Floyd's strategy takes bloom off Rose, but awfully tough to watch

Mayo had 10 points at halftime. (He finished with 16.)

Rose had zero points at halftime. (He finished with nine.)

In other words, the showdown was a slowdown.

And though it's been fun using the first 300 words of this column to ridicule the game and how it unfolded, it's probably worth pointing out it was nothing short of a brilliant coaching job by Floyd, who said he watched film on Memphis and "decided we were going to have a real hard time guarding them because they're just so talented and they require a lot of preparation."

A lot of preparation, meaning days and days. But all Floyd had was 36 hours -- USC lost to Kansas in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon before flying to New York -- and so he used some tape to create a lane in the ballroom at the Affinia Hotel about two hours before tip-off, and he taught his players a triangle-and-two and told them to go out there and "muck it up a little bit."

So they mucked it up a little bit.

And suddenly Rose forgot how to drive the ball and attack the basket, as did Chris Douglas-Roberts. Those are the Tigers' top two scorers, and they came in with a combined 38.8 points per game while shooting a combined 54.5 percent from the field. Against USC, Rose and Douglas-Roberts combined for 19 points while shooting a combined 31.9 percent from the field, and Calipari took responsibility.

"I got thoroughly out-coached in this game," he said. "Thoroughly out-coached."

Your thoughts, Mr. Floyd?

"John's just being nice."

Or honest.

Either way, it was a game for the ages.

And by ages, I mean 17-and-up.

As in NC-17.

"It was ugly," Memphis assistant Derek Kellogg said afterward. "But we'll take the win."

And burn the tape, I hope.