NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Huskies’ End Is Quick, but Not Painless : Connecticut: Less than three seconds from the Final Four, George almost makes the key steal. But Laettner’s shot shatters UConn’s dream at the buzzer.

One game you’re up, the next you’re down.

One game, Tate George takes a length-of-the-court pass and makes a shot at the buzzer, beating Clemson and sending you into the East Regional final. The next, you’re on the way to the Final Four, but Duke comes up with a last-second basket, sending you on your way home.

Connecticut knows well the vagaries of the NCAA tournament.

“You don’t get to write all your own scripts in life,” Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun said Saturday at Brendan Byrne Arena, where the Huskies were beaten by Duke, 79-78, on a buzzer-beating shot by Christian Laettner.

If the Huskies could rewrite the ending, George would have intercepted a pass by Duke’s Bobby Hurley with less than three seconds left, wrapping up a one-point overtime victory. Instead, George fumbled the ball out of bounds in front of the Duke bench, giving the Blue Devils one last chance.

“I had both hands on it, but then it popped up and hit me on the shoulder,” said George, who had hustled back after missing a shot with 11 seconds left that would have given UConn a three-point lead.

George anticipated Hurley’s pass to Phil Henderson, stepping in front of the Blue Devil guard as he streaked down the left side.

“I had it timed perfectly,” George said.

But George was unable to keep the ball in play, losing control when he looked at his feet and realized that he was headed out of bounds. As the ball went off his fingers, he buried his head in his hands.

He thought back to Thursday night, when his turnaround jump shot from the right side had given the Huskies a 71-70 victory over Clemson. Only one second remained in that game when Connecticut took the ball out of bounds at the opposite end of the floor, but Scott Burrell’s 80-foot pass went to George, who put up the game-winning shot.

He knew that Duke, with 2.6 seconds left and the ball out of bounds at its own end, had a chance to do to UConn what he had done to Clemson.

His worst fears were realized when Laettner brought the ball into play, took a return pass and threw in a 14-foot shot from the left side.

“I was pinching (Duke’s Alaa) Abdelnaby under the basket,” George said of the last play. “I turned to see where the ball was and I saw it going through the net. My first reaction was to just get out of the way.”

He knew from experience that Laettner would soon be mobbed.

Where did George go?

“I stood on the court and I kind of (mentally) went through missing the pass and all those other things,” he said.

And then the realization hit.

“It’s over,” he thought.

Connecticut’s improbable season had run its course.

Picked to finish eighth in the Big East in a poll of conference coaches, the Huskies won the conference championship for the first time and wound up third in the national polls. They won the conference tournament, too, and were seeded No. 1 in the East Regional.

But they had fallen one victory short of the Final Four.

“It just cut everything for us,” forward Nadav Henefeld said of the loss, making a chopping motion with his right hand to emphasize the point. “We knew it could happen with each game.

“Just two nights ago, we did it to someone else.”

His eyes reddened.

“I just can’t describe the loss and how I feel after what we did all year,” Henefeld said. “All year, we talked about how close we were and how we were one big family, and I can really feel it now.”

He started to sob.

“The coach, when he came back (to the locker room), he didn’t have to say anything,” he said. “We knew. Everybody felt the same way.”

George, though, was remarkably composed as he spoke.

“You have to go on,” he said. “I can’t go back and tell guys, ‘If you had made that shot, we would have won,’ or, ‘If I had made that steal, we would have won.’ “We just have to enjoy what we’ve done and not apologize for anything. We fought and battled everybody we went up against. It just didn’t happen for us today.”