I’ll be writing there along with MODI of Cosellout, MCBias of Moderately Cerebral Bias, and SML of Stop Mike Lupica. We are going to absolutely throw it down every opportunity we get.

How SOMM works

When you visit Sports On My Mind you’ll notice some tabs with our names on the left column. That space is reserved for features, investigative articles, and in-depth articles and commentaries. Under that you’ll find a space for videos (Kobe jumping – next to – an Aston-Martin is there now). We’ll be popping up vids from the world of sports there. Beneath that space is where you’ll find the latest sports news of interest.

The middle column is, at the moment, reserved for the NBA Playoffs and that’s where we’ll be following all the happenings in the Lig’s postseason.

The right column begins with headlines from USA Today Sports because their headlines do not mirror those of ESPN.com, SI.com, and FoxSports.com, which often repeat topics. Beneath that space in the near future you will be seeing advertisements (!) beneath the headlines but for now there are recent comments, recent articles, and archives. When ads go up, those three sections will be moved under the ads.

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With the NBA playoffs on the horizon we are going to provide complete analyses of all the series – and we’re going to be the spot to come to for the tightest writing on the NBA postseason.

In the near future we’re hoping to have guest writers from around the sports blogsphere pop by to contribute and to chat with us. We’re also going to try to get some mainstream folks to contribute some word to us, as well……

I am happy with these developments and I hope you will be too.

It’s time to get back to writing… see you at sportsonmymind.com. Thanks for your support and your patience.

There is something missing when an athlete must be leading from the start of a tournament to lead at the end. There is something missing when you are supposed to be the best golfer in the world and arguably the best of all time, yet you fail to come from behind each final 18 holes you play in the tournaments that matter most. There is something missing when you cannot look at the leader board on the morning of the final day, see a man who, statistically is one of the worst golfers on the PGA Tour, and say, all I have to do is post a score and this man will fold, then relax, go out and post that score.

As Immelman’s playing partner Brandt Snedeker came back to Earth with eight bogeys in his first 14 holes at Augusta, with Steve Flesch holding onto his game for dear life and finally letting go of the tether to freefall down the scoreboard, with Stewart Cink playing consistently poorly, Tiger Woods allowed Trevor Immelman of South Africa to simply go from tee to green relatively unencumbered by pressure.

Woods inexcusably missed a very short par putt at number four but birdied the par three sixth and went out in 36 that could easily have been -1. The world’s number one promptly bogeyed the 10th but began Amen Corner with a birdie. After a par on the 12^th, on the par five 13th Woods hit a magnificent third shot iron to within six feet of the hole, but once again shot himself in the foot by simply pulling a straightforward birdie attempt. Angry, Woods bogeyed the 14th.

Instead of sitting pretty at 8-under headed to the par five 15th, Woods sat in fourth place, four strokes fewer under par. After failing to capitalize on yet another par five, Woods limped to the 72nd hole where he culled a bit of magic and finally drained a birdie putt to finish at 5-under par.

Yet even with that open road Immelman began to fade as the fourth round wore on. No sooner than did Woods birdie the final hole, Immelman double-bogeyed 16 to drop to -8. Woods had to be kicking himself in the scorer’s tent where he could easily have been staring at a scorecard that read -9 or -10. Instead he could only offer this tepid remark on his play:

“I didn’t putt well all week,” Woods said. “Some weeks are like that. You have bad weeks and you have good weeks, and certainly this week was not one of my best.”

This Masters was tailor-made for Woods’ first comeback in a major tournament when trailing after 54 holes. Though he certainly putted poorly the first three rounds he needed only one complete round of golf to win his 14th major; just one.

And this is where I see Tiger Woods’ greatest failing as a golfer. It doesn’t only happen in majors, either. I’ve seen it play itself out in many, many fourth rounds of Woods’ career, especially the 2002-2008 portion of his professional golfing life.

At no point during the final round of the Masters did Tiger Woods seem to take stock of his situation relative to the golfers ahead of him. At no point did he appear to look around and say, “Wait a minute, these guys ahead of me have won nothing. All I need to do is put a little pressure on these guys and they’ll all crack.” All Woods had to do was look around and realize that every golfer other than Immelman was cracking without his help. So, it stood to follow that maybe Immelman would succumb to the pressure of a final round in the lead at the Masters with a little nudge from Woods himself.

From the outset of the 4th round Woods looked to be set on patiently grinding his way through the final 18 holes instead of actively seeking the spectacular. But as the round progressed, the lines in Woods’ brow deepened. His frown grew more pronounced with each barely missed approach shot to the green. And after he missed that easy birdie putt at 13, Woods’ signature ‘I’m on the charge’ strut completely vanished from his gait.

Woods hit more three and four woods off the tee on the final day than he did in the previous three Masters rounds. His medium-to-long irons were a yard too long or a yard too short. That’s fine if you’re trying to establish a tempo and set a tenor for a tournament. However, it is not fine not when you need to make up five strokes on the final day of a major. That’s the time you need to pull out the big stick on a couple extra holes and rip a couple of bombs to leave yourself with wedges to the green.

But with Woods “grinding” there was a built-in excuse for his losing. A lack of aggressive tee-to-green play led to passive putting and ultimately led to an even par day. It’s good enough for the guy leading the tournament, but not good enough to come from behind; good enough for second, but not good enough for a green jacket. It’s also good enough for post-round platitudes but not good enough to start the majors portion of the season by putting the fear of god in your opponents’ hearts.

Sunday was a time when Tiger Woods needed to be more Phil Mickelson than final round grinder. But then again, if Woods did let it all hang out and still failed, his critics would be armed with that much more Monday ammunition.

Maybe Tiger Woods is afraid that a failed all-out effort to make up a final round deficit will ruin his mystique and there will be no more, “Tiger Woods Effect.” Maybe his competitors will figure out that they too are long off the tee, that they too are accurate with their irons, that they too possess myriad shots around the green, and that they too can roll the ball on the greens as cleanly as one Tiger Woods. And maybe Tiger Woods wouldn’t be “Tiger” any more; just another very, very good PGA Tour pro.

And maybe Tiger is afraid that he would, like most other humans, actually be forced to evolve and be forced to, mentally, do the one thing he has yet to do. Open his mind to…

Change.

Interestingly, on ESPN’s Sports Reporters this morning, Mitch Albom and Mike Lupica took the time to tag-team excoriate the 13-time major tournament winner.

Albom:

“He’s now looking at a couple of young guys who are in their twenties who have that bravado who are maybe saying, ‘we don’t know any better.”

They didn’t seem intimidated by him [Woods] yesterday and I don’t think they will today.

Lupica:

We look at Augusta and think, 68 is par for Tiger Woods. He shot par for himself yesterday!

And though show host John Saunders brought up Phil Mickelson and how he fell apart so quickly, Lupica pushed those thoughts aside by reminding us how “we all know” Mickelson’s propensity for shooting himself out of a tournament, and implying that neither Immelman nor Brandt Snedeker do not have the ability to shoot high scores.

The two journalists went on to laud both Immelman and Snedeker as if they were multiple major winners… ahhh, there’s nothing like hyperbole to start off a Masters Sunday.

The cold facts of Immelman’s and Snedeker’s games are these: Entering this week, Snedeker was tied for 54th in adjusted scoring average this season; Immelman was 119th.

Immelman is known as an excellent ball striker who has major problems on the green. Snedeker is known as a Tom Watson wanna-be whose jaunty gait and seemingly care-free quick play belies a fragile psyche.

In greens in regulation (GIR), Snedeker is 46th, Immelman is 52nd. Immelman was tied for 199th in the PGA Tour in putting (putts per GIR), Snedeker, tied for 72nd.

Tiger Woods is first all those statistics and more.

But this Masters Woods – and all those who played in groups with and near him – is a victim of circumstance and Immelman is the beneficiary of the same circumstances – tee times and weather.

Woods had the misfortune of late morning-early afternoon first and second round tee times. Immelman played an early first round and took full advantage of a moist course that slowed the greens enough to make them easy to navigate. His second and third rounds were to be played in heavy afternoon Augusta winds. Until the final two holes Saturday, the late winds never kicked up.

On Friday those winds kicked up just in time to affect all the players teeing off between 12:30 and two p.m. The winds continued to blow until about four p.m. – just in time for Tiger Woods’ 1:50 tee time and in time for him to play most of his round. Meanwhile Immelman, with a tee time an hour or so later played no more than the first four holes in blustery conditions.

Trevor Immelman is riding the winds – or lack thereof – of good fortune. And again, if you didn’t know already, his water shot that wasn’t on 15 was as sure enough sign that it will take a catastrophe of his own making for Trevor Immelman to miss being fit for a green jacket.

Finally, there is one last issue with Augusta National that allows for someone like Trevor Immelman to spring from nowhere to win the most prestigious of golf’s four majors; the dramatic alterations to the course itself.

Lengthening the course by another 155 yards was silly enough. But the most drastic changes were the final set of course alterations made in an effort to “Tiger-proof” Augusta National without saying so. Between the 2005 and 2006 Masters, then course chairman Hootie Johnson added myriad trees and bunkers and deepened existing bunkers around the 18 holes. Then Johnson committed the cardinal sin of narrowing the course’s fairways, which is a direct contradiction of Bobby Jones vision for the course when he designed it. The fairways were wide at traditional landing areas to force golfers to make the correct decisions with each approach shot to Augusta’s notoriously slick, fast, and oddly-sloped greens. It meant that from what may look like a perfect tee shot, a player might choose to hit a draw into the wrong part of the green.

One poor choice from a seemingly benign fairway position could turn a birdie into a bogey, or worse.

That was Jones’ thinking when he designed the course. It turned what is straight ahead, fairway to green to birdie opportunity golf into a game for only the thinkers and the best and most creative ball strikers. With today’s narrow fairways, the ball is almost automatically wedged into the proper line to almost every pin placement on each par four and par five Augusta National has to offer.

The product of these changes steals from the fans the greatest golf that the game has to give. The creativity and club mastery of Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, and even players like Sergio Garcia is mostly gone, replaced by which player is hot this week in April. Steve Flesch, in third place after three rounds at 8-under par, previously entered nine tournaments this year and missed the cut in four.

What some of the big names have not seemed to realize is that this is not the Augusta of old. We should see more long irons and three woods off tees, but we do not. We should see longer irons into greens, but we do not. Despite this week’s tee time luck – good or bad – and weather whims, it is up to top tier players like Woods to take what the changes Hootie Johnson has made and somehow use them to their advantage.

Until the big boys consistently make those nuanced and compulsory adjustments (Woods, to a degree, has), we will continue to see more and more Zach Johnsons and Trevor Immelmans fitted for green jackets and until they change how they attack Augusta, fewer and fewer legends and legends to be receiving and passing those jackets along.

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Also, here’s my regular NPR Tony Cox Internet Sports Round Table show talkin’.

(sorry DZ, SOMM fell apart, so I had to post this interview… it’ll be better as time goes on)

Tiger is right there. Sure, he’s four strokes back of Trevor Immelman and Justin Rose, but he was a bad break from being two or three under par yesterday. On the 13th hole, a par five, Woods bombed his drive down the middle-left side of the fairway. With a medium iron shot left to the green Woods’ hit caught the ball just a little thin and instead of his normal high raindrop medium iron shot that seems to fall straight down from the sky, his second shot bounced through the green.

Left with a difficult uphill pitch shot to a green sloping away from him, Woods attempted a chip into the top of the hill hoping the ball would trickle down to the hole. It was a near-impossible shot. Woods’ shot landed, perhaps, three inches short of its target and rolled back down the hill. The mistake resulted in a bogey.

Had he simply hit a flop shot and left himself with a 25-foot uphill putt for a birdie, Woods, at worst pars the hole and probably pars the following hole rather than allowing his anger to get the best of him. In what looked like an effort to split the ball in two Woods over-swung on his 14th-hole tee shot and landed deep in some straw behind a tree stand and in an impossible position to salvage a par. The two-hole loss of concentration put Woods at 2-over par.

On the par-five 15th Woods chipped in for an eagle to get back to even par, which is where he ended after his first round.

As difficult a course as Augusta is, one four-under par round and three 72s can equal a green jacket. As the tournament continues and the pressure mounts, Woods and Zach Johnson are the probably only two players in the field who potentially have more than one under par round left in their nerves; not their game, but their nerves.

Johnson won his jacket last year with a controlled, conservative game plan. He knows it can work, so it is only left for him to replicate last year’s play. Since he attempts no shot outside of the range of his game, Johnson, at 2-under can feel safe as long as the winning score is close to what it is now. Woods is so explosive, so long and soft with his medium to long irons, and is such an adroit putter, that he too feels safe. Two 68s are just as possible as is one round of 64 for Woods. If he shoots either, he will win in a walk.

So, the stage is set. Rose lately has been a first round leader at Augusta, but Friday through Sunday success has eluded him. Immelman has never been in this position and no one expects him to be there Sunday – probably him included. Everyone else from Ian Poulter, he of yesterday’s hole-in-one and 3-under par day to Phil Mickelson at 1-under, is closer to succumbing to the moment and shooting a 75 than they are rising above the fray.

That leaves us with Zach Johnson and Tiger Woods. How about that for an unlikely pair of contenders on Sunday?

Warriors playoff hopes now dim

Last night the Golden State Warriors all but obliterated any chance they had at making the playoffs. In the process they made Charles Barkley prescient.

Before the game – televised on TNT – Barkley said the Denver Nuggets would defeat the Warriors because Denver has an easier time scoring than does Golden State. Barkley added that since the Warriors depend on outside shooting for the bulk of their points and since the Nuggets have multiple players who like to drive to the basket, the Warriors would fail in this battle for the Western Conference’s final playoff spot.

Despite being down 37-22 after one quarter and by as many as 18 points in the second, Denver wiped out all deficits with one five minute, 19-0 run, to take a 61-60 lead into halftime. From then on, Golden State’s attempts at staying in the game were futile. As deep Warriors jump shot after three-pointer clanked off the rim leading to layin after easy short jumper for Denver, Golden State’s hopes to squeeze in to the crowded Western Conference top eight faded. And despite Baron Davis’ 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists triple-double effort, The Warriors lost 114-105 and now must win their remaining three games and have Denver lose their remaining three to play beyond the month of April.

Interestingly, what changed the tenor of the game was a desperation defensive switch by Nuggets head coach George Karl. Down 15 after one quarter Karl decided to switch to a zone defense. Though Denver expanded its lead briefly, they were ultimately seduced by the ability to fire up jump shots and allowed Denver to wrestle their way back into the game.

Now that Golden State’s season is all but over, it is time to wonder what lies ahead for Don Nelson and his team. With bona fide centers all over the Western Conference, Nellie’s “small ball” tactics will render him fewer and fewer wins – and fewer playoff appearances. But since Nelson has never proven that he can co-exist with a real low post presence, his stay in the Bay Area might not be for long. With their talented roster, the Warriors should be a perennial playoff team. Should they fail to make the playoffs next season, Nelson will find himself under fire and find that players will suddenly want to win more than pad their stats in Nelson’s wide-open offense.

And we might be seeing the last of Don Nelson on the sidelines in the NBA.

For all their previous bluster, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose went 1-5 at the charity stripe down the stretch and it cost the Tigers the game.

CDR and Rose choked.

Rose “should have had enough basketball IQ to foul” Sherron Collins.

The players have to take the lion’s share of the blame.

Is that it? Is that all the game comes down to – the players “choked”; low “basketball IQ?”

No.

The Kansas-Memphis NCAA Championship game was what all the pundits like to call a “statement game.” However, it was not the type of statement so referred to by the opinion-makers of collegiate hoops.

This game made a statement about how far U.S. basketball, as an entity, has fallen. It made a statement about the fractured nature of our country. It made a statement about the lack of coaching acumen and lack of fraternity in the college coaching ranks.

And the missed free throws by Douglas-Roberts and Rose were merely manifestations of those statements.

At one time, no matter where you went in America, the same basic game of basketball was being taught to youngsters. It didn’t matter if you were in a ghetto, a grotto, a backwoods, redneck town without paved streets, or on a farm in the middle of “nowhere.”

The game was the game – period.

Sure there were nuanced differences in points of emphasis depending on which environment was yours. There was, generally, a little more “flash” in the ghetto, a little more rebound the ball toughness in the grotto, a little more play like the ghetto in the backwoods, and a little more peach basket rigidity on the farm – but the game was the game.

Everybody growing up knew somebody else who either knew themselves or knew someone who had a firm grasp of the fundamentals of the game; there was always a one-time college player who wasn’t quite good enough for the pros or whose injuries kept him from greatness, or who simply couldn’t take being away from what he knew most come back from being a fingertip away from playing with the gods to the stomping grounds of home.

Those boys turned men returned to the corner, to the factory, to the farm with knowledge passed down by men greater than they to pass down to the next generation of kids whose gifts were made of hardwood.

They passed down dribbling equally well with both hands, the proper way to shoot a layup with either hand, proper way to shoot a free throw, the proper way to run a two-on-one or three-on-two fast break… the proper way to play the game. It was then left to the kids to put their individual spin on the proper way. But when necessary, that kid turned young man turned man would always and forever be able to rely on the proper way to play the game of basketball.

Today, those men are fewer with each passing day. Once gone, they stay away. Going home again is a last want instead of a first choice. The game is played to escape from where they were instead of a raison d’etre. It is a more a calculation than a joy; the choice between the NBA’s guaranteed contracts and a potentially longer career and the NFL’s huge bonus dollars, with a back end knowledge that you can be released at any moment, and the fear of your career ending on one play, being unable to walk by age 40, and an average life span of 56.

Fewer and fewer players who know the proper way to play the game return to the courts where they learned to teach those who now want to know.

And so, today, the proper way to play the game is the exception rather than the rule. Its provenience is the strata of the suburban or rural high schooler or the mid-major conference; the artifact is the slow-footed, stiff-playing white boy, “gym rat,” more student than athlete.

The “game” today is played by “ballers.” It is stratospheric hoops; barely toned-down “And 1” types fly around the court at previously unseen speeds. Instead of the game, today’s “game” resembles men’s attempts at controlling a tempest before it touches down to ground level and destroys every artifice in its path. “The Princeton offense on steroids” is what John Calipari called his Memphis team’s tempest; it is what black kids are said to “feel” so as not to be forced to “think” and what white kids are said to aspire to be before giving in to their “natural” limitations.

Hoods no longer a re filled with neighbors. They are much more amalgamations of parents hustling to get by whose children – when found to possess talent – are used as sources of competition and further alienation from “next door,” the perception being that there are so few opportunities that there is no time for growing up together as friends, only (at best) as amicable competitors vying for the same slice of the economic pie.

College basketball coaches know this, recruit against one another using this information like arms despots use blood diamonds to purchase arms. They come into fractured homes in fractured hoods, into fifty story grottoes, into backwoods bungalows, and into lonely homesteads and tell a parent or parents with all the assurance of benevolent surrogate that if their son attends the coach’s university he will become part of a sacred patrimony with bonds found nowhere else on the planet.

In actuality, their sons often become one of many constituting a den of thieves led by monocratic megalomaniacs. And though it may ready them for the ersatz life of an NBA player their college “experience” can in no way be transferred to most sectors of everyday life.

The one-and-done stars, the cut throat scholarship games the rest of the players play (and the coaches advocate), the watered down offensive and defensive schemes, and the win at the cost of teaching is all part of today’s college basketball, which becomes part of today’s NBA basketball, which becomes part of international basketball, where its deficiencies manifest most.

It is in the arena where the game is slightly altered – a trapezoidal lane, a shortened 3-point shot, relaxed goal tending rules, liberal hand-checking, moving picks – which NBA players have failed to adjust and have fallen apart. Despite the fact of heightened international competition, a group of American professional basketball players steeped in the game’s fundaments, with their athletic ability as a determining factor, should be able to adjust to and deflate anything players of collectively less ability throws their way

But as it has been recently shown, even when the U.S. does succeed in international tournaments, the games can be a struggle.

The jump from high school basketball to that of collegiate hoops should be so vast that the average freshman is nearly lost in learning the game. And by the time that freshman is a senior he should be readied by his coach to step into any pro environment and succeed. The player who can leave college after only one year at a university should be the rare savant; the player not only gifted physically but most importantly in a genius-level understanding of the game.

Earvin “Magic” Johnson was such a player, as were Moses Malone, and Isiah Thomas. Today those players can be Shavlik Randolph, Marvin Williams, and from this year’s crop potentially Arizona’s Chase Budinger and LSU freshman Anthony Randolph. These four players would never consider making the jump to The League of the 1970s and early 1980s. Today, with good showings at the Portsmouth Invitational where college talent that is NBA bound is evaluated under game conditions, any or all of these four can be first round draft choices.

While NBA head coaches are steeped in myriad styles of play, only the very top college coaches approach something approximating that level of coaching acumen. The vast majority of head coaches in the college ranks force fit their recruits into their systems. And if the player does not fit the system, it is the player who will suffer – to the point of losing his scholarship or being forced to transfer – not the coach.

These men who promised wary and trusting parents homes away from home for their children very quickly can appear more like serial psychological teen abusers than adult mentors.

And, as head coaches, they aren’t even that good.

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After the championship game Memphis coach John Calipari said of the final 10 seconds of regulation:

“When Derrick went to the line, I sat there and I said, ‘Lord, if he makes these two, we’re supposed to be national champs. And if that’s your will, I’m fine with it. If he misses them, and we’re not, I’m fine with that too.’ I’m probably not supposed to say that, but that’s where I was.”

Additionally, Calipari said that he did not want the Kansas players to get a rest nor did he want Jayhawks head coach Bill Self to be able to set up a play after Derrick Rose shot his free throws.

However, the last trip up the floor for the Tiger Chris Douglas-Roberts missed badly on two free throws. Fortunately, Memphis procured the rebound and Rose ended up with the ball in his hands getting fouled and needing to make two foul shots to make the score 64-60 and effectively end Kansas’ hopes of winning the game.

But rather than call a timeout and tell his players something like, “When Derrick makes these free throws I want whichever Kansas player has the ball to be fouled when he reaches mid court. With one hand reach for the ball and wrap your other arm around the player so you avoid the intentional foul.”

It is an end of game tactic coaches speak of frequently: Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, and John Thompson, Sr. all have talked at length about just this maneuver. It involves recognizing that a coach is dealing with young men for whom the situation might be the most important of their lives to date. It involves imparting positive reinforcement to a player about to shoot free throws that can alter a game – and perhaps a player’s, team’s, coach’s, or school’s legacy.

Depending on the situation they may or mat not foul the opposing player, but they make it a point to, in some form or fashion, provide a positive atmosphere for their free throw shooter – and for the team.

But Calipari left his players – including Rose, a freshman – to their own devices while he…

Prayed.

Memphis blew a nine-point lead in the game’s final 2:12. Calipari called a grand total of one timeout in the second half, with :44 remaining in the game and the score at 62-60. Calipari admitted in the post game press conference that he rolled the dice and left Rose and Douglas-Roberts beyond their normal rotations in the second half in order to win the game in regulation. He reiterated that he felt Kansas was tiring and did not want them to have a break on his account.

Yet Self was able to keep his team somewhat fresh as the Jayhawks did not run out of timeouts until there was 1:44 left in the game and the score 60-53.

At what point did Calipari recognize that his players needed a break from the crushing weight of trying to win a national championship and in the process break a 35-year old Memphis (previously Memphis State) jinx?

When Calipari failed to stop play after Douglas-Roberts made the second of two free throws with 1:39 remaining, it was certain that the game would be won or lost by the players, only. So the timeout with :44 left in the game was an almost frivolous gesture, more a ‘gee, wouldn’t a timeout make it look like I’m having an impact on the game’ move than a stoppage to impart end-of-game strategy to his charges.

This lack of planning was made obvious when directly out of the timeout, Douglas-Roberts took an ill-advised jumper only 13 seconds into the shot clock.

If the Kansas players were tired they certainly caught plenty of breathers with the timeout and the stoppages of play due to fouling Douglas-Roberts and Rose. So the ‘Kansas was tired’ excuse was bunk. And even if they were, Calipari owed it to his players to gather them one last time in regulation with :10 remaining in regulation.

The result was Rose going 1-2 at the line and though he did foul Sherron Collins, the bump was inadvertent, as witnessed by the fact that Rose put up both hands in a classic, ‘I didn’t touch him’ plea to the trailing referee, who readily complied with Rose’s request and allowed the moment to play it self out.

And – outside of Kansas – every player come back home, every coach of nine-year olds, and every present player who knows the game, groaned at the sight of Rose, out there on an island on national television sending a distress call, playing on poor instincts, and compounding his mistakes with every passing second.

Mario Chalmers elevated and hit an in-rhythm three to tie the game and effectively ended Memphis’ chances to win the championship. All that was left for Rose and his teammates was to lose —— alone.

In the lead up interviews to the game Calipari made the point quite a few times that Memphis was in the Bible Belt and was a “spiritual city” where religion plays a great part in everyday life.

So, in the last 10 seconds of the most important game of his life, “Coach Cal” got religion? For a control-freak like Calipari it is a patently ridiculous statement. But it probably played well with the many thousands of people in and around Memphis who thought Memphis would finally win a championship in men’s basketball.

And it probably played well with the boosters who are responsible for Calipari’s paycheck.

At least that’s what Coach Cal hopes.