It's not Tech's fault, mind you, just the way the sports fan's mind works.

Tech probably had gained just a little bit of the average women's basketball fans' affection after Leon Barmore's retirement announcement on Friday. Kids playing for their coach's last shot at a championship and all that.

While it's ludicrous to feel sorry for a program that has had this much success, Tech has still had its tough moments. You know, the loss on that Charlotte Smith heartbreaker, having gone to 10 NCAA Final Fours but coming away with "only" two NCAA titles.

So maybe, if your team was out of it, you were thinking about possibly pulling for Tech. But maybe now you've changed your mind because you're mad at that last foul called against Vanderbilt in its 66-65 loss to Tech on Monday.

No one likes it when games end like that. And considering Tech got not one but two shots at the basket before a foul was called ... well ....

"I like to see players decide games," said Vandy coach Jim Foster, who has had practice reciting that phrase this season.

On Jan. 16 vs. Auburn, Vandy's Ashley McElhiney was called for a foul on Conswella Sparrow with 1.3 seconds left. Sparrow hit both free throws to win it for the Tigers, 55-54.

On Feb. 24 vs. Tennessee, first Vandy's Chavonne Hammond was called for a charge that many considered questionable at best, then Jillian Danker was called for a foul on Semeka Randall on a follow shot with five-tenths of a second left. Randall's free throws gave Tennessee a 59-57 victory.

Then, after coming back from being down as many as 11 points against Louisiana Tech on Monday, Vandy took a 65-64 lead on McElhiney's free throws.

With 13 seconds left, Tech had the ball in Tamicha Jackson's hands. She missed a jumper, Catrina Frierson missed a follow. A scramble for the loose ball. Referee Bill Titus apparently figured Frierson got position in this bedlam, because he called a foul on Vandy's Chantelle Anderson.

"If there was one foul, there was probably three or four," Foster said. "I don't think anyone gained an advantage. They were going for the ball like they were all night."

Frierson, a freshman, reportedly got a little choked up in the huddle on the mandatory "try-to-freeze-her" timeout. But then she knocked both down for her 17th and 18th points of the night with 2.5 seconds left. A subsequent Vandy turnover ended it.

Tech celebrated its escape, but you could almost hear fans across America watching on ESPN2 thinking, "That's terrible! How do they make that call at the end of a game? Do the favorites always have to get bailed out in women's basketball?"

Right or wrong, that's certainly what some folks were thinking.

And the whole thing brings up the old debate over whether the end of the game is any different than the beginning of the game. Of course, maybe a call like that shouldn't get made at all no matter what time of the game it is. Or maybe it should. Pretty much depends on your opinion of the call.

So you might think Vandy's players would come into the media room and gripe a lot. But they didn't.

"It's really a difficult loss, but you can't blame it on that one call," McElhiney said. "It counts on every possession. That one call didn't determine that game, even though it seems like it now."

Don't ask me where you get that kind of maturity at age 18 -- I definitely wouldn't know. And fellow freshman Anderson, who fouled out on that call, said, "I didn't think it was (a foul), but you know I'll have to go back and look at the tape."

At any rate, now Tech goes to Kansas City as the Midwest's No. 1 seed, and all the Tech fans breathe a sigh of relief. But just as fans turned against Alabama in 1998 after the clock debacle allowed it to beat UCLA, expect a few to be rooting against Tech now.

The situations aren't identical by any means -- there was absolutely no doubt UCLA was robbed. The Tech-Vandy outcome is up to individuals' perceptions of that last foul. And if there had been no call, who's to say Anderson for sure gets the rebound and keeps control of the ball?

She might have gotten it, or could have been stripped, or Vandy could have been immediately fouled, and maybe the Commodores would have hit the free throws or maybe not, and maybe it would have gone into overtime or maybe Tech would have won it on a last-second prayer anyway.

But, you know, any of those endings probably would be preferable to the one that happened. If for no other reason than it reinforces the idea that the home team gets that extra advantage and prevents the kind of upsets that your average fan wants to see.

It will add more fuel to the neutral-court debate, that's for sure, although Oklahoma's victory over Purdue might have salved some of the fury over home-court advantage.

"It would open up our game," Foster said of neutral sites, "and make it better."

Which leads to the inevitable question about attendance -- and those concerned about the future of women's basketball can go round and round about that.

But speaking of attendance, how does Tech get only a half-full building for Barmore's last game -- 4,191? There were no NCAA men's games on TV, it's a Monday night, it's the only thing going on in town -- what's the deal?

Maybe people in Ruston just take for granted Tech going to Final Fours and don't think second-round games are anything special.

Well, this one certainly was.