LAHAINA, Hawaii – Dan Hurley fell. UConn too.

Hurley, the often fiery coach of the two-time defending champions, particularly caused a stir when he committed an offensive foul over the back on a rebound against striker Liam McNeeley, which led to the tie at 92 in the final minute of overtime at 99-97. UConn’s loss to No. 2 seed Memphis on Monday in the opening round of the Maui Invitational.

Hurley fell to his knees and was assessed a technical foul for his displeasure with the call. PJ Carter hit four straight free throws – two for the technical and the other two for the personal foul – to give Memphis a 96-92 lead with 40.3 seconds to play.

“That was a joke. I just looked at it,” Hurley said of the call, adding that Memphis “made no attempt to tune out the play.” “There was a player in Memphis who made a half-hearted attempt to rebound that basketball, and Liam McNeeley climaxed that rebound. The fact that this decision was made at this point in the game was a complete joke.”

That ended UConn’s 17-game winning streak dating back to last season. There were no fireworks.

During his post-game press conference, Hurley offered a lengthy explanation for his fall to the ground in his criticism of the officiating.

“I don’t know what happened. Maybe I lost my balance because of the absurdity of the call, or maybe I tripped,” Hurley said. “But if I had made that call at that time, I would have ignored the fact that I was on my back. If I had made that call, I would have ignored it. I would have ignored that. This was obviously a major major… what you can call that while this game was going on, the way the game was going is just beyond me.

Hurley continued to share his thoughts on referee Pat Driscoll’s decision.

“How you can call the game that is just beyond me,” Hurley continued. “I’ve never seen that one referee before. I didn’t even know he was a college referee, and then I know the other two, so I’m not surprised.”

Steven Anderson and Scott Brown were the other two referees officiating the game.

His technique was one of two Memphis sent to the line for free throws in the game; The other time happened about four minutes into the game, when a team coach apparently said something the referees heard and didn’t like.

“It got off to a bad start when my medical trainer, who must have said something under his breath in the huddle, got T’d in the huddle in the first few minutes or whatever that was of the game,” Hurley said. “A coach who is just the nicest guy, a very quiet guy. In a normal situation he might have mumbled something under his breath.”

And a third technical – Samson Johnson was whistled for a double technical, but it was his fifth foul that forced him out of the game midway through overtime – was also costly.

“Samson was pushed. His jersey was torn. He didn’t get a foul on him the entire game,” Hurley said. “He finished the game with his jersey torn down the middle, but they get him every time they call. He is frustrated. That was crazy, man. Crazy.”

For his part, Memphis coach Penny Hardaway called it the biggest win of his coaching career — receiving a handshake and a warm hug from Hurley after the game.

“It was back-to-back undefeated state champions in the first round of the Maui tournament,” Hardaway said. “When we were first chosen to play them, I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll start with a bang.’ I just prepared our team. I used it as motivation.

When you add it all up, UConn lost for the first time since losing to Creighton on February 20th. Memphis led for most of Monday’s game before UConn rallied from a 13-point deficit in the final four minutes of regulation. The Tigers got 40 free throws, including 24 for the Huskies.

“We knew it was going to be a physical game,” UConn’s Alex Karaban said. “That was the game plan. We knew they wanted to make it physical. It wasn’t surprising to us that it was physical, we just had to match their toughness and for most of the game we didn’t do that. This is just us.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.