Tank was empty at finish

WORCESTER -- When University of Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun made the 35-minute ride home from the DCU Center after yesterday's heart-wrenching, 65-62 second-round NCAA Tournament loss to North Carolina State, there is a good chance he was figuring out how the Huskies could have beaten the Wolfpack and eventually made it to the Final Four.

"I'm an optimist," said Calhoun, whose second-seeded Huskies lost to a sixth-or-lower seed for the first time in 28 NCAA Tournament encounters.

Calhoun and his Huskies (23-8) overcame all sorts of adversity this season, which ended when Rudy Gay, while guarding N.C. State's Julius Hodge in the final seconds, slipped and fell. That opened the lane for the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year to knock down a layup with 4.3 seconds to play.

Don't blame Gay. He left his heart and soul on the court.

"We ran out of bullets and energy," said Calhoun. "It's one of the few times in my coaching career that we ran out of gas and players. A lot of things caught up to us."

It has been a soap opera season in Storrs. Problems began early as A.J. Price, a highly-recruited point guard from Amityville, N.Y., suffered a brain hemorrhage and sat out the season.

That was followed by Rashad Anderson missing seven games because of a leg infection. Shortly after that Denham Brown sustained a slight tear of the left patella tendon in the first round of the Big East tournament.

And just to add another twist, backup point guard Antonio Kellogg was suspended last Monday for violating team rules. That left the Huskies with only one point guard, Marcus Williams, who had to play 39 minutes against N.C. State.

Williams led all scorers with 22 points and had 4 assists and 2 steals. He impressed N.C. State coach Herb Sendek.

"We were trying to stop him from penetrating and we were having a heck of a job doing that," said Sendek. "I admire the way that he's getting better and better as the season has gone on. I've watched him from a distance this season and obviously seen him much closer this weekend, and he just continues to get better. But we just had to try something to slow him down, so we needed two defenders on him."

Another player who left his mark on this game was junior forward Ed Nelson, who came off the bench and provided a spark for UConn. Sendek is familiar with Nelson, who transferred to UConn from Georgia Tech.

"He was the ACC Rookie of the Year, which is a heck of an achievement," said Sendek. "He's just a blue-collar guy. He plays so hard and he is so physical. He is just a terrific rebounder. We weren't too displeased when he left Georgia Tech. We had our fill of them."

Nelson played 13 minutes, went 3 for 3 from the floor, picked off three rebounds, and made key defensive stops. He has become a Calhoun favorite.

"I was so proud of him out there," said Calhoun. "If I had more joy to give -- and it's hard to have any joy after a loss like this -- all I wanted to do was hug him. He went in there and gave every ounce, every single bit of energy, trying to help us out."

Calhoun said stat-sheet watchers cannot accurately gauge what his team has done. "That's not the real Rashad Anderson that you saw out there. Three weeks ago he was in intensive care, fighting for his life. Denham Brown was hurt. Maybe it's not that we didn't have the bullets or the energy. It was the psychological fatigue."

No matter, Calhoun has plenty of respect for his players and next year can't come soon enough. The team will meet today, take two weeks off, and then Calhoun will start scheming for the 2005-06 season.