Memphis’ 85-67 beatdown of South Regional No. 2 seed Texas on Saturday didn’t prove anything, and neither did its 18-point dismantling of Michigan State on Friday.
The Tigers have done nothing different in the NCAA Tournament than they did in the regular season or the Conference USA Tournament.
This team has used its athleticism and size to gain the defensive advantage all season. Running the court on offense and using backdoor cuts to set up SportsCenter Top 10-worthy highlight dunks have been the norm. Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts have made opposing guards look utterly outclassed for four months now.
And most importantly, the Tigers have knocked down free throws "when they’ve needed to" in every game this season, excluding their only loss to Tennessee.
Yes, people, Memphis is 37-1 for a reason. Free throw percentages mean nothing when the game is on the line and a few clutch shots are needed to seal the deal. By the way, Memphis shot 30-for-36 at the charity stripe against the Longhorns. That’s 83 percent.
"Every time we go to the free-throw line we say, ‘They don’t think we can make them,’" Douglas-Roberts said. "So now we’re making them. Now we just wait to see what the next knock is."
Memphis’ guards proved long ago they can handle the ball, and defense has been a fixture for this team since head coach John Calipari arrived. So when Memphis’ Rose manhandled Longhorn D.J. Augustin on his way to the rack and performed a crossover and pull-up jumper in the first half that sent the Longhorn guard flying back to Austin, it was amusing to watch.
However, it didn’t prove Rose was on an entirely different level than his opponent. That should have been established before tip-off. The same could be said about the freshman phenomenon’s nine assists and six rebounds.
When grown-man Tiger Dorsey took Texas center Dexter Pittman’s manhood on an X-Rated ally-oop throwdown, it didn’t prove anything except that it was absolutely hilarious – in a sadistic, cruel and somebody-got-posterized kind of way.
In a perfect world, Memphis would have been given the respect it has deserved heading into the NCAA Tournament. But in a world where teams from so-called mid-major conferences are considered an afterthought, Memphis has been picked over and over again by so called experts to be the first No. 1 seed to fall. Memphis did not have anything to prove going in to the Big Dance. The team will prove that when it makes noise in the Final Four.
