For Zags' Morrison, it was an awful ending

OAKLAND, Calif. — You wonder if any player can care more about a game's outcome — or have more to do with it — than Gonzaga's Adam Morrison.

He was even the center of attention for UCLA's Bruins in the moments after their improbable, come-from-nowhere win over the Zags, 73-71, last night in the NCAA tournament.

Believe it or not, UCLA's Arron Afflalo traded moments of celebratory chest-bumping for a few kind words with Morrison, who was slumped on the Oakland Arena floor.

Morrison was a mess. He had missed his final three shots in the effort to stave off the Bruins.

For him, it was an awful ending to what is likely the end of a wonderful career. Expect him to pass on his senior season and play next year in the NBA.

"I felt for him," Afflalo said. "There's really no reason for him to cry. He's a great player, and he's going to have a great career."

Morrison might have cried after the game, but he didn't go out with a whimper.

He might have missed his drive through the entire UCLA team late in the game — "He makes that shot 95 percent of the time," said coach Mark Few — but he didn't miss the opportunity to thank Afflalo for his compassion.

"It showed he has enough guts as a man to pick someone off the floor," said Morrison. "What he did says a lot about a great program with great people."

Even in defeat — and the Zags were never behind until it was too late — Morrison was a joy to watch, head down, hair flying, whirling around everything in sight, determined to carry his Gonzaga team forward.

"I'll never coach another kid like that," Few said. "I mean, he's a warrior. He is such an incredible competitor that it can't help but be contagious. He's literally willed us all year to wins."

For one night anyway — although I would suggest for an entire season — Morrison got the best of J.J. Redick of Duke. If tournament time means anything, Morrison should be the nation's player of the year.

For almost the entire game, it looked as if the best part would be that he would get to do it again when Redick wouldn't.

"At the end," Few said, "we had the ball in the right people's hands. If they made the shots they usually do, we win the game."

Morrison finished with 24 points, hitting 10 of 17 shots. But he couldn't get the two in the last minute of play to go in, even though they were exactly what he wanted and what his coach asked for.

"We had control of that game for most of the game," Morrison said. "Then it just happened in a blur. That's the way the game works. If you don't execute down the stretch, you pay for it."

Morrison had more points (12) in the first half against UCLA than Redick had all night (11) in Duke's loss to LSU.

In retrospect, UCLA was smug in its approach to Morrison. The plan was straight forward. Go nose up with first Afflalo, and then Cedric Bozeman.

Morrison hit his first shot, a little tear-drop runner over Afflalo, who the next time down forced Morrison into a turnover.

It looked like it would be a tough night, but Morrison just never slows down, never shuns the burden of carrying a team, finding a way when there shouldn't be one.

I'm not sure I'll ever forget the fierceness of the Afflalo-Morrison matchup that so wonderfully turned to compassion and caring.

Afflalo grew up in Compton, near Los Angeles, where toughness often means survival. Morrison, of course, grew up in Spokane with a different set of challenges, namely that of a child diabetic.

Morrison, at 6 feet 8, is bigger; Afflalo, at 6-4, quicker.

Gonzaga handled UCLA's vaunted half-court defense. In winning nine straight coming into last night's game, UCLA had not allowed any team to score more than 60 points.

Gonzaga had that many with more than eight minutes left in the game.

No player had scored more than 26 points against the Bruins all season. Morrison came in with five games of 40 points or more, and scored 24.

But it is his overall game that separates him from Redick. In one sequence, with the Bruins having narrowed the gap to six points, he rose up to hit a three-pointer over Afflalo, who was called for his fourth foul as Morrison completed a four-point play.

Then he made a nice feed to Batista for a basket, rebounded a miss at the other end and then, leading a Gonzaga break, floated down the baseline for two more points.

"This team has been incredible this entire year winning games like that, digging them out, making big shots, getting the last stop," Few said. "It just finally caught up with us at the end."

An end written agonizingly across the face of the man who meant and cared the most.