Memphis hopes to make its point - or maybe 100 - against UCLA
SAN ANTONIO -- Should be easy to tell who wins the UCLA-Memphis game. Just look at the scoreboard.
If Memphis puts up 80 points, the Tigers are in good shape. At 90, they're pretty much set. At 100, it's a virtual lock.
As much as the Final Four matchup will become a showcase for freshmen Derrick Rose and Kevin Love, the first of Saturday's semifinals also will be a test of tactics.
Can coach John Calipari's suddenly chic "dribble drive motion" offense break down UCLA's coach Ben Howland's rugged defense?
"All we're going to do is have fun," Calipari said Thursday. "If it leads us to something good on Monday night, have at it, we're going to have a ball. I want these kids to feel nothing but, `Let's go play, show what we're about. Let's make statements.'
"But the biggest thing is when they watch us we're hugging each other, we're smiling," he said. "If they're out there and you watch them and you say, `Wow, that team has more fun than any other team,' then I've done my job. That's what I'm trying to do."
That, and help lead the Tigers (37-1) to their first NCAA men's basketball championship.
Memphis looks to score in a hurry, either off the break or its normal set, leaving the middle open and encouraging Rose, All-America guard Chris Douglas-Roberts or anyone to take the ball to the basket and create a play.
"Calipari, I think, said they're kind of like Princeton on steroids. They're going to be very tough to defend," Love said.
It's worked well for them this season, with the Tigers scoring 90 points on eight occasions and topping 100 three times.
UCLA, meanwhile, has not reached 100 points in a game since December 2002. The Bruins never even scored 90 this season.
That's fine with Love, Darren Collison and their teammates. UCLA (35-3) is making its third straight appearance in the Final Four, and the Bruins have done it mostly by jamming up their opponents -- two weeks ago, they held overmatched Mississippi Valley State to 29 points, the fewest in the NCAA tournament since 1946.
Witness what happened two seasons ago when UCLA twice played Memphis. In November at Madison Square Garden, the Tigers won 88-80; that March in a regional final, the Bruins won 50-45.
"The key between those two games was our defensive effort. We didn't play nearly as good defense when we played in the Garden against them. That's why the score was so high," Collison said this week.
"In the tournament, we played extremely well on the defensive end and the score was low. That was one of the games that identified us as a defensive team. That's the type of effort we're going to need to win this game," he said.
UCLA did fine Thursday, at least in a test run. While the teams practiced at gyms elsewhere, workers at the Alamodome checked out the scoreboard. When the horn went off after a first-half time trial, it showed the Bruins leading 41-30.
Come Saturday, UCLA will get its first look at Rose. A third-team All-America guard, he probably will play his final college game in the next few days. Extremely athletic at 6-foot-3, he already has an NBA body and skills.
UCLA prefers to play man-to-man much more than zone, and Collison will likely start out guarding Rose. Russell Westbrook and others should get a turn, too.
"He reminds me of Jason Kidd. He has a Jason Kidd-type body, he's so strong and physical," Howland said. "He defends like Kidd and he's a much better shooter at the same stage. I can't think of higher praise because I love Kidd."
If and when Rose breaks clear, the 6-foot-10 Love figures to be waiting for him in the lane.
They have different games, but Love and Rose share one trait: While freshmen often wear down during a long season, they've gotten better through March and into April.
From far away, Love has managed to monitor Rose.
"He's been doing a great job. I watched a couple interviews with him earlier in the year. He mentioned that at first there was a little bit of jealousy and he didn't know really where he fit in," he said. "But hey, he blossomed, no pun intended with the rose thing."
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
No. 12 Xavier 79, West Virginia 75
PHOENIX -- In a span of 48 critical seconds late in overtime, B.J. Raymond made more 3-pointers than the entire West Virginia team did all night.
He went from "non-factor" to nonplussed, calmly knocking down two long-range jumpers that lifted Xavier past coach Bob Huggins' Mountaineers 79-75 Thursday night in the West Region semifinals.
Third-seeded Xavier (30-6) rallied from a six-point deficit in overtime. The Musketeers will seek their first Final Four appearance when they play top-seeded UCLA, which beat Western Kentucky 88-78, on Saturday.
Raymond, who scored all eight of his points from overtime, hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to put the Musketeers ahead 75-74 with 1:18 to play. He then shook loose on an inbound play, took a crosscourt bounce pass from Stanley Burrell and made a 3 with the shot clock expiring for a 78-74 lead with 30 seconds left.
"I was kind of a non-factor for the first 40 minutes," Raymond said. "I knew when I got back in there, I had to make something happen."
The second 3 was the dagger.
"It wasn't a great play that I drew up," Xavier coach Sean Miller said. "It was a terrific pass by Stanley Burrell and an amazing shot off the bounce by B.J."
Huggins said his defense clogged up the intended play but "somebody fell asleep" to allow the wide-open 3.
Josh Duncan scored a career-high 26 points despite foul trouble to lead Xavier.
Xavier, which led by 18 early in the game, rallied from a 71-65 deficit in overtime.
Joe Alexander scored 18 and had 10 rebounds for the seventh-seeded Mountaineers (26-11) before fouling out in the overtime.
West Virginia missed four of six free throws in the overtime. Alexander missed one with 14.2 seconds left in regulation that would have given his team a 65-64 lead.
Xavier shot 11-for-19 on 3s while West Virginia was 1-for-11 from long range. The Mountaineers had only one worse performance on 3s this season, going 1-for-22 in a loss to Cincinnati.
"I don't know what we are shooting on the year," Alexander said, "but it is definitely better than 10 percent. In a close game like that, if we would have shot even half of what we normally shoot, it would have made a big difference."
Going into the game, West Virginia had shot 35 percent from 3-point range.
Duncan was 3-of-4 on 3s, Drew Lavender 3-of-6 and Raymond 2-of-4.
"I shot that shot probably 100,000 times in my life," Raymond said of his late 3s. "It is easy once you've shot it so many times."
Da'Sean Butler added 16 points, 14 in the second half for West Virginia. Butler also fouled out in the overtime.
Xavier has been in a regional final only once, in 2004.
Despite the loss, Huggins has had quite the comeback with the school he played for. Out of work two years ago, he barely missed taking a team to the regional final for the fourth time.
Huggins got fired at Cincinnati -- a school he led to the 1992 Final Four -- after a drunken driving arrest and sat out a season before surfacing at Kansas State in 2007. He guided that team to the NIT, where it lost in the second round.
Huggins and his team seemed right among basketball's elite in reaching the round of 16.
"The reality is we played pretty well," he said. "We just didn't finish it."
Duncan drew his fourth foul with 12½ minutes left in regulation. He came out briefly, then returned and was on the court almost the entire rest of the game. When it was over, he grabbed the ball and hurled it in to the wildly cheering Xavier booster section.
"We had been in so many tough situations throughout the year," Duncan said. "Instead of easily giving up or panicking, we stayed poised, stayed together."
The Musketeers built a big lead at the start, but West Virginia scored the final five points of the half to cut it to 32-25.
The Mountaineers took their first lead of the game at 51-50 on Butler's 8-foot bank shot with 9:41 left.
There were six lead changes and four ties the remainder of regulation.
Duncan's three-point play with 1:56 left tied it at 62, and his two free throws with 1:28 to play in the second half put Xavier up 64-62.
After that, West Virginia went cold. Alexander missed a jumper on one possession, and his teammates couldn't connect on three rebound shots.
Nobody could score again until Alexander's tough 15-foot bank shot with 14.2 seconds left tied it at 64. But he missed the free throw, and Lavender's 18-footer under pressure missed to send the game into overtime.
"We won the game, West Virginia lost, but you needed a little luck when it is this tight with so much at stake," Miller said, "and a couple of balls bounced our way."
For a while, with the Mountaineers misfiring from everywhere, it looked like an Xavier blowout.
The Musketeers made six of their first eight 3-pointers and West Virginia missed its first eight shots.
Lavender made two 3s and assisted on another, and the Musketeers led 28-10, thanks largely to 3-for-16 shooting by the Mountaineers.
But Wellington Smith brought West Virginia back, scoring the first eight in a 10-0 run that cut it to 28-20 on Jamie Smalligan's unlikely, awkward 12-foot bank shot with 4:05 left in the half.
West Virginia shot 33 percent for the half and 0-for-6 on 3s. Xavier made 6-of-11 on 3s.
Alexander, averaging 16.8 points per game, had two at the half on 1-of-4 shooting.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
Kyle McAlarney uses last year's suspension as motivation
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Notre Dame guard Kyle McAlarney knows the pain of losing an NCAA tournament game, even though he's never played in one.
McAlarney was stuck on the couch at home last year while the sixth-seeded Irish lost 74-64 to No. 11 Winthrop in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
McAlarney, who averaged 10.3 points as the Irish got off to an 11-1 start last season, was suspended from school for the second half of the season after being arrested on a marijuana possession charge.
He had to turn games when the Irish struggled because he felt helpless. The feeling was magnified as he watched his friends founder against Winthrop.
"I know that we could have done better and I know that I could have helped them maybe go further or win that game," McAlarney said. "You know, at that point I was just trying to make it through that rough time and trying to survive. When I look back now, I've really come a long way, and now that I'm here, I'm really just enjoying the whole experience."
That included watching the selection show with his teammates Sunday evening, when he saw that the 15th-ranked Irish (24-7) will face George Mason (23-10), the Colonial Athletic Association tournament champion that two years ago made a celebrated run to the Final Four.
McAlarney said last year's troubles have helped him to enjoy this year's success even more.
A first-team All-Big East selection, McAlarney led the league in 3-pointers with 103 and was second in the league in 3-point shooting percentage at 44.8 percent.
Before each game, he thinks about the pain he felt being on his own at home at year ago at this time.
"I'm really using that as fuel," McAlarney said.
He also used to get nervous before each game and let bad games bother him. He's still nervous before games -- just not as nervous -- and he doesn't let a bad game get to him.
"I just kind of feel more at ease out there. A bad game is just a bad game. It's not the end of the world because I'm still able to come back the next day and still play with this team and learn to get better," he said. "It really helps me stay grounded and stay humbled and really focus on where I'm at, in the moment, and focus on each game at hand."
Coach Mike Brey saw the difference in McAlarney when he returned to campus for summer school in June.
"He came back amazingly driven just because when you miss a whole Big East season and miss the NCAA tournament and miss the run that we had without him, I just think it drove him to make sure this team did it again with him on it," Brey said.
McAlarney feels he's at his best when he's playing with a chip on his shoulder, and opposing fans have added to that feeling. They've chanted "pothead" while he's taking free throws and held up signs making fun of his legal trouble. Remembering a sign at Georgetown that read: "McAlarney slept through DARE" still makes him laugh.
McAlarney expected those kind of responses from opponents. What he didn't expect was the warm reception he got from Notre Dame fans, who wrote to him while he was serving his suspension and urged him to stay strong.
"It really touches you and means a lot," he said.
He could have transferred and avoided at least some of the scrutiny he's faced this past year, but he's glad he didn't.
"I really wanted to come back to go through it and to face all of it and make me stronger," he said. "I've been here for a while, so I'm way over it."
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
Nevill leads Utah over New Mexico 82-80 in overtime
LAS VEGAS -- Luke Nevill was on the bench when Utah lost twice to New Mexico in the regular season, by a point in Albuquerque and in overtime at Salt Lake City.
This time, he stuck around and stood squarely in the way of the Lobos' road to the NCAA tournament.
Nevill made all the plays down the stretch despite playing with four fouls over the final 11 1/2 minutes and the Utes put a crimp in New Mexico's NCAA plans with an 82-80 overtime victory over the Lobos in the Mountain West Conference quarterfinals Thursday night.
Nevill scored 26 points, including a slam dunk with 21 seconds left that put the Utes (17-13) ahead 81-80. The 7-foot Australian then rejected a shot by 6-1 guard Darren Prentice as he circled into the lane.
"I knew I had to risk, you know, maybe getting called (for) goaltending," Nevill said.
Clearly, the Lobos would like to have gotten the ball to J.R. Giddens instead.
"Sometimes players make tough decisions," Lobos coach Steve Alford said. "D.P. has been great for us all year. One of the things we didn't want to do was to drive and try to make plays with our smaller guards on Nevill. That's one part of it. There were different things we were wanting to do to Nevill, but not that.
"He's trying to make a play. I always like guys that are trying to make a play."
Lawrence Borha got the outlet pass for Utah and was fouled with 5.6 seconds left. He sank one of two free throws, leaving the Lobos with time to tie it or even win it on a 3-pointer.
Giddens, who led New Mexico (24-8) with 28 points and 17 rebounds, darted right past the three-point line and put up a finger roll that rimmed out at the buzzer.
"I didn't feel like I could get to the rim. We didn't have enough time," Giddens said. "So I tried to put the ball in the basket to the best of my ability."
That left the Lobos to ponder if they've done enough already to get into the NCAA tournament when the 65-team field is announced Sunday.
"Honestly, I don't know," Giddens said. "I don't pay enough attention to all the college basketball teams out there and the conferences, how many bids a league has."
Alford put up an optimistic front.
"I know we're 24-8. We won 11 league games. We just got beat in the quarterfinals in overtime on a last-second play," he said. " We've stayed away from losing streaks. This is our first game on a neutral floor. We're 0-1 on a neutral floor. We're 8-5 as a road team. We're 16-2 as a home team.
"There's a lot of basketball to be played yet this weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So I guess we just got to wait and see exactly what happens. But as far as our body of work goes, there won't be a lot of teams 24-8."
The sixth-seeded Utes will face second-seeded UNLV in the semifinals Friday night at the Runnin' Rebels' home court, the Thomas & Mack Center.
The Lobos trailed 70-62 with 4:14 left in regulation but closed on a 10-2 run, capped by Chad Toppert's two free throws with 13 seconds left. Utah's Luke Drca threw it away with 1.5 seconds left, forcing overtime.
"I guess that's why they call it March Madness," Utah coach Jim Boylen said. "It's up and down. It's an emotional roller-coaster. Big plays. Big plays by them. Giddens is just such a difficult guard for us. He just jumps over us, goes by us. Believe it or not, we were trying to guard him. We were trying to keep him under control. Man, I thought he had a monster, monster game."
Nevill picked up his fourth foul with 6:31 left in regulation but never fouled out even though a couple of times he went hard to the basket and might easily have been whistled for the charge.
"I'm proud of Luke," Boylen said. "I thought he played very well with four fouls."
Lawrence Bohra added 13 points for the Utes, Shaun Green had 12 and Johnny Bryant 11. For the Lobos, Dairese Gary had 14, Roman Martinez 12, Smith 11 and Toppert 10.
The Lobos jumped out to a nine-point lead in the opening minutes but trailed by 11 with 10 minutes to go in regulation before their furious comeback fell short, leaving them with a 2-7 record in the opening game of the MWC tournament while Utah improved to 8-1.
"I felt like we had a chance to ... possibly win the tournament if we played our style of basketball," Giddens said. "We didn't do that today. Didn't put 'D' stops together. So we didn't get the win. So, I feel like we came up short."
Just like his finger roll at the buzzer.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
Nevill leads Utah over New Mexico 82-80 in overtime
LAS VEGAS -- Luke Nevill was on the bench when Utah lost twice to New Mexico in the regular season, by a point in Albuquerque and in overtime at Salt Lake City.
This time, he stuck around and stood squarely in the way of the Lobos' road to the NCAA tournament.
Nevill made all the plays down the stretch despite playing with four fouls over the final 11 1/2 minutes and the Utes put a crimp in New Mexico's NCAA plans with an 82-80 overtime victory over the Lobos in the Mountain West Conference quarterfinals Thursday night.
Nevill scored 26 points, including a slam dunk with 21 seconds left that put the Utes (17-13) ahead 81-80. The 7-foot Australian then rejected a shot by 6-1 guard Darren Prentice as he circled into the lane.
"I knew I had to risk, you know, maybe getting called (for) goaltending," Nevill said.
Clearly, the Lobos would like to have gotten the ball to J.R. Giddens instead.
"Sometimes players make tough decisions," Lobos coach Steve Alford said. "D.P. has been great for us all year. One of the things we didn't want to do was to drive and try to make plays with our smaller guards on Nevill. That's one part of it. There were different things we were wanting to do to Nevill, but not that.
"He's trying to make a play. I always like guys that are trying to make a play."
Lawrence Borha got the outlet pass for Utah and was fouled with 5.6 seconds left. He sank one of two free throws, leaving the Lobos with time to tie it or even win it on a 3-pointer.
Giddens, who led New Mexico (24-8) with 28 points and 17 rebounds, darted right past the three-point line and put up a finger roll that rimmed out at the buzzer.
"I didn't feel like I could get to the rim. We didn't have enough time," Giddens said. "So I tried to put the ball in the basket to the best of my ability."
That left the Lobos to ponder if they've done enough already to get into the NCAA tournament when the 65-team field is announced Sunday.
"Honestly, I don't know," Giddens said. "I don't pay enough attention to all the college basketball teams out there and the conferences, how many bids a league has."
Alford put up an optimistic front.
"I know we're 24-8. We won 11 league games. We just got beat in the quarterfinals in overtime on a last-second play," he said. " We've stayed away from losing streaks. This is our first game on a neutral floor. We're 0-1 on a neutral floor. We're 8-5 as a road team. We're 16-2 as a home team.
"There's a lot of basketball to be played yet this weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So I guess we just got to wait and see exactly what happens. But as far as our body of work goes, there won't be a lot of teams 24-8."
The sixth-seeded Utes will face second-seeded UNLV in the semifinals Friday night at the Runnin' Rebels' home court, the Thomas & Mack Center.
The Lobos trailed 70-62 with 4:14 left in regulation but closed on a 10-2 run, capped by Chad Toppert's two free throws with 13 seconds left. Utah's Luke Drca threw it away with 1.5 seconds left, forcing overtime.
"I guess that's why they call it March Madness," Utah coach Jim Boylen said. "It's up and down. It's an emotional roller-coaster. Big plays. Big plays by them. Giddens is just such a difficult guard for us. He just jumps over us, goes by us. Believe it or not, we were trying to guard him. We were trying to keep him under control. Man, I thought he had a monster, monster game."
Nevill picked up his fourth foul with 6:31 left in regulation but never fouled out even though a couple of times he went hard to the basket and might easily have been whistled for the charge.
"I'm proud of Luke," Boylen said. "I thought he played very well with four fouls."
Lawrence Bohra added 13 points for the Utes, Shaun Green had 12 and Johnny Bryant 11. For the Lobos, Dairese Gary had 14, Roman Martinez 12, Smith 11 and Toppert 10.
The Lobos jumped out to a nine-point lead in the opening minutes but trailed by 11 with 10 minutes to go in regulation before their furious comeback fell short, leaving them with a 2-7 record in the opening game of the MWC tournament while Utah improved to 8-1.
"I felt like we had a chance to ... possibly win the tournament if we played our style of basketball," Giddens said. "We didn't do that today. Didn't put 'D' stops together. So we didn't get the win. So, I feel like we came up short."
Just like his finger roll at the buzzer.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
No. 3 UCLA tries to clinch Pac-10 title outright against No. 7 Stanford
LOS ANGELES -- This is the month that counts in college basketball and fittingly, there's a lot on the line when No. 3 UCLA hosts seventh-ranked Stanford on Thursday night.
A victory by the Bruins (26-3, 14-2) would earn them the Pac-10 title outright for the third consecutive season and bolster their case for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
That would keep the Bruins in the West Region, giving them early round games in Anaheim, with the next two in Phoenix, if they advanced.
"We need to come out pumped up," freshman Kevin Love said. "We know Thursday is going to be a very, very, very, VERY tough game against the Lopez twins and Stanford. This game means a lot more than just winning the Pac-10."
They also could clinch the top seed in next week's Pac-10 tournament at Staples Center.
"This is the only thing that counts, how you play in this month," forward Josh Shipp said.
A loss would drop UCLA into a first-place tie with the Cardinal (24-4, 13-3). Stanford could win the title outright if it also wins at Southern California on Saturday and the Bruins lose to California that day.
If Stanford wins the conference, considered by many to be the nation's best this season, it could knock the Bruins out of the West Region.
The teams also could end up tied atop the standings and the title would be decided by a tiebreaker.
"My primary goal is for us to win the Pac-10 and to win it outright," UCLA coach Ben Howland said. "The seedings we have no control over. Obviously, we'd like to stay out West."
UCLA clinched the conference title the past two years on the road -- at Stanford in 2006 and at Washington State last year. Students seeking floor seats for the game pitched tents outside Pauley Pavilion on Tuesday.
"It would be special to do it in front of our fans this year," Shipp said. "The fans deserve that."
It's been two months since the teams' first meeting, a 76-67 UCLA road victory that snapped Stanford's seven-game winning streak.
"They're a team that's playing a lot better because they understand what's at stake," Cardinal coach Trent Johnson said about the Bruins.
"This is a basketball program, not a team. Their basketball program just doesn't have any weaknesses, from scheduling to recruiting to all aspects. This is probably the strongest and most dominant program in the West."
In the first meeting, Shipp scored 21 points, including five 3-pointers, and Love and Russell Westbrook had 15 each.
Darren Collison wasn't his usual force driving UCLA's offense because he was overcoming a sprained left knee that had required wearing a brace. But he's in high gear now, averaging 16 points in his past four games.
Stanford's Brook Lopez had 13 points and eight rebounds and Robin Lopez had eight points and 12 rebounds. Both of the 7-foot twins fouled out, while Love had no fouls in 31 minutes.
"I gave them pump-fakes, they went for a lot of shotblocks, just tried to play physical with them, get into them," Love recalled. "I found myself in the right position. A couple spots I found rebounds right under the basket, went right back up, drew the contact."
Stanford had 35 rebounds, four more than the Bruins.
Back then, Brook Lopez had been in action for less than two weeks after missing Stanford's first nine games while academically ineligible. Now he's the Pac-10's fourth-leading scorer with 19.3 points.
"We're starting to execute on the offensive end a little better, but that's going to be tested Thursday without question," Johnson said.
Westbrook and Collison relish crashing opposing defenses with their drives to the basket. But they'll have to adjust, knowing there's another Lopez twin behind the first one.
"Just pull up, don't keep going," Westbrook said. "Shot-fake when you get in there or bring it back out. They have good timing. Once you shot-fake one, you got to watch out for the other one."
John Wooden won't be watching from his usual seat behind the Bruins' bench Thursday night. The 97-year-old coaching great has been hospitalized since last Friday after falling at home and breaking his left wrist and collarbone.
He also will miss the 40th reunion of UCLA's 1968 national championship team on Saturday.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
The Volunteer State does a number on No. 1 teams
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee upsets top-ranked Memphis to move to No. 1, then Vanderbilt knocks off Tennessee.
The Volunteer State has done a number on The Associated Press poll in the past week with consecutive upsets of the top-ranked teams happening just 200 miles apart along Tennessee's Interstate-40 corridor.
"The college basketball scene in Tennessee -- if it's been better, someone's got to tell me when," Memphis coach John Calipari said.
Memphis (26-1) sat atop the poll for five weeks while trying to make a run at an undefeated season. That ended with a 66-62 loss to a fired-up Tennessee team in Memphis on Saturday, in only the fifth meeting between No. 1 and No. 2 from the same state.
On Monday, Tennessee (25-3) grabbed the top spot for the first time in the program's 99-year history, but Volunteer fans had little time to celebrate before a trip to No. 18 Vanderbilt.
The Commodores (24-4) beat the Vols 72-69 on Tuesday for their fourth straight win over a top-ranked opponent, making Tennessee a lame-duck No. 1 for the next few days.
Tennessee forward Duke Crews said earning the top ranking has never been the Vols' focus.
"The whole No. 1 thing, it was good for the program and made our school look good, but that wasn't our main focus," he said. "Our main focus is to win the SEC championship."
Vandy coach Kevin Stallings said the state of Tennessee could be mentioned along with the likes of North Carolina and Indiana as a hotbed for college basketball -- at least this season.
"Obviously the last two games here have really brought the spotlight onto the state of college basketball in the state of Tennessee," Stallings said. "We're hitting that national stage."
It doesn't stop with teams from the bigger conferences, though.
Belmont is on the verge of its third consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament, thanks to an automatic bid for the Atlantic Sun Conference champion. East Tennessee State has reached the tournament seven times while Austin Peay has been a fixture in the Ohio Valley Conference.
"Certainly this year we can be mentioned in the same breath," Stallings said. "If all our programs are able to sustain this, then who knows?"
With only one loss and a fairly light load for the rest of the regular season, Memphis could soon return back to the top of the rankings.
Vanderbilt must travel to Arkansas on Saturday in an SEC matchup, while Tennessee hosts Kentucky on Sunday.
There's another team that knows a thing or two about hoops, too.
Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt said she's sensed an excitement for basketball at Tennessee that she's never noticed before.
Her team spent a week at No. 1 in the women's poll before a home loss to LSU.
"It is a feel-good place right now when it comes to basketball," she said. "It is a special time."
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
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