KERR-PLUNK : Wildcats Fall From Final Four as Guard Has Rare Off Game

It was vintage Steve Kerr when the game was over.

As usual, he summed up the game in a nice, neat, succinct little package. As usual, he was right on the money.

By then, it was too late.

The key, Kerr explained, was that he hit only 2 of the 12 three-point shots that he took. Saving all those reporters the trouble of looking it up, he volunteered that he is a 60% shooter from three-point range and he’s never had an off game that was so far off.

His off game caused his University of Arizona team to lose to Oklahoma in this Final Four game, he further explained, because it is his responsibility to shoot down a zone. While he fired away all those errant shots, Oklahoma’s zone lived.

And those missed shots represented a lot of “potential points” as he put it. If he had hit just 50%, that would have been another 12 points. Arizona lost by eight points, 86-78.

Simply, his shots had not dropped. The Arizona crowd had not spent the night repeating in unison in cult-like adoration the familiar: “Steeeve Kerrrr.” Arizona had not advanced to the final game.

In wave after wave reporters sought him out in the subdued Arizona locker room. He answered all questions. He even came through with some of his expected one-liners. “I made about 30 in a row in warmups, so I guess I used them all up.” And, “My mother came from overseas for this--she could have seen better basketball in Cairo.”

And for almost an hour he poured out to them the emotion they were looking for. Sitting on a treatment table, shoulders slumped, head hanging, it went over it again and again.

“I do feel responsible,” Kerr said. “Look at the statistics and you will see that I was responsible. I picked the wrong time to have the worst shooting night of my life. I can’t say it was because I was rushed. Maybe I was on a couple late in the game. But when I needed to make them I was wide open, perfectly in rhythm. I just missed them.

“In a couple of weeks maybe it’ll be nice to look back on the season. But right now I feel devastated. It will take awhile. We’ve had a great season. It’s been fun all year. We’re in the Final Four. We’re 35-3. Right now, though, we might as well be 3-35 the way I feel.”

The irony was lost on no one. Kerr is the team’s leader. The steadying influence. The fifth-year senior who joined the team when it was at the bottom of the Pac-10 and who was taking it all the way to the top. A knee injury that caused him to have to sit out last year was a blessing, he had said, so that he could be a part of this team’s destiny. This team was meant to win it all.

For Kerr to be the one left with the feeling that he failed the team was breaking a lot of hearts.

His teammates had tried to find words that would make him feel better. There were none. “They tried,” Kerr said. “They’re my teammates. They’re my best friends. It’s been apparent all year that there’s a lot of love on this team. It’s been an unbelievable experience.”

And if someone was going to have to feel responsible, maybe it was best that it was Kerr. He wouldn’t have wished that burden on any of his teammates.

Outside the locker room, Arizona Coach Lute Olson was saying, “When you lose, instead of thinking about all the great things you’ve done, you think about what went wrong. Steve did a great job. He just didn’t knock down the shots. He played 40 minutes against great pressure defense, and he had one turnover. There aren’t too many guards in the country that can do that.

“I’ve been as proud as a new papa just to have the opportunity to coach Steve Kerr. The greatest compliment I can pay him is that I’ve known him for five years and I wouldn’t change a thing about him.

“How much did he do this year for this team? We wouldn’t have been here, or anywhere near here without him.”

Meanwhile, after the reporters and TV cameras were finally drawn outside to Olson, the Arizona players who had been sitting quietly huddled together in one corner of the locker room started walking over, one at a time, to hug Steve Kerr.