There have been a lot of collapses in sports at all levels. However, the one I witnessed last night in the NCAA Championship game ranks near the top. From a quick glance at the headlines this morning, not enough is being made of this collapse.
Memphis had the Championship in their hands with 2:12 left and a nine point lead. They must have collectively decided they weren’t interested, because it took a team effort and collaborative collapse to allow KU to win the game.
There is plenty of debate this morning about whether or not Memphis should have fouled a KU player before they even got a three pointer off. The problem is that gives KU two points and puts Memphis back at the free-throw line, which was potentially a bigger problem. Assuming Memphis misses those two free-throws, KU has the ball with five or six seconds left and they would have been trailing by only one. I think if you are Memphis you foul KU only if you are confident you can make your own free throws.
Memphis showed how dumb they are last night. CDR should have received a technical when he spiked the ball on the floor up two with 10 seconds left. That would have given KU two shots and the ball. Memphis fell apart at the line down the stretch. Calipari swore that free throw shooting would not be the end of them, but that proved false. They ranked 339th out of 341 teams by shooting 59% for the season.
Points I found interesting from the game last night:
• CDR went for a layup knowing he was going to get fouled with 15 seconds left….don’t you pull that out in an effort to eat up more clock? They were already in the double bonus so he was going to get two shots anyway.
• When D. Rose hit that fade away J as the shot clock expired…that should have been KU’s ball. The replay confirmed it. The announcers and players missed it. The ball bounced in play and before it touched anything out of bounds one of the Memphis players grabbed it (whilst standing out of bounds). That is KU ball all day.
• Memphis threw away the inbounds pass with two minutes left which resulted in a KU three. How does this happen?
• KU made some clutch plays to win that game, but more than that Memphis gave it away.
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