SAN ANTONIO — The Memphis basketball team eliminated perhaps the last of the questions in its midst by rolling past UCLA 78-63 in the national semifinals at the Alamodome last night.
The Tigers wrested control of the game early in the second half, and the Bruins never could mount the slightest challenge. The speed and athleticism of the Tigers overwhelmed the Bruins.
When Chris Douglas-Roberts dunked on the head of Kevin Love with 4:52 left to give the Tigers a nine-point lead, that play neatly captured the difference in the two teams.
The Tigers routinely beat the Bruins to the ball. They routinely beat the Bruins up the floor.
Love was hardly the best player on the floor. That distinction went to Douglas-Roberts, the Conference USA Player of the Year who shredded the defense of the Bruins with artful drives to the basket.
Or maybe the best player was freshman point guard Derrick Rose, who finished with 25 points, nine rebounds and four assists.
The Tigers have spent much of the tournament defending their record, their conference and their ability to finish games.
They are hardly basketball royalty, and they play in a conference that rarely demands the attention of the national press unless someone feels obligated to point out that the Tigers have feasted on the infirm, the lacking and the incapable in Conference USA.
The Tigers also have been questioned about their difficulties at the free throw line. It was believed that deficiency would have subverted their cause long before the Final Four.
It has not happened yet, because, other than the Mississippi State game in the second round of the NCAA tournament, the Tigers are dismantling opponents, UCLA just the latest.
It was as if the Tigers were saying, “So you go back to the West Coast, UCLA, and tell all your Pac-10 friends what Conference USA is like.”
Douglas-Roberts, who scored a game-high 28 points, said he has given up trying to address the doubts that have enveloped the Tigers.
“The media can say whatever it wants,” Douglas-Roberts said. “But we know we are a pretty good team. The negativity, we don’t pay attention to it. We’ve heard it all season. But we’re playing really well, and that is all that matters.”
Tigers coach John Calipari reacted in almost ho-hum manner to his team reaching the national championship tomorrow night.
“You might not believe this, but I walked out in that game and I was feeling like it was just the next game,” he said. And I told the team before the game the same thing. It’s kind of like how we have played all year. I am proud of our guys up and down the lineup. They are unselfish with the basketball. Joey [Dorsey] is out there, and he does not score a single point. But he is happy with his 15 rebounds and the defense he played.”
The Tigers rotated players on Love and sometimes employed two defenders.
Love finished with 12 points and nine rebounds but was mostly a nonexistent element. It helped that his teammates seemingly went stretches of the game without making a considerable effort to get him involved in the offense.
“I was just trying to make it hard for him to catch the ball,” Dorsey said. “I got some dumb fouls in the beginning, and Coach told me I wasn’t playing hard enough. He wanted me to play tougher and with more intensity, and that is what I tried to do the whole game.”
As happy as Calipari was for his players, he said he was equally happy for the city of Memphis.
“Of all the teams in the tournament, this is huge for the city of Memphis,” Calipari said. “The city of Memphis is in the Bible Belt, a Godly place, a charitable place. But we have a lot of poverty. We have a lot of things going on. With this right here, we can show a lot of young kids there is an opportunity, a chance.”
Calipari receives his opportunity of a coaching lifetime tomorrow night.
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