Guard Antonio Anderson, left, and forward Robert Dozier, have already won 135 games during their four years with the Memphis Tigers, more than any players in the history of college basketball over the course of a career. Both players, along with teammates Roburt Sallie and Chance McGrady, played at the Laurinburg Institute in 2004-05; that Laurinburg team went 40-0 and is widely regarded as the best prep-school team in history.
Much of the history directly involves former players from the Laurinburg Institute. Memphis has won 135 games in the last four seasons, the most of any school in NCAA Division-I history over a four-year span.
The only three players to have been a part of all 135 wins are forward Robert Dozier and guards Antonio Anderson and Chance McGrady; all three are former players at the Laurinburg Institute. A banner was raised at the conclusion of the Conference USA Tournament to commemorate the accomplishment of those three players.
Memphis is also the only team to reel off a 25-game winning streak three seasons in a row.
A fourth Laurinburg Institute product, guard Roburt Sallie, transferred to Memphis this season from City College of San Francisco, where he was named the 2008 California Junior College Player of the Year.
Anderson, Dozier, McGrady and Sallie were all members of the Laurinburg Institute's 2004-05 national championship team. The Tigers of Laurinburg went 40-0 that year, and that team is still almost unanimously regarded as the greatest prep team ever assembled.
Anderson and Dozier were starters on last year's Memphis squad, which went all the way to the national championship game before losing in overtime to Kansas. The Tigers appeared to have the game in the bag in regulation before missed free throws (including a few one-and-one opportunities) opened the door for Kansas, which forced overtime with a 3-pointer by guard Mario Chalmers at the buzzer.
Questions about the level of talent faced surround this year's Memphis team as it heads into the NCAA Tournament, and the Tigers are perhaps the most difficult team to figure out in the entire 65-team field.
Memphis is 31-3 and thoroughly dominated Conference USA for the third straight year while sweeping the regular season and tournament titles with ease. The conference, however, is very poor from top to bottom; Memphis' RPI ranking is seven, and UAB (No. 46) is the only other C-USA school in the top-50.
The NCAA Tournament committee punished Memphis for its weak schedule, assigning the Tigers the No. 2 seed in the West Region when the tournament field was unveiled on Sunday evening.
On one hand, a No. 2 seed, opposed to a one, makes reaching the Final Four for a second straight season a much tougher obstacle for the Tigers. On the other hand, being slighted by the tournament committee is a ready-made source of motivation, and Memphis head coach John Calipari will surely use it to fire up his players.
"I like what I see. I like where we're going ... Kansas City," Calipari said after the brackets were announced. "I have no problem being out West. I just want our team healthy and ready to go. And if that's the case, let's throw it up and let's go. We're just ready to go. It's been a long season."
Memphis' three regular-season losses all came early in the season to non-conference opponents. Syracuse, Xavier and a sub-par Georgetown team that failed to make the NCAA Tournament field all beat the Tigers before Christmas. Memphis did take a 68-50 win over a 25-5 Gonzaga (No. 26 RPI) team on Feb. 7, and the Tigers have not lost since Calipari moved super-freshman Tyreke Evans over to the point guard spot. Freshman Derrick Rose, a freshman point guard on last year-s runner-up Memphis team, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft and now starts for the Chicago Bulls.
Memphis has not faced the competition that teams in the Big East, ACC or the other power conferences have. The other side to that is the fact that there is not another team like Memphis; the Tigers length, overall versatility and athleticism is unmatched, just like with last year's team.
The Tigers are among the nation's best defensive teams (opponents are shooting just 36.2 percent against them), and their shortest starter is Anderson, who is 6-foot-6. Anderson averages 10.2 points and leads the Tigers with 141 assists; he also draws the opponent's best offensive perimeter player each game.
Dozier is 6-foot-9 and a versatile, athletic player. He is second on the Tigers with a 12.8-point scoring average, he is second on the team in rebounding (7.2) and leads the Tigers in blocks (59). Dozier is second on the team with 49 steals and shoots 51 percent from the floor, 39 percent from long distance and 73 percent at the foul line.
Sallie came off the bench in 33 games and averages 4.5 points. He is one of the team's best open shooters and made 41.9 percent of his 3-point attempts.
McGrady, the younger brother of NBA star Tracy McGrady, averages 0.7 points and 0.5 rebounds in 15 games this season.
Another factor that may help Memphis is improved free throw shooting. The flaw that eventually cost the Tigers the national title last season is not the weakness it was a year ago. The Tigers are hitting 69.6 percent of their foul shots this year, compared to 61.4 percent last season. Dozier is shooting 73 percent, compared to 67 last year, and Anderson is making 76.2 percent of his foul shots after hitting an abysmal 57 percent in 2007-08.
Memphis takes on 15th seeded Cal State Northridge in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday at 12:25 p.m.
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