Well, Memphis Is Fucked

The NCAA Committee on Infractions will release its findings regarding Memphis on Thursday morning and the word "vacate" is included in the report, several sources told ESPN.com.

In May the NCAA accused Memphis of several major infractions during its 2007-08 season, including a fraudulent SAT score by a player, later to be revealed as Derrick Rose, and more than $2,000 in free travel for Rose's brother, Reggie.

The potential penalties include vacating the Tigers' Final Four run and NCAA-record 38-win season, a possibility that seems likely now, according to the sources. ESPN

This would be the second time Memphis and John Calipari got a final four season taken away. My hope is that this doesn't affect his performance at Kentucky because I've been talking a lot of shit. Derrick Rose denied all of this, but I really think they are going to find that all of this indeed happened, because Memphis had a ridiculous run of the top recruits in the country.

Memphis Knew About Rose?

One month after Memphis lost to Kansas in overtime on April 7, 2008, in one of the most thrilling national championship games in recent memory, the Tigers were rocked by an e-mail from the NCAA.

It was then that Memphis was first notified that star freshman point guard Derrick Rose, who helped the Tigers to an NCAA-record 38 wins and was soon going to become the No. 1 pick in the 2008 NBA draft by his hometown Bulls, had an invalidated standardized test score the previous year at Chicago's Simeon High School, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the e-mail.

The University of Memphis' legal counsel, Sheri Lipman, would not identify the student-athlete as Rose, but said Monday, "for the student-athlete, whoever that was, the first indication that we got was in early May [2008] that his score was being invalidated."

So wait, Memphis knew that one of it's student athletes (Derrick Rose) had BS SATs and let him in anyways? I like it and I like there style. It is about time we have had a good SAT scandal, the last one that I remember is Lamar Odom and URI. If this is confirmed(which it practically is), that would mean that Memphis' 38 wins and National Championship loss will go away forever, and RIP with the fab 5's banners.

And Your New Memphis Coach Is...

This guy.

Josh Pastner

Apparently Pastner is a super recruiter, where he got all of his recognition under Lute Olson at Arizona. Last year, he was a assistant to John Calipari.

I hate this move. While Arizona, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama all got their pretty new toys, Memphis went in house. I don't know if Pastner will succeed or not, but missing out on some pretty good coaches isn't a good thing. Memphis will have a down year next year, with Tyreke Evans going pro, and every Calipari recruit jumping ship.

College Basketball Recap

(3) Mizzou 102, (2) Memphis 91

Has anyone else been more impressive this tournament than Mizzou? JT Tiller had a career night for Mizzou as he broke Memphis' 27 fluff game win streak. Tiller finished with 23 points on the night. Mizzou almost blew it as they let up a 24 point lead to 6, but free throws really sealed the deal for them. Freshman point guard Tyreke Evans finished with 33 points for Memphis, but the problem of course (again) was free throws. Memphis only hit 18 of 32 from the line, I guess Calipari should start taking them a little more seriously figuring it has cost them two tournament games.

(1) UConn 72, (5) Purdue 60

After cruising through the first two rounds in the tournament, UConn found itself in a little bit of a challenge yesterday until late in the second quarter. Hasheem Thabeet had his coming out party scoring 15, rebounding 15, and blocking 4 shots. But what the stat line won't show you is his overall defensive dominance. Since Purdue lacked size, it was close to impossible to score from the paint due to Thabeet's size.

(1) Pittsburgh 60, (4)Xavier 55

Does anyone else hate having Pitt as their winner? Levance Fields was star of the game hitting one of the most ill advised three point shots with 50.9 seconds left on the clock and hit it. Pitt was trailed 54-52 before Fields hit that three pointer to put the Panthers up for good. Sam Young led led Pitt with 19 points, Fields had 14 and DeJuan Blair had 10 points and 17 rebounds as they needed it to overcome a 8 point deficit at halftime. Pitt finally got over the sweet 16 hump and is on to the elite for the first time in 8 years.

(3) Villanova 77, (2)Duke 54

Dante Cunningham had 14 points and 11 rebounds and the third seeded Wildcats beat the Blue Devils for the first time in more than 50 years. Villanova took advantage took advantage of Duke's pathetic shooting 27% to advance to the elite eight. Kyle Singler had 15 and Jon Scheyer had 13 but went 3-18 and "star" Gerald Henderson had the worst shooting performance I have seen in my life going 1-14 finishing with 7 points.

It Looks Like Tyreke Evans Is Fitting In Fine In Memphis

Here is a picture of Tyreke Evans (If you remember we had a post on him going to Memphis as being the top Basketball prospect). Apparently the freshman is out partying already and learning the way they do it in Memphis.

And Wow

Absolutely Amazing.

It is so, so rare for a sporting event surrounded with hype to actually live up or beat your expectations. For 26 years I have toiled away watching countless championships in every major sport only to be disappointed by the underdog failing to defy odds or even worse, failing to keep the contest interesting. In a match up like this, while there was no true dog, there was more than enough potential for a one sided route a' la Kansas, UNC on Saturday night.

We finally got a good one and I could not have been more satisfied. Kansas and Memphis played it close the entire game. Until the final five minutes, the game was played within a six point range. The quality of play was solid on both sides of the ball with excellent defensive efforts out of guys like Brandon Rush and Robert Dozier. The Jayhawks were able to keep Derrick Rose in check for the first three quarters of the game and Memphis did not let Mario Chalmers or Rush beat them.

If nothing else, the game was complete. Everybody loves clutch and what could be more clutch than the 3-pointer Chalmers drained with 2.1 on the clock? Prior to that, Rose was sick of being treated like Sherron Collins' bitch all night and single handedly put Memphis up nine with under three to play. That was a pretty clutch four minutes of basketball, wouldn't you agree?

On top of the clutch, we got the choke. We heard about Memphis' charity stripe woes all year long. Calipari said his boys would make the ones that counted and until the last two minutes of tonight's game, he was pretty accurate. CDR and Rose turned into JJ Redick on the line. But when the pressure was on and the lights were their brightest, CDR missed three and Rose missed another. Any one of the four could have iced the game. There is a reason why we love the Chris Weber timeout call 50 years after the fact and its because we love the choke. Well guess what? We have another 50 years of video role.

Yes, the game had it all and better than a happy ending after an exotic massage we got some Luthor Vandross "One Shining Moment" to top it all off. What a night.

Box Score

85 Memphis, 67 Texas

Well in the fuck Dave Pearce NCAA Tournament, the Memphis Tigers beat the Texas Longhorns. Looking back on this tourney I should have just picked all the number 1s. I should have said fuck "free-throws", Memphis is just a really good team. Derrick Rose looked like Jalen Rose in having 21 points and Chris Douglas-Roberts finished with 25 points and was the real game changer. The most surprising stat was the fact they shot 30-36 from the charity stripe (that's a free throw line Bob) which is 83 percent, and that is very impressive. As for Joey Dorsey he had 11 points and 12 boards, however he remains a total douche bag.

As for Texas, the couldn't get it going. D.J. Augustine had 16 points but only shot 4-18 and at times looked foolish with the ball, and A.J. Abrams had 17 points. The Longhorns shot 36 percent for the game, while Memphis shot 50 percent.

Box Score