MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- John Calipari sat midcourt at the Larry O. Finch Center on campus Friday addressing his team. It was roughly 22 hours before tip-off of the weekend's showdown with Georgetown, and for a moment, the Memphis coach opted to eliminate the discussion of strategy and break things down in simple terms.
"They can talk about what we do on offense and what they do on defense and whatever, but in the end, it's not going to be what decides the game," Calipari said. "You know what's going to decide this game? Players making plays. It's players making plays, man. And I like my players."
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| One simple aspect to victory: Joey Dorsey dominates Roy Hibbert. (US Presswire) |
Your thoughts, Coach Cal?
"I thought we made plays," Calipari said. "How about Joey (Dorsey) catching it at the foul line and making a spin-back basket? How about Chris Douglas-Roberts making plays? How about Robert Dozier in the middle of the zone making plays? It was players making plays."
Too often fans and analysts make basketball seem more difficult than it should ever seem. They talk about this inbounds play and that halfcourt trap and then comes tip-off and the games unfold, and those games are almost always decided by pretty much the same things -- by which teams have the better players making the most plays.
If players get stops, you win.
If players make shots, you win.
Coaches merely place the players in position to do as much. And the second-ranked Tigers' victory over the fifth-ranked Hoyas was the latest example of this theory testing true thanks to Douglas-Roberts (24 points and eight rebounds), Dorsey (11 points and 13 rebounds) and Dozier (19 points and six rebounds) making more plays than DaJuan Summers (4-of-11 from the field), Roy Hibbert (six points, six rebounds and three turnovers) and Jessie Sapp (five points and three turnovers).
Put another way, the Memphis players made plays and the Georgetown players didn't.
Which is why Memphis won this season's first match-up of Top 5 teams.
Though the advantage of a sellout crowd of 18,864 didn't hurt.
"It was amazing," said Memphis junior Antonio Anderson, who got seven points, five assists, four rebounds and two steals. "It was very important to us."
