Chalmers and Kansas Are Swinging on a Star (original) (raw)

April 9, 2008

SAN ANTONIO The fireworks exploded in the Alamodome as the Kansas players leapt over the tables on press row to embrace their families. Confetti streamed to the floor and the Jayhawk faithful began a haunting cheer they had been waiting to unleash for the past 20 seasons.

“Rock Chalk, Jayhawk, K.U.,” echoed the Kansas fans, celebrating the Jayhawks’ first national title since the Danny Manning-led team of 1988.

The only thing that may reverberate louder than the chanting of Kansas fans was the game’s defining shot, a fadeaway 3-pointer by Mario Chalmers.

And while Chalmers stole the moment, the game’s legacy may be split. The question after Kansas’ 75-68 overtime victory against Memphis in the title game of the N.C.A.A. tournament is whether it will be remembered for the Jayhawks’ furious comeback, or the Tigers’ monumental collapse.

“It’s a nightmare when you have a chance to win a national championship and everything that needed to work for Kansas worked in their favor,” John Robic, the Memphis assistant coach, said. “There’s really not much more that you can say.”

For the Tigers, the situation unfolded like a horror script of end-game blunders a toxic mix of a turnover, missed free throws and an inability to foul in the final seconds.

“I look at that and say, ‘We should have won that game,’ ” said Memphis Coach John Calipari, who added that he took “full responsibility” for the defeat.

For the Jayhawks, the late-game flurry unfolded as if it were drawn on Coach Bill Self’s dream grease board. Down by 9 points, the Jayhawks’ Darrell Arthur drilled a jump shot before the play that proved to be the comeback’s catalyst.

The Jayhawks’ Sherron Collins stole an inbounds pass and hit a deep 3-pointer from the right wing. That cut the Memphis lead to 4, and it forced the Tigers to go eye-to-eye with their nemesis shoddy free-throw shooting.

“I think it was a turning point,” Collins said.

Memphis shot a little better than 60 percent from the line during the season, one of the worst percentages in Division I. The Tigers’ skeptics had been saying all season that their free-throw problems would undo them. And, ultimately, they did. Memphis hit 1 of 5 free throws in the final 75 seconds. It was the cause of its collapse.

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Mario Chalmers’s shot forced overtime. The rest is history.Credit...Jeff Haynes/Reuters

“I guess you can boil it down to the free throws,” the junior guard Chris Douglas-Roberts said.

With 1 minute 15 seconds remaining, Douglas-Roberts missed the front end of a one-and-one. Arthur, who had one of the best games of his career with 20 points and 10 rebounds, cut the lead to 2 by hitting a jumper with 1:01 left.

Douglas-Roberts had a chance to add to the Memphis lead, but he missed two more free throws. The Tigers’ Robert Dozier swooped in to snare the second miss, shooting the ball out to Derrick Rose, who was fouled with 10 seconds left.

Kansas’ late-game plan was to foul anyone but Douglas-Roberts and Rose, the Tigers’ two leading free-throw shooters. Instead, they were the only Memphis players who went to the line in the game’s final 75 seconds.

“The best-laid plans,” the Kansas assistant coach Joe Dooley said.

Rose hit only one of the two free throws he was awarded, setting up the game-tying 3-pointer by Chalmers.

Calipari might have blundered when he did not call a timeout to settle his team after Rose made the second free throw.

With the Tigers leading, 63-60, Calipari instructed Rose to commit a foul so the Jayhawks could not tie the score with a 3-pointer. Perhaps he should have alerted the officials of the intent to foul. Rose appeared to commit a foul when he bumped Collins, who made an awkward pass to Chalmers that came close to being a loose ball.

“I think I got fouled, actually,” Collins said. “But I ain’t complaining. I’m glad they didn’t call a foul.”

The rest will live in infamy in Memphis and live on as an immortal moment in Lawrence, Kan. Chalmers buried the shot to force overtime, and he was named the Final Four’s most outstanding player. The Jayhawks scored the first 6 points of overtime. The Memphis players hid under towels in the locker room in disbelief in the aftermath.

“I’m a little numb,” Calipari said. “But it will hit me tomorrow, you know, how close we really were, and some things down the stretch that kind of bit us a little bit.” Whether it was a comeback or a meltdown, the game will echo through title game history. Even if it took Self a little while to grasp its significance.

“I don’t know how I’m going to feel about all this just yet because I’m a little in shock and a little overwhelmed,” he said.

He was not the only one.

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