Even though there was no
third-place game scheduled Saturday, there was at least one consolation at the
Stadium.
And that was Memphis State
(20-10) probably didn't need to win the Great Midwest Conference championship
game to get into the NCAA tournament.
But if the selection committee
happened to take a dinner break at its Kansas City hotel to watch the ESPN
telecast, the nine members would have found the Tigers' performance in a 75-63
loss to No. 12 Cincinnati (25-4) hard to stomach.
Without impressive victories
over Arkansas, Tulane and DePaul, Memphis State might have about as good a shot
to make the 64-team field as the ones it took through most of the game.
The Tigers struggled from the
floor - hitting 33.9 percent (20-of-59) and 8-of-28 (28.6) in the first half.
Memphis State was 2-of-10 from beyond the three-point line.
But Cincinnati wasn't much
better, especially early.
"We shot poorly in the
first half," Bearcats coach Bob Huggins said of his team's 32.4 percent
(11-of-34).
"But we didn't change
anything at the half, because we thought we were doing things right and figured
eventually we'd get our shots to fall."
Indeed, they did, as the
Bearcats hit 15-of-30 from the field in the second half.
Cincinnati turned its 39-38
lead with 15:55 left into a 58-41 bulge with a 19-3 run midway through the
second half.
Junior Nick Van Exel, who was
named to the all-tournament team, was one of the key players in that spurt. The
6-1 playmaker had 16 points and five assists.
"I was able to penetrate
and shoot," he said. "And if nothing was there, I'd kick it back
out."
Memphis State's Anfernee
Hardaway, the league MVP who usually can kick just about anything in, was held
to seven points - 11 below his average - as he was hit with four fouls.
"They were not going to
let me beat them," Hardaway said. "Every time I touched the ball,
they had two or three guys on me.
"They wanted to take me
out of the offense and make the other guys on the team beat them."
David Vaughn, the Tigers' 6-9
freshman, had a game-high 23 points.
Three consecutive baskets by
Billy Smith (13 points), Vaughn and Hardaway cut a 17-point Cincinnati lead to
70-61 with 49 seconds left.
"But when they tried to
make a run, our maturity helped us overpower them," Van Exel said.
DePaul's Stephen Howard, who collected
a conference award at halftime for academic excellence, was named to the
all-tournament team for his 22-point performance in the Blue Demons' 95-75 loss
to Memphis State Friday.
Hardaway, Vaughn and Cincinnati
senior Herb Jones, who had a team-high 21 points Saturday, rounded out the
tournament team.
NOTES: If you were wondering
why the Stadium crowds were so small for the Great Midwest's inaugural
postseason tournament this weekend, it probably was a reflection on the
tickets.
The conference apparently made
a mistake when it chose to charge $25 a day for all Stadium seats, and didn't
start selling single day tickets until two weeks before the event.
Although Great Midwest
officials, who did a professional job putting on the three-day men's and
women's championships, claim the price was agreed to by all the conference
members, it has been said DePaul athletic director Bill Bradshaw was the
driving force behind the pricing plan.
Bradshaw apparently thought the
Great Midwest should run its tournament like the Big East. But as one coach
said, "Some people want us to run before we have even crawled."
Watch for Memphis State, which
brought some 2,000 fans to Chicago this weekend, to get the tournament next
year at the Tigers new Pyramid. Memphis State athletic academic counselor Gina
Pickens denied rumors at the Great Midwest tournament that Tigers sophomore
Anfernee Hardaway, the league's most valuable player, is in any academic
trouble and was considering declaring for the June NBA draft.
"He has been in good
standing since he's been eligible," Pickens said of Hardaway, who missed
his first year due to Prop 48. "He fully intends to stay in school."
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