There's no good way to end these things. It's like a divorce that nobody wants. Sixty-five schools start this trip; sixty-four feel the same way.

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos from Sunday's game

If you say that Xavier had a wonderful basketball season, full of great games and greater lessons, it sounds patronizing. The Musketeers were four points short of the Final Four. They woulda/coulda/shoulda beaten almighty Duke. Don't pat them on their heads.

If you say Anthony Myles prematurely cut short his best game by not playing smart, drawing two fouls in - yes - 6 seconds, you come off as unbearably critical. For 28 minutes, Myles was the game's most dominant player. Xavier's senior center was making shots we'd never even seen him try.

And the fouls, you could argue, were 50-50.

"A flip of the coin," Matta said.

"I don't think the last two were fouls," Myles decided.

So here's what you say about the last game of Xavier's best season: The Musketeers did everything but win it. Good isn't always good enough, and there's no shame in that. Myles fouled out with 12:27 left. Romain Sato scored just two points in the first half, Lionel Chalmers only four in the second. Xavier made just 3-of-15 threes.

And yet, with three minutes left it was still 56-56. The seventh-seeded Musketeers - "Eggs-avier" Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski (pronounced: "Coach K") had called them Saturday, repeatedly - still hanging around, seeking the same late-game love their persistence and courage had brought them two nights earlier.

"We were right there," Chalmers said. It was a testament to who the Musketeers had become in the last two months.

Then Duke's J.J. Redick nailed a three. Luol Deng tipped in a miss. Chalmers was whistled for a questionable charge. With 1:11 left, it all slipped away. "We had nothing left at the end. That's all you can ask," Matta said.

You could wonder why the coach didn't move more quickly to sub for Myles after Myles' fourth foul. "I looked over" at the scorer's table, Myles said about that. "Wasn't nobody there."

Matta got Brandon Cole up too late. Cole was on his way to the table when Myles sort-of pushed Duke's Shelden Williams in the back. "Two 6-foot-9 guys banging" was how Matta saw it. "You toss a coin. We came up on the tail's end."

You could bemoan the lack of production from Sato and Chalmers, who combined for 27 points while shooting 8-for-26. Duke's Chris Duhon guarded Sato in the first half and Chalmers in the second half. "Whoever was hot, I put (Duhon) on," Krzyzewski said. "They became not hot."

There were a million reasons Xavier didn't win. You could replay them all. Matta tried, he said, on that short postgame walk from the court to the locker room. "We're that close to the pinnacle," he said. "As I'm walking off, I'm asking, Why? It's hard to talk to players after a game like this. The dream was shattered today."

Up to then, Matta had allowed himself to think only like a coach: Who do we play next, how do we beat them, when do we practice, what time does the bus leave? Reflection and introspection take too much time to bother with when your team is still playing.

"For the first time, walking off the court, it hit me: It's over. And I'm thinking, 'Damn, we were close.'"

He thanked his players for their effort. He told them they'd made history. "I didn't want it to end," Matta said to them. "I enjoyed every last minute of it."

Best, then, to recall the best season this way, as summed up by Chalmers:

"I have no regrets," he said. "I have never been part of a team that was so together. You can't teach that. You can't practice that. I just want to bring that to wherever I go. Fifteen guys had one mind about things. I'll miss that more than anything."

Ninety minutes later, informed of Chalmers' comments, Matta brightened. Coaching has its rewards. Even in defeat.

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E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com

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