Posted on Sat, Apr. 12, 2008

Memphis took the ball out of bounds with 3 seconds remaining on the shot clock. A stop here and Kansas, trailing by five, would have a chance. The Jayhawks’ defense was so perfect, Derrick Rose would have to make an impossible shot.

Bank. Good. The Tigers’ lead was eight.

Jodi Bouyack’s annual rationalization ritual had been triggered. Rose’s shot falls only for a destined team. Time had come for Bouyack to count the reasons she loves Kansas now that a loss seemed probable in Monday’s national championship.

Every season for nearly two decades had ended with a crushing defeat in the NCAA Tournament, but this one might be the worst. Two days earlier Kansas thumped top-ranked North Carolina and coach Roy Williams, and the Jayhawks looked strong Monday night, leading Memphis by five at halftime. The stars were aligned.

But the lead was gone, Memphis was throwing in prayers and Bouyack’s eyes started to get puffy.

“What do we have to do?” she pleaded rhetorically to her husband, Scott, during the television timeout with 3:49 remaining.

They come from different places, Kansas and Memphis.

The Jayhawks represent a largely rural, mostly white state. The Tigers are the pride of a mostly black city.

But their hunger was the same. Kansas, as Bouyack and the faithful know, wins games and conference championships in bunches and is often a national championship contender.

Except the Jayhawks had not won a crown in two decades.

Memphis’ history of sports disappointments dates back to its failed attempts to land an NFL franchise and its unsuccessful NBA team. Even the Tigers’ last Final Four team, in 1985, was dubbed “Team Tragedy” by the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Two players from that team have died, another has been in and out of jail, and its coach, Dana Kirk, spent four months in prison and never coached after 1986. Because of probation, that team’s NCAA Tournament run doesn’t officially exist in the NCAA record books.

But these Tigers were different.

“I’ve been living in Memphis my whole life, and I’ve never seen the whole town get behind anything like this,” said Jeff Patrick, a pastor at Memphis Union Mission. “It was nuts.”

When Rose banked in his three, the 130 homeless men gathered to watch the game in the Union Mission’s great room — the same room where 80 of them slept on mats that night — erupted.

“The whole room went, ‘Whoosh!’ ” Patrick said.

Two minutes later, when the Memphis lead went to nine, the dancing started.

“It was the funniest thing you’ve ever seen,” Patrick said. “Everybody was celebrating, and these are men showing all this emotion with no alcohol. That’s not allowed here.”

•••

During the 3:49 television timeout, alternate official Pat Driscoll summoned referees Ed Hightower and Ed Corbett to the sideline. He wanted them to watch a replay of Rose’s shot to make sure it was a three-pointer.

After watching the shot several times, the game officials turned to return to their positions on the floor.

“Are you sure?” Driscoll called out.

They looked again, and this time something caught their attention. When Rose lifted for the shot, his right foot was behind the three-point line, but his left foot was clearly planted inside the arc.

One point was removed from the Memphis tally, and the score stood 56-49. But would it matter? The Tigers were rolling.

•••

The clock ticks to the 2-minute mark. Memphis 60, Kansas 51.

From here on is forever part of KU lore and a Memphis nightmare.

Darrell Arthur knocked down a long jumper, beginning a series of week-later observations from KU coach Bill Self that leave him almost dumbfounded.

Sherron Collins then stole the inbounds pass, threw it to Russell Robinson and got it back for a corner three-pointer. Until then, Kansas was one of 10 from behind the arc.

Memphis 60, Kansas 56.

Memphis star Chris Douglas-Roberts and Chalmers trade a pair of free throws, but the Jayhawks get the better end of the deal. Chalmers had been fouled by the Tigers’ best inside defender Joey Dorsey, caught on a switch 25 feet from the basket. It was Dorsey’s fifth.

“Oh my God,” Dorsey said when he heard the whistle. He walked back to the bench with a sense of dread and watched most of the remaining minutes with a towel on his head.

At this point, Kansas was fouling, but Self had explicit instructions not to foul Douglas-Roberts.

“So what do we do out of the timeout?” Self said. “Mario fouls CDR at midcourt.”

But Douglas-Roberts missed the front end of a one-and-one. Arthur banked in a jumper and made it 62-60 with 1:01 remaining.

Douglas-Roberts missed a shot, and Collins followed with a missed layup that is ruled a turnover since it wasn’t much of a shot. Then Douglas-Roberts made a decision that will haunt him and Memphis forever.

After Collins’ turnover with 20 seconds left, Douglas-Roberts took a long outlet pass. Instead of pulling the ball out and burning seconds, he went to the basket and was fouled by Arthur. CDR was short on both free throws.

But Robert Dozier snuck in behind Arthur to track down the rebound, and the Tigers still had the ball, a two-point lead, and 11 seconds between them and a national title. Brandon Rush fouled Rose.

Rose missed the first free throw, made the second, and the Tigers, leading 63-60, stood 10.8 seconds from a national championship.

•••

You fall head-over-heels for a team because it’s local or winning or it’s your parents’ school, and for 37-year-old Jodi Bouyack, it was a little of all of that. She grew up in Clay Center, Kan., closer to Kansas State, but KU was spoken in her home, and naturally that’s where she would attend school.

For her senior speech, Bouyack spoke for 30 minutes on the Jayhawks’ 1986 Final Four run.

“That was my favorite team up until now,” she said.

The season’s end always brings sadness to Bouyack. She thinks of her father, Ron Habluetzel. He died 18 years ago after helping raise three daughters. They shared a love for the Jayhawks, and when a tournament loss brings the year to a close, well, it’s a little tougher for Bouyack than other KU fans.

But this season felt different.

So did Monday night, especially with the final seconds of regulation ticking off the clock.

Roughly 730 miles from the Alamodome, at the Union Mission in Memphis, everybody was on their feet, including the three who said they weren’t fans of the Tigers. Before the game, Patrick had said anybody not rooting for Memphis could go to the front of the food line.

“I wanted everyone to know who they were,” Patrick said.

•••

Calipari said he wanted to foul Collins, but the Jayhawks’ small, fleet and powerful guard made it impossible.

Still, it appeared Rose was close enough to give Collins a shove, but what little contact there was came after Collins, who had lost control of his final dribble, got the ball back in time for a flip to Chalmers, moving to his left.

But back up a few seconds. Self said to notice Collins hesitate after he took the inbounds pass from Darnell Jackson.

“That was really heads-up,” Self said. “He wants Darnell to pass him, and that way he doesn’t have Darnell’s defender back there, too. That could slow up the play.”

Collins’ job was to run hard directly at the person (Antonio Anderson) defending Chalmers. As Collins was falling, he got off a flip pass.

“If it’s a handoff, it’s easier to make the (defensive switch),” Self said. “This way there’s a little hesitation, which gives Mario a little extra space.”

There’s something else. Chalmers is a better right-foot pivot shooter. That’s why Kansas ran the play to that side.

The 6-3 Rose believed he had good position as the 6-1 Chalmers lifted and swished one of the biggest shots in NCAA Tournament history.

“I was right there,” Rose said.

It wasn’t enough.

At the Union Mission, Chalmers’ shot was the final punch.

“Those last minutes, those blows kept landing. Kansas made shots and we missed free throws and it was like, ‘No, no, no,’ ” Patrick said. “When it got to overtime, some didn’t even stay.”

They were wise. Three possessions into overtime, and it was over.

Meanwhile, the person in section 107, row 10, seat 1 could not be seen.

“I had to lean over and touch my toes,” Bouyack said. “I exhaled for the first time in two minutes.”

And?

“Oh, I was bawling.”