San Antonio – Memphis entered the NCAA Tournament with the bravado of a prince and the respect of a pauper. Oh, the ramifications of walking around as champion of Conference USA, a perceived low-rent league spread over backwater basketball towns from West Texas to West Virginia.
Well, Memphis is still playing princely and is three wins away from the king’s throne. The Tigers, playing like a team with a No. 2 seed and a 24-game win streak, used two Antonio Anderson free throws with 3.1 seconds left at the Alamodome on Thursday night to beat Texas A&M 65-64 in the South Regional semifinals.
“This is what we wanted: Come to Texas in front of 30,000 Aggies and prove ourselves,” Memphis coach John Calipari said. “The pressure was on them, not us.”
The third-seeded Aggies (26-8) proved him right. Maybe they had too many ticket requests to worry about with their campus only 200 miles up the road in College Station. But they failed to make the plays they needed, including a stunning missed layup by All-America guard Acie Law IV in the last minute and failure to corral two missed Memphis shots in the closing seconds.
With Texas A&M leading 64-63 with 26 seconds left, Memphis (33-3) went into its patented weave which it had broken off into driving layups all night. First, Andre Allen missed a tough jumper, but no Aggie boxed out on the rebound and the ball actually landed on the floor. Second, Memphis’ Jeremy Hunt grabbed it and put up a heavily contested 15-footer.
That missed but, again, Memphis rebounded and Anderson was pushed on his ensuing badly errant shot. Only a 64 percent free-throw shooter and one who bricked two foul shots earlier, he swished the first to tie it. A&M’s timeout didn’t faze him, as he swished the second for the lead.
Texas A&M inbounded, and the ball was deflected out of bounds. However, the clock stayed at 3.1. After a long discussion, the time was dropped to 2.0 seconds. Head official Karl Hess said in a statement: “When you look at the monitor, the (Memphis) kid catches the ball. The ball hits the court and then went out of bounds. I put it on the stopwatch and it comes out to 1.1.”
The Aggies inbounded to Logan Lee, whose 40-footer wasn’t close.
Another more unlikely miss hurt A&M more. Law, who was only 6-for-17 for 13 points, could have all but put away Memphis when he took a pass over the press with a 64-63 lead. He evaded Anderson going for a desperate steal but the uncontested layup fell short with about 40 seconds left.
The victory seemed improbable, considering Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis’ leading scorer this season, had hobbled on a sprained ankle all week. But he played 37 minutes and scored 15 points.
It was not improbable, however, because it was a quality opponent all but playing on its home court, Calipari said.
“We’ve played at Arizona, at Tennessee, at Gonzaga,” he said. “When we’re playing them, teams in the tough conferences are playing Popcorn State.”
TEXAS A&M (27-7)
Carter 1-4 1-2 4, Jones 7-11 0-1 14, Kavaliauskas 7-13 3-3 17, Law IV 6-17 0-0 13, Kirk 2-4 0-2 4, Johnston 0-0 0-0 0, Sloan 2-6 1-2 5, Lee 1-1 0-0 3, Davis 1-1 0-0 2, Pompey 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 28-59 5-10 64.
MEMPHIS (33-3)
Dozier 2-6 0-0 4, Dorsey 4-6 0-0 8, Kemp 3-5 0-0 7, Anderson 1-6 3-6 5, Douglas-Roberts 5-8 5-7 15, Niles 0-3 0-0 0, Hunt 6-12 4-5 19, Allen 1-5 2-3 4, Mack 1-2 0-0 3, Cooper 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 23-54 14-21 65.
Halftime – Texas A&M 42-37. 3-point goals – Texas A&M 3-10 (Lee 1-1, Law IV 1-3, Carter 1-3, Kirk 0-1, Jones 0-1, Sloan 0-1), Memphis 5-17 (Hunt 3-7, Mack 1-1, Kemp 1-2, Dozier 0-1, Douglas-Roberts 0-2, Anderson 0-2, Allen 0-2). Fouled out – Dorsey. Rebounds – Texas A&M 36 (Kavaliauskas 8), Memphis 31 (Dozier 5). Assists – Texas A&M 14 (Kirk 7), Memphis 8 (Anderson 3). Total fouls – Texas A&M 20, Memphis 15. A – 26,060.
