KEVIN KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat UA senior forward Luke Walton reacts as teammate Jason Gardner's try for a game-tying 3-pointer bounces off the rim. The miss solidified a 78-75 win and a Final Four Berth for Kansas.

Title quest, senior careers, end with heartbreaking loss one win from Final Four

ANAHEIM, Calif. ÷ They didn't have to talk but they did.

Luke Walton has dodged questions before. So has Salim Stoudamire.

But UA players answered all the questions thrown at them by the media, no matter how much it might have hurt to answer.

When the door to the locker room opened and the media members filed in, the Wildcat players didn't want to look.

Stoudamire had a towel over his head for the first 10 minutes; senior manager Jack Murphy was consoling Walton and Rick Anderson was being hugged by UA President Pete Likins.

They all knew what was coming. Questions about what's next, what just ended and how much it hurts.

They just didn't think these questions would be coming so soon, or at all. They wanted their season to end cutting down the nets in New Orleans, not sulking in a chair in a locker room at the Pond in California.

But after a couple of minutes of observing the room and letting the photographers take pictures of all the pain, sophomore Channing Frye spoke.

"We let the seniors down," Frye said. "I had a big part in this game and I didn't step up. Some are going to say there is going to be another year but this was our chance."

Other players followed with similar remarks.

"They beat us," freshman Andre Iguodala said. "I don't look at it like that. I look at it like Luke, Jason (Gardner) and Ricky are gone. That hurts more than losing."

"They meant everything to us," said Stoudamire about the seniors.

For those three players there will be a next year, but for the three seniors there won't be, at least not in Arizona.

It's still uncertain where the paths of Gardner, Walton and Anderson will head after this semester ends. The NBA? Pro-ball in Europe? The D-league? No basketball altogether?

But in their last outing in Wildcat uniforms, it's certain that these three will also be remembered in Tucson and in college basketball.

"I told our guys in the locker room that I don't think we've ever had better leadership, both on and off the court, than we've had from these seniors," UA head coach Lute Olson said. "They've done a tremendous job carrying on the tradition of Arizona basketball."

When Stoudamire was asked if he could learn anything from losing, he just pointed at the seniors.

"They could have broke down and lost it but they handled losing with class," Stoudamire said. "That's an important lesson I'm going to take with me."

Frye said he is going to take advantage of the time he has left to spend with the soon-to-be departed seniors.

"I just want to pick their brains," he said. "I want to learn all I can from them."

One lesson he could learn is what the seniors were trying to do after the game, and that was to move on. Gardner and Walton along with walk-on Fil Torres met friends at a local bar Saturday night with their heads held high. Supporters and haters greeted them, some with kind words and others not so, but like they did hours earlier in Anaheim, the players didn't dodge them.

This season might be over, but Gardner, Walton and Anderson showed that when it comes down to it in the end, they are real winners and in the game of life that's what counts the most.

Losses hurt but time heals.