SPORTS SEASON OVER FOR STEWART PAGE 3B ANOTHER FORMER COACH FACES KU PAGE 6B
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM
MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2008 PAGE 1B
GRAND FINALE
CAN KANSAS?
The night Jayhawks have waited 20 years for
Jon Goering/KANSAN homore guard Sherron Collins goes up for a reverse layup during a fast break in the first half of Saturday's game against North Carolina in San Antonio. "The question last night was would we be able to run against North Carolina," ans said. "It should have been the other way around."
BY MARK DENT
mdent@kansan.com
SAN ANTONIO — Monday night is finally here.
The players dream about it from the time they started shooting in driveways and parks as children. The coaches went through menial assistant jobs where they had to sleep on cots and reserve bowling lanes all so they could get this opportunity
Kansas, Memphis for the national championship.
"This" Russell Robinson said, "is what you live for"
Kansas will find out if it can continue to bring back memories of 1988 by winning its first national championship since then and third of all time for the program. To make history, the Jayhawks will have to run past another fast team and not tighten up in the biggest game of their lives.
It's not going to be easy. Memphis has plenty of stars and not just the ones shaved in the back of Doneal Mack's head. There's Chris Douglas-Roberts, Derrick Rose, Joey Dorsey and a bunch of other long, athletic bodies.
Sound like a familiar story line?
With that collection of athletes, the Tigers are expected to run. Memphis' Rose and Douglas-Roberts, both All-Americans, have been garnering most of the attention while the Jayhawks receive less acclaim for their transition offense.
The Tar Heels were supposed to have the advantage Saturday night in a fast-paced game. Kansas ran them out of the building in the opening minutes.
"The question last night was would we be able to run against North Carolina," Sherron Collins said. "It should have been the other way around."
Maybe Collins is right. No team has defeated Kansas in a fast-paced game this season. Kansas' three losses have come for other reasons. Kansas State fed off its savage crowd and hardly missed an open look. Oklahoma State slowed the game down. Texas got the best of the Jayhawks in Austin when they limited Kansas' possession and hit the glass in the second half.
When teams have run, they've failed. Baylor scored 90 points but couldn't outdo the Jayhawks in an up-tempo game. Texas kept up for a half in the Big 12
Championship game before succumbing to fatigue late.
Memphis, though, rolled Texas in the Elite Eight. The Tigers are fast, and Douglas-Roberts, Rose and Dorsey's attitude makes them one of the brashest groups on the court.
Kansas still remains unfazed.
"We've got swagger," Collins said. "We ain't cocky with it. We'll be ready. We're running, and we'll be out there ready to play"
That quiet confidence has kept the Jayhawks loose for most of their postseason run. Several players said they got off to their fast start against North Carolina because they were relaxed.
Darnell jackson doesn't expect that attitude to change tonight even though they're going to face their toughest challenge of the season. To keep that mind-set, the team has been huddling up before the last few games and spreading the same message.
"We just say 'let your nuts hang,'" Jackson said. "Just let them hang. Just have fun because this is it for most of the guys, and we're just having fun with it."
Never will the Jayhawks need to relax more than tonight. They've been waiting for this game since the beginning of the season, since they arrived at Kansas. They can't get too scared or too tight or allow Memphis to run past them.
They'll remember this game forever and want to make it a good memory.
"This is probably the game I'm going to show my kids for the rest of my life," Robinson said.
Edited by Katherine Loeck
CHAMPIONSHIP
Fast-paced offenses vie for national title
BY RUSTIN DODD dodd@kansan.com
SAN ANTONIO — Call it a premonition, call it a hunch, call it whatever you want. Christopher Douglas and Judy Roberts just had a feel
Roberts just had a feeling about their baby boy Christopher.
So Judy Roberts wasn't about to let her son go through life without a little Roberts in his name, and Christopher Sr. had the same affinity for Douglas. Thus
Douglas-Roberts
Chris Douglas-Roberts was born.
"I guess my parents thought I was going to be something big." Douglas-Roberts said on the eve of the biggest basketball game of his life.
Memphis' lanky star certainly has proved his parents correct during the NCAA tournament. Alongside freshman guard Derrick Rose, Douglas-Roberts - you can call him CDR - has led Memphis to the brink of a national championship.
"We've peaked," Douglas-Roberts said. "We've sort of found each other in this tournament."
- which coach Calipari adopted from a high school coach - stresses penetration and utilizes Memphis' vast collection of athletes.
Using an innovative free-flowing offense known as the dribble-drive motion, Memphis has played almost flawless basketball in its last three games. The offense
"They feel unleashed," Calipari said.
The Tigers have looked unleashed in their last three games, outscoring Michigan State, Texas and UCLA by a combined 51 points on their way to tonight's title match.
"They've got two guys who can score
whenever they want to," Kansas junior guard Brandon Rush said about the combo of Rose and Douglas-Roberts.
Kansas' Bill Self knows all about the explosive scoring exploits of Rose and Douglas-Roberts. He recruited them both and whiffed each time.
When Douglas-Roberts was a junior at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Self and assistant coach Danny Manning journeyed to the Motor City and gave Douglas-Roberts the Kansas basketball sales pitch.
"Obviously, he wasn't that impressed." Self said.
Douglas Roberts said he liked Self's genuine personality, but in the end, he felt more comfortable at Memphis.
CDR needed a program that liked to run, played fast and could utilize his unique skill set.
Using his gangly 6-foot-7 frame to penetrate, Douglas-Roberts likes to twist his body into the lane to hoist up runners from extreme angles.
How one describes that skill set is up to you. It seems everybody has their own way of describing it.
And with an 18.0 points per game average during the regular season, and 28 points in Memphis' Final Four victory against UCLA, Calipari is an advocate of Douglas-Roberts' old-school style.
Rose said it was, "old man moves."
Rush called it awkward. "You just don't know how to guard it," he said.
Rose, a freshman point guard, is scoring 21.7 points a game and dishing out more than five assists per game in the NCAA tournament.
"When his motor's running it's ridiculous," Calipari said.
"He's the most complete point guard I've played against all year," Kansas senior guard Russell Robinson said of Rose, who missed
After Memphis' 78-63 victory against UCLA in the early game on Saturday, Douglas-Roberts and the rest of the Tigers settled into play the role of concerned spectators during the Kansas-North Carolina game.
Sunday's media session because of stomach problems. "He can make plays, he can shoot it, he can drive it, he can score it."
"I feel people judge us and don't really know us." Douglas-Roberts said.
CDR said the chip on the Tigers' shoulders comes from something deeper than basketball.
Douglas-Roberts saw Kansas' athletic guards, its up-tempo style and couldn't help but think of his own team.
People look at their tattoos and their ghetto backgrounds and automatically label the Tigers, Douglas-Roberts said.
"I see that chip on their shoulder"
Douglas-Roberts said, "cause we have that."
CDR has five tattoos himself, including one of a Psalms bible verse.
Now Memphis, led by Douglas-Roberts and Rose, are matched up with Kansas; a team Memphis senior Joey Dorsey said looked like a mirror image of his squad.
"I tap it three times before I shoot a free throw," he said.
Douglas-Roberts sat confidently on Sunday during Memphis' media session, 30 hours from the biggest game of his life. Both the Douglas and Roberts were spelled out on the name placard that sat in front of him, each receiving equal billing.
After Memphis and Kansas both notched double-digit victories on Saturday, a reporter was curious: are Memphis and Kansas just that much better than everyone else?
"That what it looks like," Douglas-Roberts said.
Mindy Ricketts/KANSAN
- Edited by Daniel Reyes
Mimdy Ricketts/KANSAN
Memphis junior guard Antonio Anderson shoots over the head of UCLA freshman forward Kevin Love. Memphis defeated UCLA 78-63 in the Final Four. Kansas will play Memphis for the national title on Monday evening at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
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