Hartford - An emotional Rodney Purvis wiped away tears sitting in the locker room on Sunday. The pain of losing the American Athletic Conference tournament championship game and missing out on playing in the NCAA tournament was too much bear.

The season isn't over for UConn, which will play in the NIT, but it sure seemed that way after a 62-54 loss to top-seeded Southern Methodist before a boisterous crowd of 13,365 at the XL Center.

"This hurts," Purvis said. "The feeling sucks … We just wanted to make the tournament. Most importantly, we wanted to win our conference. We had an up and down season, but I feel like we got better over these last three days."

The better team won Sunday.

SMU (27-6), which earned the AAC's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, never trailed and led by as much as 17. The Mustangs held off a late charge from the sixth-seeded Huskies (20-14), who closed to within five with three minutes, 22 seconds left before fading.

Only UConn's trademark fight and competitive heart kept the game relatively close.

"I was happy with their effort," coach Kevin Ollie said. "They showed a lot of resilience and a lot of heart, a lot of hustle. A lot of people didn't think we were going to be in the championship game, so that's an accomplishment in itself.

"Of course we wanted to win it … We just came up short."

Playing their fourth game in four days, the Huskies couldn't overcome another miserable offensive game (32.7 percent) and struggled rebounding (a 43-30 deficit). They fell in a quick hole by going 10:21without a field goal in the first half and trailed 33-19 at the break.

Purvis was the lone reliable weapon, scoring a career-high 29 points. While Purvis went 11-for-22 from the field, the rest of the Huskies were 5-for-27.

Playing in his last game in Hartford, senior Ryan Boatright had the worst shooting game of his career, finishing 1-for-12 and scoring just seven points before fouling out with 45 seconds left. Boatright was physically beat up, taking an inadvertent shot to the head in the first half and then hurting his left shoulder while running into a moving screen in the second half. Both times he went to the bench and then eventually returned.

"I was dizzy the whole game," Boatright said. "That's no excuse. I decided to go out there and play. I missed a lot of shots that were knocked down shots for me that I've been making all year. There's no excuse for having that bad of a shooting night in this magnitude of a game."

Give credit to Boatright for being a stand-up guy. Purvis also took his share of the blame despite his terrific performance.

Purvis talked about a major lost opportunity after UConn cut the gap from 17 to five (53-48) with 3:22 remaining. He scored 11 points during a 20-8 comeback run.

UConn appeared to come up with a huge defensive stop, but SMU's Sterling Brown grabbed an offensive rebound to extend the possession.

Then the Huskies failed to secure a loose ball and eventually fouled late in the shot clock, leading to Ben Moore's two free throws with 2:12 left.

"Definitely, I gave up an offensive rebound," Purvis said. "Coach has been telling me to hit first all year. I have to take over ownership and work on that area."

The Mustangs closed out the game from the foul line, sinking nine of 10.

Ollie gave credit to SMU and coach Larry Brown, who coached Ollie during his NBA playing days with the Philadelphia 76ers.

"We didn't give it away, they came and took it," Ollie said. "That's a great team that we faced. I thought we fought again. We just can't get down by 17 to a team like this and then try to come back at the end. You've got to play perfect basketball."

SMU, the regular season champion, had a decisive edge in experience, poise and frontcourt muscle. Forward Markus Kennedy, the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, had 15 points, one of four Mustangs in double figures.

Boatright, Purvis, SMU's Nic Moore and Yanick Moreira as well as Temple's Will Cummings made the AAC all-tournament team.

g.keefe@theday.com

Twitter: @GavinKeefe