We’ve been talking about it all year. It was going to cripple them, never allowing their potential to be fully reached. Then, as they pushed ahead, deeper and deeper into the tournament, everyone stopped worrying. Everyone figured that because Memphis scored so easily, almost at will, that missing a couple free throws now and then wouldn’t ever prove to be decisive.
For the most part, all of this was true until the last 7 minutes of Memphis’s season.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team completely self-destruct in a Championship like the way Memphis did. By now you’ve already heard 100 takes about how Dozier fouling out, CDR missing his pair of free-throws, and the Rose 3-pointer being reduced to 2, changed the outcome of the game.
I’m not with all that.
This game was lost back in November when Calipari continued to defend his team for their inability to hit a free throw during crunch-time, or anytime, for that matter. I was with him. Time and again during the season when the name Memphis would come up, one of my readers would challenge me, and their credibility, with their free-throw percentage. “You’re picking at warts.” “It doesn’t matter when you’re athletic as them, they’ll over come it.” These were the things I would say, and for the better part of 40 games I was right, but not when it mattered.
The free-throws.
I’m not entirely convinced that this is what killed Memphis, although it was definitely an accomplice to their demise. It’s easy to point a finger at something tangible, something that had a negative outcome, but they had at least two or three other opportunities outside of this to win the game. If they would have capitalized down the stretch the shots wouldn’t have mattered. They just didn’t want it. In fact, Chalmers three pointer should have been immaterial if the game was officiated properly. No matter how much we would have loathed the outcome, and how grateful I am that it didn’t happen, Douglas-Roberts should have been T’ed up when he slammed the ball down before Derrick Rose took the line for the final time in regulation.
They played their hearts out, gave it everything they had for the first 35 minutes, and then they decided to melt-down. Kansas should have never been allowed back in that game. They had guys dribbling out of bounds, they let Memphis grab uncontested rebound after rebound in the final few minutes of the game, yet they were granted life. Come on, Collins was falling as made ‘the pass’ to Chalmers. Never should have happened.
We can sit here and point at a million other little things that changed the game. What if Memphis would have called a timeout instead of trying to flip the ball to Rose in the lane prior to Chalmers shot? What if the officials wouldn’t have reviewed Rose’s three?
Even in the end I’m still defending these guys for lacking the fundamentals. So really, what it comes down to is what if Calipari would have taken 10 minutes at the end of every practice to shoot foul shots. Their lost opportunities were granted new ones at the stripe. Foul shots. Foul shots.
Maybe next year.
- Nick Underhill
Free throws. I’ve been saying it since everyone was filling out their brackets, choosing their Cinderella’s, moving their winning picks slot by slot on the road to the final four and ultimately the national championship. I only picked the Tigers to reach the national championship in probably two of my eight or so brackets – losing to UCLA in most and to Texas in the Elite 8 in a few. I understood that they were a very talented, athletic squad, but I felt that their woes from the line would come back to haunt them. Fundamentals is what separates champions from losers, that’s why the Spurs have been successful for so long in the NBA, and that’s what led to the demise of the Memphis Tigers.
The Memphis Tigers were arguably the best team in this year’s NCAA Tournament. If they weren’t the best all-around, they may have at least been the most athletic. The Tigers were undoubtedly the best team in the Conference USA. Amongst their 16-0 conference record, they led the conference in points, rebounds, assists, assist/turnover ratio, steals, personal fouls per game, and field goal percentage. One stat they didn’t lead in, free throw percentage. In fact, Memphis finished dead last in Conference USA in free throw percentage and finished 329th out of 341 Division I men’s basketball teams.
For those of you who saw the game, (which you probably have if you’re reading this article), Memphis looked to have closed the game out with an eight point lead with just over two minutes remaining in regulation. Then, with 1:23 left, Joey Dorsey was called for a blocking foul on which he bumped Mario Chalmers after attempting to slide out to cover him off of a screen. The foul was Dorsey’s fifth, meaning he was out of the game and unable to play in overtime if the Jayhawks completed the wicked comeback.
This is where the game changed.
Chalmers nailed the two free throws following the foul to cut the lead to four, and then quickly fouled Douglas-Roberts. Douglas-Roberts missed his two free throws, leading to a long jumper by Darrell Arthur of Kansas, now cutting the lead to 2. The Tigers were able to shut down Kansas throughout the last minute, but converted on just one of their next four attempts from the charity stripe, only increasing their lead three points when they could have all but sealed the deal.
What happened next will be a big reason why this game replays on ESPN Classic for many years to come.
Sherron Collins quickly dribbled the ball up the court and past Derrick Rose as time winded down, nearly lost the ball, and flipped it to Mario Chalmers who drilled the biggest shot in his career. He tickled the twine with a long three, tying the game and ultimately sending the Dorsey-less Tigers into overtime.
If Memphis makes one more free throw in this game, just one more, the three-point deficit that Kansas faced near the end would have been a two possession game, and likely would have crowned the Memphis Tigers the tourney champions.
Memphis finished the game 12/19 from the line, while Kansas finished 14/15. Memphis coach John Capilari previously stated that free-throw shooting isn’t one of the qualities he looks for in recruiting. In an earlier article on USA Today, he dismissed the fact that Memphis has major difficulty from the line, saying, “We’ve been the same for three years. What’s been our record? It’s something I don’t spend a lot of time with.”
Earlier in the tournament, the Tigers finished just 15/32 from the line in the Sweet 16 against Mississippi State. Following that match-up, Calipari said, “What I’m taking great pride in we won it with Chris’s free throw. So all that stuff about our free-throw shooting now goes out the window, I guess.”
Are you going to spend some time with free-throw shooting now Mr. Calipari?
Memphis should have captured their first national championship in the schools history. Instead, they are going home to practice free-throws and wait another 360-some odd days for a shot at redemption. Not to mention, now they’ll have to do it at least without Joey Dorsey. Derrick Rose will also likely be going pro, and may even be the top point guard taken in this years NBA Draft.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }