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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > April > 08 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USThink Calipari still believes ‘percentages don’t matter?’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
San Antonio- OK, give Kansas credit for hanging tough, for applying pressure when all seemed lost, for making shot after big shot in the wildest finish of any NCAA final ever. But this will not be remembered as the title Kansas won. It will be remembered forever as the one Memphis cast away.
“Tough-minded guys hit free throws,” John Calipari had said breezily Saturday, the night his Tigers blitzed UCLA and made their foul shots. “Percentages don’t matter.”
File those under Infamous Last Words. File the final two minutes of regulation under the worst ever played by a team that was already celebrating its title. File this as the game Calipari will never, ever live down.
The Tigers led by nine - nine! - inside those two minutes. They’d seized control of a game going the Jayhawks’ way behind a dizzying display from the freshman guard Derrick Rose, and when Robert Dozier of Lithonia sank two free throws with 2:12 left (in regulation, and at the time overtime didn’t seem possible) the Tigers were up 60-51 and their reserves were smiling and jostling one another and readying for the playing of “One Shining Moment.”
And then … Choke City.
Darrell Arthur hit from perimeter. Antonio Anderson threw the ball away, leading to a Sherron Collins trey that cut it to four. “One Shining Moment” had just morphed into two frazzled minutes.
Chris Douglas-Roberts (remember the name) made two free throws. Back to six. But Joey Dorsey, the senior center of whom Calipari had said, “He does some of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen,” fouled Mario Chalmers 40 feet from the basket, fouling out in the process. Chalmers made his pair. Back to four.
And now it was serious free-throw time for the team that had made only 61.3 percent of its foul shots (and that number had gone way up during the Big Dance). Dozier had said Sunday: “We can make them. We all have great form. It’s not like we’re shooting curveballs.”
But then Douglas-Roberts turned into Bert Blyleven. He missed the front end of a one-and-one. Arthur hit from the baseline. Two-point game. Douglas-Roberts missed on a drive, and Collins fled for the basket, all but certain to tie the game. But Rose blocked the shot - what a reprieve! - and CDR was fouled again, only 16.8 seconds left now, the game his to seal.
And he missed. Twice. But Dozier somehow seized the rebound in the corner, and Rose was fouled with 10.8 seconds to go, the title now his to clinch. And he missed the first.
True, he made the second, but Kansas had one final window. And Chalmers drained a 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds left - it was a decent look, and it looked good from the instant it left his fingertips - and now Memphis had to play five minutes more instead of standing on the podium and hearing “One Shining Moment.”
Crushed, the Tigers never led again. Kansas scored on its first three possessions of OT - a layup, a dunk and another layup - and the championship had, for all intents and purposes, changed hands. Memphis came closer than any team has ever come (and this includes Houston in 1983 and Syracuse in 1987) to winning the gold-and-wood plaque only to see it fall into other hands. Nine up, two minutes to go: How do you not win?
“I thought we were national champs,” Calipari said afterward. “As a coach, when you’re up five with whatever seconds to go, you’re supposed to win that game.” And Memphis didn’t. It lost. It lost when losing seemed unthinkable. It lost because the free throws Calipari insisted his men would make went unmade.
“I guess you can boil it down to the free throws,” Douglas-Roberts said, and you can. So, just maybe, percentages do matter.
Comments
By Memphis Brick Co.
April 8, 2008 1:43 AM | Link to this
And to think, just a few days ago You’d already crowned Chokeipari and His “Tough-minded guys” National Champs and were planing the parade!
CLASSIC!
By capt midnight
April 8, 2008 2:20 AM | Link to this
The Memphis coach lost this game. When Kansas had the ball with just 7 or 8 seconds to go in regulation time why in the hell didn’t Memphis foul Kansas as soon as they inbounded the ball? At the most they would have made 2 free throws and Memphis had a 3 point lead. The best team lost and would have won if led properly.
By basketball hater
April 8, 2008 8:44 AM | Link to this
So, who cares? It’s just basketball.
Down with basketball and Hockey!!!
Bring on the outdoor sports!!!
By wes
April 8, 2008 9:49 AM | Link to this
capt midnight is right.
Calipari lost the game when he did not call a T.O. after Rose hit the 2nd free throw. He should have told his team to fould someone with 6 seconds left.
Should have been an easy way to win the game.
Mark’s right.
Choke City.
By wes
April 8, 2008 9:50 AM | Link to this
capt midnight is right.
Calipari lost the game when he did not call a T.O. after Rose hit the 2nd free throw. He should have told his team to foul someone with 6 seconds left.
Should have been an easy way to win the game.
Mark’s right.
Choke City.
By Jack
April 8, 2008 9:52 AM | Link to this
You undermine the concept of your whole post by not noticing that percentages in fact DO NOT MATTER…Memphis as a whole has stuglled to make FT’s but CDR and Rose have not. The two best FT shooters on the team with the HIGHEST percentages are the ones who missed the big ones.
You are a f*** dumb piece of s**!
By DP
April 8, 2008 10:18 AM | Link to this
Bradley, the yellow journalism of you and your fellow AJC hack know it alls is pathetic. I have been watching college basketball for 40 years and thought that game last night was an absolute clinic by both sides on how to play defense. Both teams are unselfish, talented, exhibited great effort and sportsmanship. It was everything a championship game should be. Mario Chalmers of Kansas made one of the greatest clutch shots in college basketball history.
And all you can come away from that game with is…CHOKE. What did you expect Calapari to say about his team’s free thrown shooting, that he had no confidence in them?
Please go away, write your garbage somewhere else. We’re sick of you. Surely you can get hired by one of the New York tabloids where you belong.
By bill harrison
April 8, 2008 10:59 AM | Link to this
DP is correct. This game was a classic. Memphis showed a doubting world they were for real. They lost this game, Kansas didn’t win it and the world knows that too. Memphis embarrassed every team they played except Mississippi State in this tourney and it took a miracle shot and miracle performance by Kansas to beat them. At least we didn’t have to watch boring UNC or UCLA. They were justly humiliated earlier.
By Mr. Drysdale
April 8, 2008 11:34 AM | Link to this
Is Memphis a predominantly black school? I didn’t see a single white player on the team—not even one scrub.
By Meatbone Johnson
April 8, 2008 12:04 PM | Link to this
Mr. Drysdale you are a moron
By JJ
April 8, 2008 12:48 PM | Link to this
I agree that Calapari should have called a time out (if he had one, don’t recall) and/or fouled before the 3 pointer.
It was a great game and just goes to show you can be down 9 with 2 to go and still win. Happens more than a few times a year these days.
It’s still kid’s and they are going to choke up sometimes when the going gets tough.
By gspot
April 8, 2008 1:26 PM | Link to this
Jack; just because they are the best two free throw shooters on the team does not mean they are good free throw shooters. The columnist shows a hell of a lot more intelligence than you.
By ATLslimG
April 8, 2008 1:32 PM | Link to this
Memphis just got outcoached plan and simple. And where were the white guys for Memphis? Maybe Jessie and Al made a deal? Anyway, great game to watch. CBS has to be happy with the outcome. Negroes always choke under pressure for some reason nobody seems to want to talk about. Stop hatin’ on Bradley, he is just doing his job. ChokeCity, Tenn.
By ben
April 8, 2008 2:09 PM | Link to this
Please, ATLslimG. Doesn’t the AJC have a censor on board? Famous Negro Chokers: Majic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Willis Reed, Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Clyde Drexler, Moses Malone, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Dwayne Wade, Karl Malone, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Irving. Seems to me, it was Duke that choked in the second round. Idiot.
By vdunkndunk
April 8, 2008 4:10 PM | Link to this
Maybe percentages do matter. But then again, let’s not ignore the obvious: one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the nation for much of the year only lost two games all season and made it as far as overtime in the national championship game after winning more games in a single season than any other team in history. So really, was Calipari all that wrong?
By Pat
April 8, 2008 7:44 PM | Link to this
I’m not sure that fouling with a 3 point lead is smart. Kansas could have made the first free throw, clanged the rim intentionally on the second, grabbed the rebound, hit a 3 and win in regulation. Everybody would still be calling Calip
By jHawk
April 8, 2008 9:04 PM | Link to this
Good points, but in the end, the fans will remember the victory by Kansas, not the blunders by Memphis. Fouls, freethrows, defense, rebounds—it all matters. Kansas just had a small portion more and a bit of luck.
By gb
April 9, 2008 10:32 PM | Link to this
i heard cjc wants to hire a sports columnist to be his bench coach next year. he said they are all smarter than any coach. a national championship every year is in the offing. i say cjc would be a much better writer than bradley would be a coach or gm.
By jayhock
April 10, 2008 8:23 AM | Link to this
The greatest basketball school in the Universe won the game. And next year the might Jayhawk footballers will destroy another 2-loss SEC team for the BCS championship. Big XII rules!