way again?
“I grew up as a person in my (UA) career,” he said, softly. “I met a lot of great friends, had a lot of fun and got a degree. But to not win the championship is the one thing that’s going to be frustrating, probably for the rest of my life.”
That’s how it works. Luke Walton walked into The Pond on Saturday afternoon a captain of the team favored to win the national championship. He left Saturday evening on a team that has been handed over to Iguodala and Adams.
“It’s almost too hard to take,” Anderson said. “It’s over now.”
