On comebacks and collapses

HavI have to start by saying how grateful I am for the quality of last night's NCAA basketball title game. On the whole, this was a rather lackluster tournament. This was not a result of all the favorites advancing to the Final Four, as some would have you to believe. It was the general way in which they, and virtually every other team that won games in this tournament, did so. Relatively speaking, there just weren't a lot of really competitive games this year, a pattern which continued with the Kansas and Memphis romps in the semis. And with Memphis seemingly running away down the stretch after what had been a close game most of the way, I was settling in for more of the same.

And, then, well, if you care, you know what happened, so I won't go into a ton of detail. Trailing by 9 with 2:12 to play, Kansas rallied to send the game into overtime. Pivotal moments included a Kansas steal and immediate 3 point shot to cut the lead to 4, Memphis going 1 for 5 in their last 3 trips to the free throw line, and Kansas' Mario Chalmers burying a contested 3 pointer to tie the game with 2.1 seconds left in regulation. Memphis, clearly deflated and without big man James Dorsey, who had fouled out a few minutes earlier, was unable to mount any kind of resistance in the OT, and Kansas is your 2008 NCAA basketball champions.

The ending of the game set off an interesting discussion within the media today, with people carefully walking the line between celebrating Kansas' comeback and criticizing Memphis' collapse. Dan Patrick even went as far as to ask his listeners which it was, implying that there was some exclusivity between the two, that it needed to be one or the other. And of course, most listeners were quick to label it a Memphis collapse, which is particularly easy to do given Memphis' free throw woes.

And yet, I find the whole discussion generally foolish. There's a simple fact at play here - in order for there to be a change in two teams fortunes in the course of a game noteworthy enough to be discussed the following day, the team in the lead HAS to present the trailing team with the opportunity to do so. You could perhaps make the argument a comeback was primarily the result of the trailing team's good play, but that ignores the fact the team with the lead does have an impact on their play. So, there is always a collapse, and always a comeback in these stories.

Yes, it is true that Memphis if Memphis makes 2 of 5 free throw instead of 1 of 5, they win the game. It's also true that there are few things Memphis could have done better on Kansas' last play of regulation. For the record, I'm not totally sold on the notion that Memphis should have fouled on that possession, though it is apparently what Memphis coach John Calipari wanted to do. I generally favor that option in similar situations, however, any foul would have probably left 5 seconds or more on the clock, and with Memphis not hitting their own free throws, I don't know that you give Kansas points with the clock stopped. I do think Memphis failed to fully sell out to defend the perimeter, and that it would have been best had Memphis called a timeout to figure out exactly what they wanted to do, since it was clear that they did not.

However, it is also true that were it not for a great steal off an inbounds and subsequent 3, Kansas likely never would have gotten the game close enough for the free throw misses to have been noteworthy. And it is also true that, despite all Memphis's mistakes, Kansas still needed a relatively long, contested 3 in order to send the game into overtime. Memphis certainly opened the door, but it wasn't as wide open as some media folk would have you believe. It's not like Memphis left the court. Kansas still had to make a number of excellent plays down the stretch. To suggest that the victory was a Memphis collapse, and not a Kansas comeback, is an insult to the terrific play Kansas laid out there down the stretch. They could easily have lost their cool and given up when most of us watching the game did.

Did Memphis collapse to some degree? Absolutely. However, did Kansas do some great things in coming back? Absolutely. So, I would ask the media, in their rush to crucify Calipari, and to say I told you so with regard to Memphis' well-documented free throw shooting woes, please make the appropriate effort to give Kansas their due. Spending all your time harping on Memphis is to imply that Kansas had something handed to them on a silver platter,and that's just not true.