Memphis has found itself near the top of far too many
national rankings of late. Crime. Obesity. Political corruption. Makes you want
to toss your newspaper at times, or click to another web site. One devoted to,
say, sports.
This week (and beyond?), though, for the first time in a
quarter-century, Memphis is at the very top of a list Memphians have WANTED to
head for more than a generation. The undefeated Memphis Tigers, of course, are
the number-one college basketball team in the land. When the North Carolina Tar
Heels lost their first game of the season Saturday (to the Maryland Terrapins),
all John Calipari’s team needed to do was beat Southern Miss at FedExForum to
reach the mountaintop. They did so with a holding-to-formula 37-point drubbing
of a Conference USA rival.
On the football field, Memphis-USM has come to be called
“The Black-and-Blue Game,” and a hardwood variety of such broke out after
Saturday’s tip-off. The Golden Eagles were whistled for nine fouls in the first
nine minutes, prompting Southern Miss coach Larry Eustachy to ask an official,
“Are you going to give us 40 fouls tonight?!”
The Tigers’ Chris Douglas-Roberts scored 14 of his team’s
first 26 points, and Joey Dorsey blocked two shots early to establish the home
team’s defensive backbone. Southern Miss would shoot a mere 25 percent in the
first half, a figure that jumped but a percentage point in the second. Derrick
Rose contributed 13 points and four assists for the Tigers, while Antonio
Anderson contributed six assists with nary a turnover.
With 2:30 remaining in the game, chants of “We’re number
one!” from the crowd of 18,108 bathed the players below, who somehow came across
as less celebratory than their coach. With a minute to play, Calipari stood up
from the bench, turned to the crowd, and, after applauding himself, danced his
version of what might be considered a jig. It was, after all, Saturday night in
downtown Memphis.
The players weren’t willing to acknowledge the significance
of the win — yet — as the chance remained that undefeated Kansas might leapfrog
Memphis when Monday’s rankings were released. (In the ESPN/USA Today coaches
poll, Kansas received 10 first-place votes, to the Tigers’ 21.)
“It wasn’t about North Carolina in the locker room before
the game,” said Anderson as he dressed for the sub-30 temperatures outside the
arena. “Hopefully [the top ranking] will happen, but we’re just trying to play
our game.”
“We’re really, really talented,” conceded Dorsey, “and the
freshmen are playing really well. Shawn Taggart’s backing me up really great.
Look at the teams we’ve played, the hardest non-conference schedule in America,
and we dominated that. I don’t know how to act right now. I’m just happy for the
city. I go by my apartment and fans have been so excited, saying North Carolina
barely won. Now that they lost, I don’t know how they’re gonna act. Everybody’s
gonna go out and party tonight, but I’m not! I just hope we’re number one
Monday.”
Calipari has actually been here before, his 1995-96
Massachusetts squad spending several weeks atop the polls before falling to
Kentucky at the Final Four. After Saturday’s win, the coach was more willing
than his players to discuss the coveted ranking. “I said before the game, let’s
win the game, then we can talk about number one. I wanted [the players] to enjoy
this moment for the program.”
“It takes a village,” added Calipari, who notched his 198th
win as Tiger coach. “Coming together, everybody understanding they have a part
in this. You can’t have a program like this unless that building is full like it
was tonight. Let me tell you the significance of a non-BCS team being number
one. Tell me the last one. It’s unusual, for this program to do the things we’re
doing. Enjoy this. Live in the moment.”
Where were you for that solitary week in January 1983, when
sophomore Keith Lee and the Memphis State Tigers were the top team in the land?
(Or were you like every member of the 2007-08 Tigers and not yet a gleam in your
parents’ eye?) Calipari was a 23-year-old, first-year assistant coach at Kansas.
(Perfectly ironic that the Jayhawks are the only other undefeated team still
standing in 2008.) There was no such thing as a Memphis Showboat, Memphis
Redbird, or Memphis Grizzly in 1983. Willie Herenton wasn’t even mayor. But it
felt nice, didn’t it? That one week on the mountaintop of college basketball.
Sir Edmund Hillary passed away earlier this month, his
legend firmly in place for having been the first to survive a climb to the
summit of Mount Everest. “Well, we knocked off the bastard,” he famously said
upon returning to his base camp. More remains for the Memphis Tigers to “knock
off” if this basketball season is to fulfill the ambitious dreams of U of M fans
young and old. But for all those fans under the age of 25, enjoy this first view
from the mountaintop. What a climb it’s been.
