Rock Chalk Championship

All season we'd heard the same thing about Memphis. Great team, but their free throw shooting is going to kill them at some point in the tournament. I know it was the reason I didn't have them getting to the Final Four, and all season Memphis coach John Calipari said his team would make them when they mattered.

Nobody believed him.

Then the tournament started, and what do you know, the Tigers started making their free throws. Of course, they were doing so at the end of games which they had in hand. On Monday night in San Antonio, the Tigers faced real pressure from the free throw line for the first time in the tournament, and they folded under the pressure.

Chris Douglas-Roberts, the team's best free throw shooter at 71% missed four free throw attempts in the final 75 seconds, and Derrick Rose missed one during the same span, and one of those misses was incredibly important.

Mario Chalmers' miracle shot at the end of regulation sent the game to overtime, and from that point on it was all Kansas. Without Joey Dorsey, who fouled out late in the second half, the Tigers were without their defensive presence in the middle, and the Jayhawks took advantage, and ultimately it led to their first national championship in 20 years (to the day).



This one kind of hurt for me, because watching Bill Self and the Jayhawks celebrate their championship did nothing but bring up bad memories for me of Self leaving Champaign for Kansas, and then watching Illinois lose to North Carolina in 2005. I'm not saying that Illinois would have won with Self on the bench or anything, I'm just saying I couldn't help but think of it, and now I'm depressed.

Still, at least the game was entertaining. I didn't get to watch the games much on Saturday because I was at a wedding, but going from what I did see, I really wasn't missing much anyway.

This game, on the other hand, lived up to the hype. Now if only we could have one of these tournaments every month. I guess I'll just have to rely on good ole baseball to keep me occupied for now.