This Looked More U-G-L-Y Than UCLA

Memphis won more games, 33, than any team in school history, earned an NCAA tournament top seeding for the first time and, until Saturday, thrilled basketball audiences with its up-tempo style and rim-rattling dunks.

And then UCLA clogged up the drain.

What had to be sorted out in the aftermath of one of the ugliest NCAA regional finals, UCLA’s 50-45 slow-dance win at the Arena, was whether the Bruins earned this Final Four berth or whether Memphis burned it.

Memphis players wanted to give UCLA credit, but it seemed tough to get their mouths to form the words.

“It was all us,” Memphis forward Shawne Williams said. “I can’t say it was them.”

There was a stat sheet to consider.

UCLA missed 26 of 40 shots -- and won.

The Bruins registered Richter scale readings with foul shot misses that made you think Shaquille O’Neal was guest speaker at Friday’s free-throw shoot-around.

UCLA made 20 of its 39 attempts from the line but was only 11 for 29 if you took out Arron Afflalo’s nine-for-10 out of the equation.

UCLA made four baskets in the second half -- four! -- and yet it was good enough to cut down the nets.

Ryan Hollins, who led the Bruins with 14 points, also led in missed free throws, nine.

No one could remember a game this aesthetically challenged since Wisconsin, coached by Dick Bennett, played keep-away from Michigan State in a 2000 national semifinal.

That was a 19-17 game at the half before Michigan State slugged out a victory.

Memphis likes to stretch its legs on long trips, but playing UCLA was like getting stuck in the middle seat in economy class.

Memphis, averaging 80 points a game, had 21 at the midway point.

UCLA had 28.

“Look at the half,” Memphis’ Darius Washington said. “That was probably the lowest-scoring game in college history.”

Yeah, but how about that dogged UCLA defense?

“It was us,” Washington insisted. “We couldn’t throw a rock in the ocean.”

Rodney Carney, the Conference USA player of the year, was held to five points on two-for-12 shooting.

Carney might have attributed his lousy effort to stout defense played by Afflalo, but he mostly held himself in contempt.

“It was more me rather than anything,” Carney said. “Everybody played terrible. I missed almost every shot I took.”

Memphis Coach John Calipari could have complained about UCLA shooting 39 free throws to his team’s 15, but what other evidence did he have?

“We missed 10 layups,” he said. “We didn’t make a three until it didn’t matter, and then it didn’t matter.”

Calipari, in the 10th-year anniversary of coaching Massachusetts to the Final Four, said of Saturday, “That might have been the ugliest game I’ve ever coached in -- and we had a chance to win.”

Seems the only team worse than UCLA on Saturday was Memphis.

“I can’t imagine people watching that game other than to see who won,” Calipari said.

The Memphis blues wrap-up sheet:

* The Tigers made their first shot and then missed 12 straight.

* They missed all 10 three-point attempts in the first half and finished making only two of 17. Both shots, Williams’ make with 13.8 seconds left and Carney’s with .08 remaining, were inconsequential to the outcome.

* Memphis made only 17 of 54 shots.

“We came out like we were scared or something,” guard Chris Douglas-Roberts said. “I really can’t put it into words. We played the game. You saw the score.”

He added: “That’s a first-half score for us. We played their tempo and that’s how they won.”

Ten Memphis players totaled five assists.

“That’s not normal,” Calipari said. “But again, you have to understand, we missed. Every time they passed to somebody, the guy missed a shot. You’re not going to have a whole lot of assists when you give a guy a layup and he banks it off the back of the rim.”

Calipari was so frustrated he even abandoned his man-to-man philosophy and played some zone defense against UCLA -- willing in the second half to try to grind out a win no matter how it bad it looked.

It was tantamount to Calipari waving a white flag.

Meanwhile, over at UCLA, the Bruins occasionally homed in on the cylinder.

Cedric Bozeman put the Bruins up by six with 52 seconds left with a free throw that almost stuck on the back of the rim before gravity sucked it through the net.

“When they plunk a free throw that drops in,” Calipari said, “you’re losing.”

Memphis finally got hot, a tad too late, when Williams drilled a three and Carney added another in the final second.

The problem was Carney’s shot cut the lead to five ... with 0.8 seconds left.

One waited for Carney to throw up his hands and ask the officials: “Can we start over?”

Instead, like Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison did two days before, Carney crumpled at half court and was offered a lift-up from UCLA’s Afflalo.

Later, in the Memphis locker room, Carney sat on a stool with his head buried in a towel.

Calipari summed it up best:

“We picked a bad game to play the way we played,” he said.

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Low output

The fewest points scored in a regional championship game by a No. 1-seeded team since regionals began being seeded in 1979:

45 -- by Memphis, in a 50-45 loss to UCLA, 2006.

* 47 -- by Oklahoma, in a 63-47 loss to Syracuse, 2003.

* 51 -- by Arizona, in a 76-51 loss to Utah, 1998.

* 53 -- by Temple, in a 63-53 loss to Duke, 1988.

* 54 -- by Kentucky, in a 54-51 victory over Illinois, 1984.

* 57 -- by Kentucky, in a 59-57 loss to Louisiana State, 1986.