This
Saturday night at FedExForum, Memphis will host the closest thing to a Final
Four the city has ever seen. The top two
college basketball teams in the country will share a floor for 40 minutes, and
with more than a state’s bragging rights on the line. Memphis vs. Tennessee. The
Game of the Year, and perhaps more.
In
trying to name the greatest regular-season game in the history of Memphis Tiger
basketball, we’re almost forced to wear blinders. Why even look beyond the
fabled series — sadly, now former series — between the U of M and the University
of Louisville? Particularly during the 1980s — when Louisville won a pair of
national titles, Memphis reached the ’85 Final Four, and the teams traded Metro
Conference championships like a flu bug — Tigers-Cardinals is among the
preeminent rivalries in the history of college basketball. From the 1980-81
season through 1988-89, the teams played 18 times, each winning nine.
Considering the stage of the season when it was played (the Tigers’
regular-season finale) and the ranking of each squad (Tigers were 17th,
Cardinals 3rd in the country), the March 6, 1983, game that Louisville won,
64-62 in overtime, might qualify as the “greatest ever.”
But a
new era’s upon us. A necessary ingredient for a great rivalry is really sort of
ugly: hatred. (A large part of the Memphis-Louisville rivalry died for me the
day Milt Wagner — who played in that 1983 game in a red uniform — graduated from
the U of M.) And Memphis sports fans who hate the University of Tennessee grow
in number with every whipping at the hands of the Big Orange on the gridiron.
(Wasn’t that 1996 upset — now five UT victories ago — supposed to change
things?) And this burst of animosity has been relatively independent of the
cross-state recruiting rivalry now sizzling between Tiger basketball coach John
Calipari and his orange-blazer-wearing counterpart, Bruce Pearl.
All of
which makes this Saturday’s contest between the top-ranked Tigers and the Vols —
until this season, UT had never been ranked among the nation’s top three — the
biggest game between state rivals Tennessee has ever seen, one of the three or
four biggest games in the entire country this season, and — depending on the
result — the biggest regular-season game in Memphis Tiger history.
[Full
disclosure: I’m the son of two Tennessee alumni and the husband of a Memphis
alum. I won’t lose Saturday night . . . but I surely won’t win, either.]
What
would a victory mean for these teams, these schools, these regions of Tennessee
hoopdom? For the Vols, it would be the biggest win in years over a school not
named Kentucky. (That win over Florida a year ago was a mighty upset, but the
Gators are Johnny-Come-Latelies relative to the basketball history celebrated by
Memphis.) It would be a shot across the bow by Pearl for any recruits in
Calipari’s clutches who might not have considered Knoxville anything more than
women’s basketball country. And it would keep a Tiger program under heel in a
series somehow led by the Volunteers, 11-7. (Note that the two schools only
played one game — in 1969 — before the 1988-89 season.)
And for
the home team? The hosts of an ESPN Gameday crew that finds itself spotlighting
the pride of Conference USA for an entire nation? The win would be a final, pre-NCAA
tournament validation for all that John Calipari has preached since his arrival
eight years ago. League be damned, Memphis is a program that will compete for
NATIONAL championships. Any other program — regardless of conference might —
with the stones to visit FedExForum will be welcomed with an old-fashioned,
Southern-flavored, close-fisted sock in the mouth. (That’s a metaphor, people.
No excuses for the postgame behavior last weekend in Birmingham.)
If you
go back to December 23, 2006, when Memphis began a 25-game winning streak by
beating Middle Tennessee at FedExForum, the Tigers’ are 50-1 through Saturday’s
win at UAB. That, basketball fans, is a pinch-me, rub-your-eyes, you-gotta-be-kidding-me
record for any college team, be they members of C-USA, the ACC, or the YMCA. The
U of M has not, of course, played the Tennessee Vols over the course of those 51
games. And a team’s ultimate legacy, it’s ultimate image is determined on the
brightest of stages, in front of the most eyes and cameras, with the most at
stake. (Just ask the New England Patriots.) Next Saturday’s bout — in downtown
Memphis — between the two best college basketball teams in the country will not
determine a championship. But it will be a moment on this city’s sports timeline
never to be forgotten.
