Calipari unleashes the underdogs

John Calipari has a tightknit group of Memphis players who are eyeing the Final Four. (Eric Gay/Associated Press)

HOUSTON - The four No. 1 seeds in the 2008 NCAA Tournament are North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA, and Memphis. That's three pedigree teams and a mutt. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of college basketball knows that the first three, along with Kentucky, are the four most sacred programs in the sport.

"Basically, we've just forced our way into that talk," says John Calipari.

Coach Cal can poor-mouth with the best. He'd have you think that his poor, humble Memphis Tigers are some kind of social outcasts, mere urchins pressing their nose against the glass while the swells dine in the posh restaurant. The truth is, Memphis has both the institutional commitment and financial resources to compete with anyone. If the most important question relative to any school's chances of winning the national title is "Does basketball matter?" be assured that in reference to Memphis, the answer is a loud yes. What Memphis needed was the right man in charge.

It has him.

It's all going right for Coach Cal. His team is really good, and yet it still is able to play the "We Don't Get No Respect" Card. Experts and office bracketologists alike have designated the Tigers the most likely No. 1 seed to stumble.

"Sometimes I wonder if that's their opinion or their hope," Cal inquires. "I just tell the players, 'Don't let anyone pierce your armor.' "

If it is a hope, the wish has not yet been granted. Memphis will play second-seeded Texas in Reliant Stadium today for the South Regional championship. Judging by their frightening dismissal of Michigan State Friday night (leading by 30 at the half), they are ready for the challenge of attempting to silence upward of 40,000 screaming Texans.

Calipari doesn't just like his team. He looooooves his team.

"I'm really proud of this team," he says. "Not just the starters, but the entire team. They've been friends first and teammates second all year. They have covered for each other.

"And what I'm saying to them is, 'Let's keep playing just so we can stay around each other for another two weeks.'

"But what they've accomplished these past three years, and what they've accomplished this past year, nothing we do Sunday takes away from that, not one thing. In the worst way, we want to advance, and not only do we want to get there, we want to win the thing, but we don't have to. I want them to win, but we don't have to."

Calipari has been at Memphis since the 2001-02 season. The first two years were NIT years, and that wasn't good enough for some people.

"I have about 15 'FOR SALE' signs in my garage from the first four years," he explains. "I'd come home and the sign would be on my lawn. I've kept them all."

Memphis has always been a place with high expectations. The school used to go to NITs regularly back when it was known as Memphis State, and there were Final Four appearances in 1973 (Does 21 for 22 ring a bell?) and 1985 (the only one to crash the Big East Party). Remember when The Pyramid was college basketball's state-of-the-art building? It has already come and gone, replaced by the glamorous FedExForum. Don't ever think Memphis isn't serious about basketball.

The problem is, some people think Memphis has been too serious about basketball over the years, ignoring, among other things, you know, school. And the fact is that the basketball graduation rate B.C. (Before Cal) was abysmal. Calipari keeps pointing out that 15 of the 17 kids who've made it to their senior year in his tenure have graduated, but people still think of Memphis as an outlaw institution.

Of course, the truth is that Caliparis is, and always has been, very comfortable in the role of the scrappy outsider. This is no (Daddy) George Bush, born, as Ann Richards famously said, standing on third thinking he'd just hit a triple. Cal is the grandson of Ellis Island immigrants whose own parents were fortunate to finish high school.

"I grew up in a house where you didn't think about being a doctor or a lawyer," he says. "It was, 'Payday's on Friday.' "

Calipari is a builder. Never forget that UMass was a nothing job when he took it over. He personally transformed UMass into a national power, culminating in a 1996 Final Four berth that, while officially listed as "vacated" in the NCAA record book, happened, all right. Just ask Georgetown. Edgar Padilla and Carmelo Travieso trashed Allen Iverson and Victor Page for UMass to get there. You can look it up.

Memphis wasn't as far gone as UMass was, but the Tigers definitely needed a kick in the butt when Coach Cal arrived.

On the court, the raps against Memphis (36-1) are twofold. The first is its membership in Conference USA, a second-tier conference that, in the Calipari regime, has become Memphis and the 11 Dwarfs. The Tigers have a 42-game Conference USA win streak that might not end until sometime after the London Olympics. The second rap is their well-documented problems at the foul line.

Cal had been in apparent denial about this, but he was more reasonable on the topic yesterday.

"As this tournament wears down," he acknowledges, "free throw shooting may play a role in somebody's win or loss, including ours, but it will not have any bearing on percentage now.

"The mentally tough guys will make them; the guys that are panicked will not make them. I just hope my guys are mentally tough enough to do it, or I hope we are up enough so that it doesn't matter, either way. Either one will be fine with me."

Yes, it's all aligned nicely for Memphis, right down to that convenient loss to Tennessee, without which, Cal says, he couldn't have gotten his team's attention to clean up some technical matters.

"Bob Kraft called me, and we talked for 20 minutes," Cal says. "I said, 'We were chasing the same thing.'

"He said, 'You're better off. Go do it now.' "

The mutts will be ready. And you know Coach Cal wants to win it at the line. Just because.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.