The Mercurial Memphis Tigers - Part II

Part 1

And now to Part 2!

What a transformation! Sean Banks and his NBA hype are gone! High-flying Carney is coming off the bench. Hunt has temporarily recovered from injuries and legal issues and is very effective on the court. D-Wash is improving every minute he plays. The Tigers have a glorious run in the last competitive C-USA tourney. They almost win it all (on their home court). The player who made this great run possible misses two free throws [with time frozen] and costs them the NCAA invite. So much drama! But the team keeps on ticking. NIT Final 4 yet again! Will they win the NIT and lose D-Wagner (oops! D-Wash) again? History repeating? And back to square one? Perhaps...

But this was impressive turnaround. Partial credit goes to Calipari. This team was loaded with talent and promise but not playing like a team in the fall. Not having enough ball-handling guards probably hurt them earlier on. But despite all the mess, Calipari managed to pull it through. And almost made it to the NCAA along the way! The NIT run should be huge for this team [yet again].

Next year another highly-touted recruiting class is kinda-sorta coming in. Some of them may not qualify. Some may bolt for the NBA. Some of this year's team may bolt for the NBA [Banks, Carney? D-Wash?]. 2005-06 could be a feast or famine season for the Tigers yet again. But at least Calipari showed some risk management skills by picking up Waki Williams late from the JC ranks to offset all the non-qualifiers/NBAers last season. If it wasn't for the injuries, Waki W. would have probably pushed this team to the NCAAs...

There's so much drama involved with this team, Part 3 is guaranteed by Summer 2005!

And oh by the way, how about a Pitino -vs- Calipari comparison? Since that famous Final 4, they've been sort of shadowing each other. High profile NBA jobs that didn't work out. High profile rebuilding jobs in college. But as of right now, it looks like Pitino is BACK! First Sweet 16 since he left KY, a solid 30-win season yet still undermanned, with some new wrinkles in his game [zone defense? w0w!], and a boatload (literally) of talented players who will actually arrive on campus next year.