2008 Woodie Awards
Late Mental Mistakes Cost Memphis Championship Game
NCAA Basketball
Rajiv Leventhal
Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: Sports
John Calipari said in March that he wasn't worried that his team shot 60 percent from the free-throw line during the season - good for third-worst in the nation. And for most of the NCAA Tournament, it looked like the coach of the Memphis Tigers would be right. But after Monday night's championship loss to Kansas, Calipari's biggest denial hit him smack dab in the face, as Memphis's poor free-throw shooting down the stretch led to one of the biggest choke jobs ever in a championship game.
The score was 60-51 in favor of Memphis with just 2:12 left in regulation. From there on out, seemingly everything went in favor of the Jayhawks and went against the Tigers. And while Kansas deserves a ton of credit for making things happen, Memphis has to take even more blame for letting the game slip away by not making simple plays and smart decisions.
The play of the game might have been Sherron Collin's steal and 3-pointer on a Memphis inbound pass with 1:49 left, cutting the lead to four and giving Kansas a sense of hope again. It was a lazy inbound pass from Memphis and a great hustle play from Collins. More importantly, the play set up the hack-a-Tiger gameplan that coach Bill Self used to send Memphis to the foul line during the last two minutes.
Then, with his Tigers down by four, Joey Dorsey committed a silly foul on Mario Chalmers outside the three-point line. Not only was that foul Dorsey's fifth and final one, but it also put Chalmers on the line with the clock stopped, which is the last thing you want to do when trying to protect a lead. And the ever-so-clam Chalmers hit both, pulling Kansas even closer.
Just eight seconds later, Douglas-Roberts missed the front end of a one-and-one with his team up by four. Then, Douglas-Roberts was fouled with 16 seconds to go and his team up by two, giving him a chance to all but ice the game with a couple makes from the charity stripe. But he missed the first well short and missed the second one in not much better fashion, short again and way off to the right.
The score was 60-51 in favor of Memphis with just 2:12 left in regulation. From there on out, seemingly everything went in favor of the Jayhawks and went against the Tigers. And while Kansas deserves a ton of credit for making things happen, Memphis has to take even more blame for letting the game slip away by not making simple plays and smart decisions.
The play of the game might have been Sherron Collin's steal and 3-pointer on a Memphis inbound pass with 1:49 left, cutting the lead to four and giving Kansas a sense of hope again. It was a lazy inbound pass from Memphis and a great hustle play from Collins. More importantly, the play set up the hack-a-Tiger gameplan that coach Bill Self used to send Memphis to the foul line during the last two minutes.
Then, with his Tigers down by four, Joey Dorsey committed a silly foul on Mario Chalmers outside the three-point line. Not only was that foul Dorsey's fifth and final one, but it also put Chalmers on the line with the clock stopped, which is the last thing you want to do when trying to protect a lead. And the ever-so-clam Chalmers hit both, pulling Kansas even closer.
Just eight seconds later, Douglas-Roberts missed the front end of a one-and-one with his team up by four. Then, Douglas-Roberts was fouled with 16 seconds to go and his team up by two, giving him a chance to all but ice the game with a couple makes from the charity stripe. But he missed the first well short and missed the second one in not much better fashion, short again and way off to the right.
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