For the first five minutes of Bucknell's 72-56 loss at the hands of top-seeded Memphis in the second round NCAA Tournament everything went right for Bucknell. The Bison were breaking the Memphis press, their shots were falling and the defense was keeping the high-octane Tigers in check.

Then Charles Lee went to the bench with his second personal foul and things went downhill quicker than a bobsled. When Lee took a seat with 14:11 to play in the first half, Bucknell was holding on to a 10-6 lead, half of those 10 coming from the senior co-captain and Patriot League Player of the Year.

By the time Bucknell coach Pat Flannery rolled the dice and sent Lee back on the floor after Memphis senior Rodney Carney threw down a slam off an alley-oop from Tigers backup point guard Andre Allen with 8:29 to play, Memphis had built a 21-12 lead that held up the rest of the game.

"What hurt us in the first half was when Charles got his second foul. He's one of the strongest kids we have to play against that pressure," said Bucknell coach Pat Flannery.

That pressure the Bison coach was talking about was Memphis' "22" zone press, the look the Tigers switched to after Bucknell had no problems solving a man-to-man press early. It's hard to say which had more to do with the run, Lee's absence or Memphis' pressure, but the combination of the two put Bucknell in a hole it could never climb out of the rest of the game.

Eight of Memphis' points in that stretch came on layups or dunks. The other nine came on three-pointers. Three of the easy buckets and one of the threes were the result of Bucknell turnovers.

"When we went to the 22, it speeded up the game. They turned the ball over and missed shots," said Allen, who finished with six assists and three steals while scoring 8 points.

"We went back to the (22) press and it kind of rattled them a little bit," added Memphis coach John Calipari.

Even with Lee back on the floor, Bucknell continued to have a tough time against Memphis pressure, both full court and half court. Longer than a summer day and quicker than a summer romance, Memphis clamped down on the Bison all over the floor. They pushed Bucknell's guards out near midcourt to start their sets and jumped the passing lanes to disrupt the Bucknell offense when it did get the ball closer to the hole.

In all, Memphis came up with 10 steals and forced 19 Bucknell turnovers. And when the Bison did get a shot off, most of the times it came with a hand in their faces or one of the Tigers' plethora of lengthy bodies flying at them at a rapid pace.

"It was definitely frustrating. You'd think you saw something there for a second and by the time you threw it there would be three guys around it," said Bucknell senior guard Kevin Bettencourt, who finished with 12 points in the last game of his college career.

"They had quick people on the wings and they weren't letting us make those (entry passes)," said Flannery. "They are such a good basketball team, so big and athletic."

The Bison shot just 15-of-41 (36.6 percent) from the field. Chris McNaughton, who went 5 for 9 for a game-high 15 points, was the only Bison who took more than 2 shots to make more than half of those he took. Two days after burying Arkansas under a barrage of 11 three-pointers, Bucknell could manage only two against Memphis. Both of those came in the first five minutes of the game. Bucknell went 0 for 8 from the arc after that

That last stat is telling in two ways, both in that Bucknell missed the threes it did take, but also in that the Bison could only find eight open looks from the arc in the last 35 minutes of a game in which they desperately needed three-pointers to try to play catchup.

"That is as good as anybody has guarded the three against us all year," said Kevin Bettencourt, the top three-point shooter in Bison history.

Part of Bucknell's struggles from the arc probably had to do with playing a second game just one day after a tough first round win over Arkansas, a game in which Lee and Bettencourt, the Bison's both played over 34 minutes.

"We got some good looks. Legs might have played a part in it. Plus you've got some long guys flying at you. It's very difficult," Lee said.

Lee finished with 11 points, but he was just 3 for 11 from the field, and the three-pointer he hit on the first shot of the game was his only make on four attempts from the arc.

Those long guys had more to do with it than Bucknell's tired legs.

""If Bucknell had come out and made threes like they did the last game, they'd have beat us, Calipari said. "We made sure we always had someone on them and if they were going to take it there was a hand it their face."

"They are so long and athletic, and the pressure-- they get you going so fast. Even when you do get a second to get a shot you're rushing a little," Bettencourt said.

The Bison managed to hang around after Memphis' big first half run. After trailing by as many as 16 in the opening period, Bucknell cut the deficit to 10 at the break and got it into single digits early in the second half.

A pair of free throws by Darren Mastropaolo cut Memphis' lead to 38-29 with 17:33 to play. But the Bison came up empty on three straight possessions with a chance to cut it further. Particularly crushing was a charging call on Bison point guard Abe Badmus that wiped out his baseline runner that would have made it a 7-point game.

By the time the Bison scored again, five minutes had clicked off the clock and Memphis had built its lead to 46-29. Bucknell managed to get back within 9 with 8:10 to go, with a 10-0 run during which 8 of the points came at the foul line, including two from Bettencourt following a Calipari technical. But Memphis responded with a 10-2 run of its own that put the game out of reach.

"I wanted to see who was going to make plays for them if we got it to six or seven, but we couldn't," Flannery said.

Had that happened, Memphis would have had no shortage of guys to go to. Four Tigers reached double figures and three others had 8 or more.

Antonio Anderson led the Tigers with 13. Joey Dorsey added 12 and Shawne Williams and Rodney Carney had 10 each.Box score