Free Throw Woes and Jayhawk Perseverance

The Memphis Tigers hit one free throw, they’re national champions.

Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts combined to miss three out of four free throws in the closing minutes of Monday night’s National Championship game to seal the deal for Kansas, while they could have sealed the deal for their team, the Memphis Tigers, if one of them had hit a least one more free throw. If the stat from the first sentence was, “Rose and Douglas-Roberts combined to miss three out of five,” everyone would be talking about Memphis’s late game collapse and their death-knocking-on-the-door hang-on.

College basketball fans are talking about Memphis’s colossal collapse. Just more-so in the most negative way possible. Nine point lead with only two minutes to go, and you blow it? You allow Kansas, who you have practically stopped up for most of the night to run all over you and score points in their Jayhawker fashion, the way they did against the Tar Heels on Saturday night? Yes, you did, Memphis. The fact that John Calipari neglected to take a time out to calm down Douglas-Roberts and Rose stunned me. I’m sure it stunned everyone.

That when Mario Chalmers nailed a three with a couple of seconds left on the game clock, we all knew it was over. It was kind of like when the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks played in the NBA’s Game 7 of the Western Conference Semi-Finals in 2006. Nearing the end of regulation, Manu Ginobili hit a 3 from the right wing that would have won the Spurs the game. However, on the other side, Dirk Nowitzki went for a jumping leaner — Ginobili fouled him, Dirk hit the shot, and went to the line to connect the 3-point-play. Jason Terry lit up the Spurs in overtime, as San Antonio was too emotionally drained to even play the rest of the game. Sound familiar to Memphis Monday night, folks? I’m sure it does.

I’m not condemning the Kansas’ effort, though. Their ballsy effort with little time remaining in regulation showed the world, especially the little ones watching at home, that you can accomplish anything in the world, that anything is possible. Just going by another classic example of sports’ life lessons that many people can grasp by them. They never quit, and for once in my life, I’m thanking Bill Self for having his boys ready to play, not allowing them to give up, and teaching them the facets of the game of basketball. They deserved the national championship Monday night. They won it. Through hard work and perseverance. Both sides played an excellent game, but Kansas came up as the better ball team at the end.

~ by The Inquisitor on April 9, 2008.