Bitter Baltimoron

As a Maryland fan, I was forced to rooting for upsets and close finishes this year in March. We had Davidson to root for in addition to cheering for a few local schools in the first round, and the usual amount of great games made the tournament enjoyable looking in from the outside. However, I must admit that the less relevant our team becomes, the harder it is to enjoy watching Duke lose in the early rounds–It’s feeling rather pathetic on our part. The tournament as a whole, was the most enjoyable tournament since Gary had a net around his neck, and the final was a classic leaving everyone asking, did Kansas steal the win or did Memphis blow the game?

I was initially in the Memphis blew it camp-I mean, they missed free throws, hung their heads and didn’t show up for overtime. After giving it some thought, and watching the replay last night, I have to say Kansas won this game because they were a better overall team. The knock on Memphis before the tournament was they couldn’t hit free throws at a decent enough rate to win the close games against good teams. That’s exactly what happened.

Free throws are part of the game, just like rebounding, and perimeter shooting. If they were a team that couldn’t rebound and lost, no one would have called it a choke. The problem with Memphis was that their achilles’ heel is so often associated with choking. The choke is to underperform under pressure, but if Memphis shot free throws this way the entire season, then how can we consider this to be a choke. Memphis just lost the game, just as Kansas won it.

It wasn’t a surprise that Mario Chalmers hit his open three pointer for Kansas to send the game into overtime. Kansas shot three pointers well all year. We need to start rethinking what we call a choke, or what we refer to as a blown game. A nine point lead with two minutes left should be sealed up as a win, but if your team has only made about half of its free throws all year, you could easily be looking at a loss.
Wouldn’t it have been more unbelievable if Memphis continued to hit their free throws as they had in the two games prior, rather than missing a few down the stretch as it happened in the final?