As we all catch
our breath between rounds, a few observations on the NCAA tournament.
• Larry Finch
scored 32 points in an NCAA tournament game in 1973, the highest postseason
total of his career as a Tiger. Keith Lee scored 29 on St. Patrick’s Day in
1984. Elliot Perry’s NCAA tournament high? 15 points in 1989. Penny Hardaway
topped out at 24 in 1992. Chris Douglas-Roberts played in 14 NCAA-tournament
games but never scored more than 28 in a single contest. All of which makes
Roburt Sallie’s 35 points last Thursday — in the Tigers’ opening-round victory
over Cal State Northridge — a seismic event in these parts. (You think the
voters who gave Wesley Witherspoon Conference USA’s Sixth Player of the Year
award would like their ballots back?) Before last week, Sallie’s high game as a
Tiger was 13 points (twice). He had never made more than five three-pointers
before draining 10 against the Matadors. Most importantly, the Tigers
desperately needed the offensive firepower, the game being far too tight for a
second seed’s comfort. If you know anyone who forecast Sallie’s outbreak, turn
your 401(k) over to that person tomorrow.
• This marks the
second time in Tiger basketball history the program has advanced to the NCAA’s
Sweet 16 four consecutive years. Keep in mind, though, that in 1982 and 1983
(the first two years in the earlier four-year streak), the Tigers only had to
win a single game to advance to a regional. During that Keith Lee era (1982-85),
the Tigers won a total of eight games in the tournament. Over the last four
years (through last weekend), the Tigers have won 13 games in the Big Dance.
• Thursday’s Tiger
tilt between Memphis and Missouri will be frenetic, each team with the kind of
athleticism that wears a garden-variety opponent ragged. Mizzou beat Oklahoma on
March 4th in a game that saw Blake Griffin score 16 points and grab 21 rebounds.
Memphis senior Antonio Anderson will likely be charged with slowing down
Missouri’s J.T. Tiller, while Robert Dozier and Shawn Taggart will be the tandem
responsible for containing Missouri’s all-conference forward DeMarre Carroll and
fellow big man Leo Lyons. If you’re looking for a recent trend, Memphis has
beaten a Big 12 team each of the last two years on the tournament’s second
weekend: Texas A & M (2007) and Texas (2008). The two Tiger squads share a
common opponent, each having lost to Xavier way back in November. (Memphis by
five, Missouri by four.)
• Memphis will be
hosting the most star-studded of the regionals when the South’s quartet take the
court Friday. With only one team among the Sweet 16 seeded below five (number-12
Arizona in the Midwest), the tournament has held to form through its first
weekend. But consider the headline-makers we’ll see at FedExForum: the consensus
2008 national player of the year (North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough), the
favorite for the same honor this season (Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin), a pair of
all-conference players for Gonzaga (guard Matt Bouldin and center Josh Heytvelt),
and a coach aiming for his 800th career win (Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim). The South
will be the only regional in which all four teams have at least 28 wins. On top
of all that, it features arguably the finest guard left in the tournament: ACC
Player of the Year Ty Lawson of North Carolina.
• CBS does its
viewership a disservice by not assigning Gus Johnson play-by-play duties for the
Final Four. When I hear Jim Nantz describe a basketball game — as he will the
semifinals and championship — I hear a breakdown of Phil Mickelson’s club
selection at Amen Corner during the Masters. When I hear Gus Johnson describe a
college basketball game, I hear the enthusiasm — a healthy notch below Dick
Vitale’s — that fuels the NCAA basketball tournament from office cubicles to
dorm rooms to bars, restaurants, and even furniture showrooms. Johnson is
clearly a fan of the sport he describes, yet defers intelligently to his analyst
for “what it feels like” as yet another game winds down with palms sweating on
both benches. To borrow the word Johnson uses to describe a jump shot that meets
twine, his description of the NCAA tournament is . . . “Pure!”
