Safe to Say His Point Can Hardly Be Missed

If you’re a UCLA fan and thought the Bruins’ 50-45 victory over Memphis in the NCAA tournament regional final Saturday was ugly, imagine how the folks in Tennessee felt.

Of the Tigers, Geoff Calkins wrote in Sunday’s Commercial Appeal in Memphis: “With a chance to go to their first Final Four in 21 years, with a chance to take their place alongside the great Memphis teams of 1973 and 1985, they, well missed. And missed. And missed. And missed.

“Memphis scored 51 points in the first half against UCLA in November. Saturday, that would have been enough to win.

“How painful is that? All the Tigers had to do was score as many points in 40 minutes as they did in 20 the last time the two teams played. But they missed. And missed. Are you getting the general idea here?”

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Trivia time: If UCLA wins the national championship, which team would have beaten last year’s national champion and this year’s during the regular season?

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Net result not good: Memphis Coach John Calipari, appearing on FSN’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period” on Wednesday, discussed how he prepared his players for the NCAA tournament.

“We practiced cutting down the nets,” he said. “I told them they were going to be cutting down nets for a while, so let me show you how to do it.”

“I had them go up and cut one string and wave it. There was no one in the building but us.”

Maybe a better idea would have been to have his players practice shooting.

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Witness to near tragedy: The Stanford women’s basketball team, which faced Oklahoma on Saturday in a regional semifinal at San Antonio, had an unnerving experience on the bus ride to the game.

They witnessed a 12-year-old boy get hit by a pickup truck. The driver of the pickup truck never slowed down and the bus driver gave chase.

This story, reported by Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, had a happy ending. The hit-and-run driver ended up in jail, the 12-year-old victim was reported to be in stable condition and the Stanford players managed to refocus and upset Oklahoma, 88-74.

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Looking back: On this day in 1973, Bill Walton made 21 of 22 shots and scored 44 points to lead UCLA to an 87-66 victory over what was then Memphis State in the NCAA men’s basketball title game. The victory gave UCLA its seventh consecutive national title.

Note: Memphis State dropped State from its name in 1994, although UCLA Coach Ben Howland continues to call it Memphis State.

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Trivia answer: USC. The Trojans defeated defending national champion North Carolina, 74-59, at the Sports Arena on Dec. 21 and UCLA, 71-68, at the Sports Arena on Feb. 19.

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And finally: ESPN’s Dick Vitale said he believes Louisiana State has a slight edge over UCLA on Saturday because of its size inside, and the Bruins have opened as a slight underdog. But then they were a slight underdog to Memphis.

Larry Stewart can be reached at [email protected].