Tigers Shake Off Scrappy Mean Green
Memphis 73, North Texas 58
Friday, March 16, 2007; 6:31 PM
NEW ORLEANS -- With another win against another unheralded foe, the Memphis Tigers didn't prove much in their NCAA tournament opener. But the way they beat North Texas 73-58 on Friday showed why the Tigers believe they'll be ready to play the big boys when they finally get a chance.
Backup guards Andre Allen and Jeremy Hunt found themselves running the offense after two starters got in foul trouble midway through the first half. With big men Robert Dozier and Joey Dorsey getting physical, and freshman reserve Doneal Mack hitting some big shots, Memphis not only hung tough it went from being down by a few to being ahead by a lot.
  Memphis' Robert Dozier, left, and North Texas' Harold Stewart, front right, go for the ball in front of Memphis' Chris Douglas-Roberts during the first round of the NCAA South Regional basketball tournament in New Orleans, Friday, March 16, 2007. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (Alex Brandon - AP)   The Gators are too much to handle in an 84-75 victory over Ohio State for their second straight national championship. On Hoops: Florida is a team for the ages, because in winning back-to-back national titles they took a very good team's best shot and still came out victorious. The Buckeyes are setback by the Gators' three-point shooting every time they try to make a run. Greg Oden, the public introvert, and Joakim Noah, the unabashed extrovert, share a common desire to savor college. Select CompanyFlorida joined a small group who repeated as men's basketball champion:Oklahoma State 1945-46 Kentucky 1948-49 San Francisco 1955-56 Cincinnati 1961-62 UCLA 1964-65, 1967-73 Duke 1991-92 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPFINAL FOURREGIONAL FINALSSouth West Midwest EastMULTIMEDIA Photos: Snapshots from the 2007 NCAA tournament. Video: Charting Texas freshman Kevin Durant's rapid rise to the top. Video: Post columnist Sally Jenkins talks about Durant. ON OUR SITETeam-by-Team Analysis:Coaching Tree: The Six Degrees of March's Mayhem (PDF) Flashback: A Quarter-Century Worth of Memories (PDF) TOURNEY TRACKER Share and compare your NCAA brackets. |
The Tigers (31-3) were hardly tested again on the way to their national-best 23rd straight win.
"We did what we had to," Memphis coach John Calipari said.
The Tigers will face seventh-seeded Nevada in the second round Sunday. Nevada beat Creighton 77-71 in overtime.
Chris Douglas-Roberts led the Tigers in scoring with 16 points, but 13 came in the second half. He missed the last 9:58 of the first half after picking up a technical foul that counted as his third personal.
Antonio Anderson was on the bench, too, partly because of two fouls and partly because of how well Allen was playing. Allen ended up staying in for a career-high 36 minutes, scoring 14 points and handing out four assists. He also was the driving force in a 14-4 run midway through the second half that ended any hopes North Texas (23-11) had of an upset.
"For some reason, at this time of year his motor starts revving up," Calipari said of Allen, who played well in last year's NCAA tournament.
These Tigers are different from the 2006 club that reached the regional finals, but they expect to get at least that far. After all, they haven't lost since Dec. 20 and are seeded second in the South Regional.
The knock is that North Texas is the caliber of team Memphis usually beats. Memphis beat only three teams that made the NCAAs, none seeded higher than eighth. North Texas was 15th.
The Mean Green had to be thinking about that coming in. Then they found themselves up by six and still ahead by four when Douglas-Roberts got his third foul.
North Texas _ which finished fifth in the Sun Belt, then got the league's automatic berth by winning the conference tournament _ lacked the players to keep up. Worn down by Memphis' swarming defense that often included a full-court press, the Mean Green committed 19 turnovers. The Tigers also grabbed 11 more rebounds.
