They couldn't believe it was over.

The game. The season. Their careers.

"It just seemed like things didn't come together the way we would have liked them to," Oregon guard Bryce Taylor, one of three senior starters, said after the Ducks bowed out of the NCAA tournament with a 76-69 first-round loss to Mississippi State.

Just a year ago, the Ducks won the Pac-10 tournament and roared into the final eight at the NCAAs. They returned four starters, and the best they could do this season was an up-and-down 18-14 record.

The loss to Mississippi State exposed Oregon's deficiencies, chief among them the fact that the Ducks have a limited inside game and must shoot well to prevail.

They missed 17 consecutive 3-point attempts during one stretch against the Bulldogs.

"We may have relied too much on the three-point shot in the second half," Taylor said. "But at the same time, a lot of them were open looks. Guys were getting their shots blocked and changed so much, that may have led to us thinking that the first open shot was the best shot."

Malik Hairston, another of the Ducks' seniors, refused to concede Oregon lost to a superior opponent.

"I don't think that's a basketball team that's better than we are," he said. "I thought we lost to a lot of teams this year that weren't better basketball teams.

"We're a good basketball team, and I think we're an athletic basketball team. So defensively, I thought we should have been much better this year."

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