USC vs Memphis

Tim Floyd is a party pooper. Not only did he got Kevin Durant out of the 2007 NCAA Tournament, he turned into one of the most anticipated games of the season into a borderline-boring slowfest. His decision to use junk defenses and slow the tempo on offense, derailed the Memphis Tigers offense, and made the game slow and choppy.

This of course hurts the Jimmy V cause, because viewers were more likely to tune out, and the less viewers, the lower the donations made to the Jimmy V Foundation.

So Tim Floyd, if you want to win by slugfest, can you please not sign-up for high-profile "charity" games? Thank you.

The game itself was supposed to be the stars of OJ Mayo and Derrick Rose shining. Instead the star of the game was the triangle and two defense. Expect more coaches to try and copycat this when they play Memphis, and the onus is on Calipari to find ways to attack it a lot better next time.

OJ Mayo played "D" and he probably earned some street-cred with defensive minded coaches as he blanketed Derrick Rose. Rose perhaps lost a lot of money in this game, he looked like a deer-in-the-headlights freshman for a good part of the game. The good news for Memphis fans is that that increases their chances of him staying for another year from 1% to 11% :-)

Scoring was so painful, the overtime score was close to a 0-0 soccer match that was decided on penalty kicks ;-)

Taj Gibson was not as bad as the previous two games, but he continues to struggle. Is he "outshined" by Mayo and Jefferson and that is affecting his game? His return to New York was probably not as he would have hoped it.

While there's no doubt that Vitale raises a lot of money for cancer research, at times he does stupid things like promoting his personal stuff in the middle of emotionally-charged pleas for donations. He did it again last night by promoting his website while being one step away from tears while telling stories of cancer victims. Which can lead some skeptics to ask: Is Digger Phelps the only actor among the ESPN analysts?

Which leads to this question: What's the difference between Dick Vitale and a televanglist? Answer: They are on different channels ;-)