By Seth Lewis
SAN DIEGO - It took the BYU men''s basketball team six years to get back to the NCAA tournament.
Finally there Thursday, it took the Cougars a matter of minutes to make an inconspicuous exit.
Now, with Mekeli Wesley, Terrell Lyday and Trent Whiting - can you rip out any more of the Cougars'' heart? - graduating, the question lingers: How long before they make it back?
'It will take time to build the kind of team we had this year,' BYU coach Steve Cleveland said after the Cougars fell to Cincinnati, 84-59, in the tournament''s first round at Cox Arena.
Cleveland knows something about building. The impossible reconstruction he''s done at BYU - taking a 1-25 squad from conference chump to champ in four years - was like having to redo the Sistine Chapel.
But for a rebuilding job that seemed christened with a torrid run through last week''s Mountain West Conference tournament, for a feel-good season that only Disney could have scripted, the end was sudden and sickening.
Ugh.
Here''s how bad it got:
Cincinnati hounded Wesley with elbow-to-eyeball double teams that forced the MWC player of the year to collect as many turnovers (three) as shots made.
The Bearcats hit 11 three-pointers - the most the Cougars had given up all year.
The Cougars - the nation''s best free-throw shooting team - had hit just five of 10 at one point in the second half.
For all of BYU''s problems, the Cougars managed to hang on and trail just 35-30 at halftime. Then the Bearcats reeled off a 17-2 run to start the second half. Just that fast, the joyride''s over, a season slightly soured.
'The whole thing about coming to this (the NCAA tournament) is about winning,' Whiting said.
For now, at least, the Cougars can worry about when they''ll ever come back.