Kansas, Memphis Make it an “All-Favorite” Final 4

NANCY ARMOUR
AP National Writer(Davidson) and
By JAIME ARON
AP Sports Writer(Memphis)
Published: March 30, 2008

By NANCY ARMOUR
AP National Writer
DETROIT (AP) - Stephen Curry darted this way, faked that way.
Nothing open, and the bright red numbers on the clock getting close
to zero.
He was the right guy - the only guy - to take the biggest shot
of the NCAA tournament.
But there wasn’t one. All he could do was the pass the ball and
watch as Jason Richards’ desperation try thudded off the backboard.
Davidson was done. Kansas was in.
“It hurts a lot to get this far, be so close to get to the
Final Four,” Curry said after top-seeded Kansas held off little
Davidson 59-57 Sunday.
The Jayhawks’ win in the Midwest Regional final sent all four
No. 1 seeds to the Final Four for the first time.
“I’m definitely proud of what we’ve accomplished and what we’re
about and what we’ve just proven all year,” Curry said. “… But
it’s going to hurt. This game’s going to hurt a lot for the next
however long.”
Curry, the son of former NBA sharpshooter Dell Curry, had made
the tournament his own little party, scoring at will with his
silky-smooth shot and carrying Davidson to one improbable victory
after another. He looked as if he might do it again, drilling a
3-pointer from NBA range to cut Kansas’ lead to 59-57 with 54
seconds left.
After Kansas’ Sherron Collins missed with 21 seconds left, the
10th-seeded Wildcats got one last chance.
And of course they gave the ball to Curry.
“Kansas had four guards out there and they just switched. It
kind of defeated the purpose of the play,” he said. “I gave them
a pump fake to try to get a look, but I was off-balance when he
fell down. So I saw Jay open at the top of the key, so I swung it
to him.”
But Richards was off-balance a bit - just enough to send make it
clang rather than swish.
“I kind of had a feeling in my heart that it wasn’t going in
because the way he shot it. It looked like he was leaning to the
left a little bit,” Kansas guard Mario Chalmers said. “When I
turned back, I saw it hit the backboard. I was just relieved.”
Richards dropped to his back at midcourt while the Jayhawks
celebrated with a measure of relief.
“Trust me, I was on both knees,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.
“You picture the way you win a big game like that, it would be you
make a shot, you celebrate or something happens and you’re able to
go congratulate all your coaches and players. This was not one of
those deals. I just wanted to make sure that I hurried up and shook
hands and the officials left the court so they couldn’t put any
time back on the clock.”
Kansas (35-3) moved on to play overall No. 1 seed North Carolina
- and former coach Roy Williams - on Saturday, and UCLA and Memphis
will round out the party at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
Three No. 1s have advanced three times, most recently in 1999.
“That means a lot to us,” Chalmers said. “It makes us part of
history. We wanted to come in here and be part of history and be
part of our first Final Four, and we was able to do that tonight.”
The win also rids Self of that dreaded “best coach never to
make a Final Four” label. Self had fallen short with three
different schools, including last year’s edition of the Jayhawks.
But this year’s bunch had too much talent, depth and experience to
be denied.
“It feels good just for him,” said Brandon Rush, who scored
eight of his 12 points in the second half. “He’s been stuck in the
Elite 8 for the last few years. This feels good just to make that
push into the Final Four for him.”
Curry, who became only the fourth player to hit the 30-point
mark in his first four NCAA tournament games, finished with 25 on
9-of-25 shooting and was picked Most Outstanding Player of the
Midwest Regional. His roommate, Bryant Barr, was the only other
Davidson player in double figures, scoring all 11 of his points in
the second half.
The loss snapped Davidson’s 25-game winning streak, longest in
the nation.
“The agony of this is that we came so far,” Davidson coach Bob
McKillop said. “We’ve seen and touched our dream, and we missed.
We came two points away from the Final Four with a 1,700-student
school in the Southern Conference.”
Sasha Kaun came up with big baskets down the stretch whenever
the Jayhawks needed them, and he and Chalmers scored 13 for Kansas,
which ended the feel-good story of the tournament. Tiny Davidson,
trying to become only the third double-digit to make the Final
Four, simply ran out of gas in the stretch.
“Fatigue was definitely a factor,” Curry said. “That
four-guard rotation they had really took a toll.”
Not that the Wildcats didn’t put up a valiant fight. Curry
looked exhausted much of the second half - with good reason, after
leading the Wildcats to upsets of Gonzaga, Georgetown and
Wisconsin. But he showed the same moxie he’s had all tournament,
drilling an NBA-range 3-pointer with 54 seconds left that cut
Kansas’ lead to 59-57.
But after making improbable shots all tournament, Davidson could
not get the one it needed most.
“They had a lot of bodies and a lot of athletic guys who could
chase me,” Curry said. “They did make me work hard, and I had
good looks at the end, but they weren’t falling like they did all
tournament. We can’t hang our heads. We had opportunities. We just
didn’t execute.”
Indeed, the Wildcats (29-3) have nothing to be ashamed of.
They hung with the toughest teams in the nation - Georgetown and
Wisconsin had two of the stingiest defenses in the country - and
gave little Davidson something to be known for besides providing
free laundry to its students. The Wildcats left the floor to
applause from a fan club that’s gotten a lot bigger over the last
two weeks, and Max Paulhus Gosselin acknowledged them by holding up
his index finger.
“This is about as tough a loss as it can get,” Gosselin said.
“We all played as hard as we could for the whole duration of the
game. Now it’s over.”
For the Kansas’ Jayhawks, it’s just starting.
This is their 13th trip to the Final Four, but first since 2003
- Williams’ final season. He took the Jayhawks to the championship
game - they lost to Syracuse - then bolted for his alma mater.
“Everyone knows he used to coach for KU,” Collins said.
“There will be a lot of emotion and a lot of heat for that game.”
Emotions for Self, too. He had taken teams from three different
schools to the regional finals only to fall short four times,
including last year’s loss to UCLA, and he acknowledged Saturday
that the hole in his resume weighed on him daily.
No longer. He smiled and gave a thumbs-up to the Kansas fans who
shouted his name, and the players beamed as they lined up to cut
down the nets at Ford Field. And when he came to the post-game news
conference, he’d traded his snazzy suit for boring old warmups
because his players had doused him with water.
“I don’t know how I’ll feel, but I think we should have a great
week,” Self said. “The hard part is just beginning, but in our
guys and minds, there’s been a weight that has been lifted, which
should free us up a little bit.”
For the Davidson Wildcats, they are left to wonder about “what
if.”
“We expected to win,” McKillop said. “We didn’t come here
content or satisfied. We expected to win. This has been a 12-month
mission. It came down to one final play. That’s the beauty of this
game that we play.”

==============================================
By JAIME ARON
AP Sports Writer
HOUSTON (AP) - The freshman from Chicago who wears No. 23 and
soars all over the court just finished getting Memphis into the
Final Four when fans began chanting “One more year!”
Then Derrick Rose picked up his South Regional MVP award,
clipped a piece of the net and called his mom to share the moment.
He kept it brief, though, because he didn’t want his teammates to
see him cry.
It might be the only thing they’ve never seen him do.
Driving, dishing and dunking, going above the rim for rebounds
and flying around to block shots, Rose led Memphis past Texas 85-67
Sunday for its first trip to the Final Four since 1985.
“I’m just living the dream right now,” said Rose, who finished
with 21 points, nine assists and six rebounds. “Everybody back
home happy for me and our fans back in Memphis are happy, so we’re
just living it up.”
They should.
The Tigers tied the NCAA Division I record for wins in a season,
with their only loss coming to a team ranked No. 2 at the time.
They’ve been first, second or third in the poll all season. And to
all the people who keep saying they’d be the first No. 1 seed to
lose, leading scorer Chris Douglas-Roberts can say, “See you in
San Antonio.”
“I’m not sure if we’ll get the respect we deserve, but if we
don’t, it doesn’t matter,” Douglas-Robert said. “It’s four teams
left now.”
Memphis will play UCLA and its freshman phenom, Kevin Love. The
Tigers and Bruins have a nice little history, having met in a
regional final two years ago and in the 1973 title game.
Memphis has only been back to the Final Four once, with Keith
Lee leading the way in 1985. But that trip was vacated according to
the NCAA record book because of rules violations. Ditto for the
only other time John Calipari coached a team to the Final Four,
UMass in 1996.
This March, Memphis has treated the NCAA field like it a
continuation of Conference USA play. This 18-point finish was the
second-closest final margin.
“We just try to go out there and prove everyone wrong,” said
bruising big man Joey Dorsey, who had 11 points and 12 rebounds.
The Tigers were a win away from the final weekend of the NCAA
tournament each of the last two years, but couldn’t get over the
hump. Then again, Dean Smith never won a title at North Carolina
until that other No. 23 came along, Michael Jordan.
Calipari even compared Rose to another icon of greatness, Tiger
Woods. Actually, Calipari brought it up last weekend, when he
passed along an article about Woods to Rose, telling him, “This is
who I believe you can be, physically, skill-wise.”
“He’s got to improve, got to get on the range a little bit and
get that stroke right, but he also has the mental capacity and the
mental toughness and the intelligence to be unique and special. And
it sets him apart,” Calipari said.
“He’s been that way since we got him, so it’s nothing I’ve done
with him. He just has a will to win. It may be with a defensive
stop. It may be with a rebound that he nicked his head on the rim
as he went to get it. It may be outrunning the entire field when he
started behind everybody. It may be a steal, a dive, a tip out of
nowhere, and then again it may be a drive, baseline and dunk on
their team.”
Put it this way: The only time Texas (31-7) slowed Rose in the
first half was when he got popped on the gash above his right eye
and needed new tape and glue job.
Rose made his first four shots and his fifth was a 3-pointer
that went in, then spun out.
He opened the game with a jumper in the paint, a reminder that
the Longhorns didn’t have a guard big enough to block his view,
much less his shot. He blocked an open-court layup by Texas star
D.J. Augustin and threw a long pass to Joey Dorsey for a dunk.
“He’s so evasive,” Longhorns coach Rick Barnes said. “I
thought early in the game that we could have picked up a couple
charges, but I could tell by looking at our players’ faces when I
said that. They were like, `I’m sure that looks like we can.’ But
he was just slippery. He just slips around and comes at you so
hard, and then he comes around the rim and can just elevate and get
over you.”
Barnes also complimented Rose for his tempo and composure.
“He just didn’t seem to get rattled,” Barnes said.
Augustin scored 16 points, but was 4-of-18 and had more
turnovers (four) than assists (three). All the turnovers came in
the first half, like one when he ran to the baseline, turned to
throw a pass and saw no one open, so he just dropped it out of
bounds. Memphis’ size, speed and athleticism kept Texas from ever
getting into a groove.
“They are just as athletic as anybody else,” said Texas’ A.J.
Abrams, who has faced UCLA, Kansas, Tennessee and Michigan State
this season. “I think they spread the court a little bit more than
those other teams as far as driving the ball, and they use every
position.”
Abrams scored only two points in the first half, but finished
with a team-high 17. Nobody else scored more than eight. The
outside-shooting frontcourt of Connor Atchley and Damion James were
1-of-10 on 3-pointers.
What the Longhorns really needed was Kevin Durant, last year’s
national player of the year. Without him, Texas still managed to
win the most games in school history and win two more tournament
games than they did with him.
If Augustin doesn’t turn pro, the Longhorns could have all five
starters back next year.
“You know, we didn’t want our road to end right here,” guard
Justin Mason said, “but we’re going to work hard like we did last
summer and we’ll be back and get ready for next year.”
If can happen. Just look at Memphis bouncing back after two
straight setbacks in the regional final.
Of course, it helps to bring in a guy like Rose.