Coach Cal a beaten man - barely

The Memphis Tigers came within two shots of going undefeated.

Shoulda.

Coulda.

Woulda.

Think about it. A sensational shot in the lane by Tennessee's Tyler Smith and a nerveless overtime-creating 3-pointer by Kansas's Mario Chalmers are all that prevents Memphis from entering the discussion of all-time great college basketball teams. Can you imagine how pleased Bob Knight would have been if the gang at ESPN asked him to compare his 1976 undefeated team to John Calipari's squad? Talk about riveting television.

But we've all been denied that pleasure. Tyler Smith did make that shot back on Feb. 23 to knock Memphis from the ranks of the undefeated, and Mario Chalmers did sink that dramatic 3-pointer to tie Monday night's scintillating championship game, and, of course, the Kansas Jayhawks did ride the huge wave created by the Chalmers shot to a convincing victory in OT, leaving Memphis a footnote in NCAA Tournament history.

The undefeated thing would have been so much gravy. Coach Cal wasn't fretting over the Tennessee loss, which actually turned out to be an attention-getting device. But what happened Monday night in the Alamodome was far more painful.

"I come back to this," said Calipari. "You have a lead like that, you're supposed to win the game."

Calipari and the Memphis community will have to live with the memory of those final two minutes and change in regulation, when the Tigers failed to maintain a 9-point lead that would have given Memphis its first NCAA championship.

It's particularly bad to be John Calipari right now, what with all those people saying "I told ya so" on the subject of the Memphis foul shooting, and with just about every pundit (starting with Coach Knight himself) and knowledgeable fan questioning the way he handled the final, fateful 10.8 seconds of regulation after Derrick Rose only made one of two free throws, thus making it a one-possession game.

Here's what we know: 1. Memphis did not utilize one of its two remaining times-out to implement strategy. 2. Memphis did not foul.

Let's deal with the free throws first. As the NCAA Tournament wore on, Calipari adopted an aggressive stance concerning his team's woeful regular-season foul shooting. "We'll make 'em when it counts," he would say at every press conference. "Mentally tough kids make 'em; the others don't," was another Calipari position. And when the Tigers made 50 of 59 free throws while dispatching Michigan State and Texas in the South Regional, John Calipari was the one able to say, "I told ya so."

With 2:12 to go, and Memphis leading by a 58-51 score, the Tigers were 1 for 4 from the line in the second half. Robert Dozier stepped up and swished two, putting Memphis up by 9. The lead was quickly knocked down to 4 (60-56), but Chris Douglas-Roberts knocked down a pair at the 1:39 mark. So far, so good.

It was still 4 (62-58) when Douglas-Roberts was fouled for a one-and-one with 1:15 remaining. He missed it badly to the left. When he next returned to the line, the situation was very serious indeed. There were 16.8 seconds left, and the lead was down to 62-60. The kid looked petrified, and he proved it by tossing up a pair of serious bricks. But Dozier rebounded the second miss and pitched the ball out to freshman sensation Rose, who was fouled with 10.8 seconds remaining. Two makes and Beale Street could start celebrating.

His first one was in-and-out. The second was good. Now all Memphis had to do was make a stop.

What happened was this: Sherron Collins, a speedy guard, brought the ball up. He passed it to Chalmers, and, as he did, he stumbled to the floor. Chalmers made a strong right-to-left move toward the free throw line. He let it go from behind the arc over Rose's outstretched arm, and the ball swished cleanly through the hoop with 2.1 seconds left, tying the game at 63.

No foul before anyone had a chance to shoot?

Well, Coach Cal says they tried to foul, that Chalmers was hit, but, "I guess we didn't foul him hard enough."

No one's buying it.

Knight told his ESPN audience that in that situation you definitely call time out. You spell out the situation. You don't hope they remember something from a practice in January. You tell the kid guarding the ballhandler that he's to have a clock in his head and that when it gets down to 5, he fouls. Period.

Of course, it wouldn't have been necessary if Douglas-Roberts and/or Rose had hit their free throws.

But they didn't, and Coach Cal now had a different spin.

"I wish we had made the free throws," he said. "We had the right guys at the line. But they can't make 'em all. They're kids, not machines."

So what happened to the "mentally tough" part? Oh, never mind.

They happened to be tired kids, and that may have had something to do with it. Rose played all 45 minutes. Douglas-Roberts played 42, including the entire second half.

This is not the way Calipari normally handles a game, but that was not just any game, which he readily admitted.

"We rolled the dice," he sighed. "We wanted to finish the game with our best guys."

Things went bad for Memphis in the final two minutes, yes. But Kansas made a lot of things happen. Collins stole the ball and made a 3-pointer to make it 60-56. That's a positive Kansas act. The very underrated Darrell Arthur made two baskets when Kansas absolutely needed them. And then there was Chalmers, the feisty guard by way of Anchorage. He made a shot of note.

"We did everything we were supposed to do," Calipari said. "It wasn't in the cards. It wasn't our night. It was their night."

Cal was waxing philosophical at that point, and soon he was saying that he'd be "ecstatic" if both Rose and Douglas-Roberts (a junior) were first-round picks. Clearly, Cal figures he can go out and recruit more first-round picks, and he undoubtedly can.

But will he ever again get The Kid; namely, Rose? We'll see how it plays out, but this may have been as good a shot as Calipari will ever have to win a national title, because there is no guarantee he will bring in someone as transcendent as Rose. There are first-round picks. There are lottery picks. And there are VSPs, Very Special Players. Rose is a definite VSP.

Memphis could not have rightfully asked for a better situation. It was up 9 with 2:12 to go. It should have become the first team in NCAA history to win 39 games. It could have won the championship. It could have made history.

"I wish I could have done one thing to get them over the hump," said John Calipari.

Maybe next time. If there is one.

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