It was the stuff of legends. Maybe it wasn’t the basketball equivalent of the football “Hail Mary,” but a shot launched from your side of half court line that sees nothing but net – in a Sweet 16 game to no less – is certainly one for the highlight reels.Missouri freshman Marcus Denman will always have that moment to cherish.But one man’s moment is another’s nightmare. Denman took the shot in the closing seconds of Wednesday night’s 102-91 Missouri win over Memphis in the NCAA West semifinals in Glendale, Ariz.It punctuated a 12-3 Missouri run that closed the first half and gave the Tigers a 49-36 lead at the break. Trying desperately to defend the shot was Lynn’s Antonio Anderson, who played heroically in his final game in a Memphis uniform. And he was as amazed as everyone else when it swished in.”I knew he was going to try to take off, so I tried to time it a little bit and jump,” Anderson said. “Every shot they put up in the first half was just going in, whether or not it was half-court shots or bank shots. There was nothing we could do about that.”Equally aghast was Memphis coach John Calipari.”When I saw it go in, I said you got to be kiddin’ me,” Calipari said. “But I was disappointed in our first half, aside from that shot.”It was a bitter disappointment for Anderson. His team was riding a 27-game winning streak, and had prided itself on doing all the little things that contribute to winning. It had absorbed the loss of Derrick Rose, the NBA’s top draft choice last year, and, judging from the way it dismantled Maryland last weekend, seemed to be playing well.But, as Anderson said, Memphis just ran into a buzzsaw Wednesday night.”They got off to an early start,” he said. “They were making some tough shots. We were driving, doing what we usually do. It just played out that way. Like Coach said, we tip our hat off to them. They played a terrific game for 40 minutes. That’s how it was.”It seems like every time we got our hands up, they threw something up, and it went in, regardless of whatever they put up.”The low-water mark came early in the second half, when Missouri opened up a 24-point lead. But Memphis wasn’t about to go quietly.”We just tried to keep fighting and keep fighting,” said Anderson, who scored 18 points in the loss. “That’s how we tried to play it out.”For the rest of the second half, Memphis tried to get back into the game, but the deficit was just too much. It whittled the lead down to six with under two minutes to go, but Missouri hit its foul shots down the stretch (something Memphis did NOT do last year, when it let a nine-point lead in the closing minutes of the national championship slip away, enabling Kansas to win).When it was over, Anderson had a chance to reflect on it all.”It has been a terrific four years with (teammate) Robbie (Dozier) and the rest of the guys who I have been here with, and Coach, and the coaching staff,” he said. “It felt like a family. I’m definitely going to miss it. “And I just want to be remembered as a hard worker.”Calipari won’t soon forget him. Anderson was the Conference USA’s Defensive Player of the Year, and was also chosen as a member of FOX Sports’ all-defensive team. For the last two seasons, Calipari has relied on Anderson as the glue man on the team, the one able to give the team whatever it was lacking on the floor at any particular time.”They (Anderson and Dozier) have won more college games than any players in the history of college basketball,” Calipari said. “They are going to graduate in May on time in four years. And they have re-established what we’re about. And I’m proud of them.It is going to be sad when they’re gone. It’s like family, missing family. That’s it. We wanted it to extend for them. We really did.”