In all fairness, Saturday’s night game, though won by Tennessee, wasn’t a convincing case that either team, regardless of their ranking, is America’s best. Memphis lost, Tennessee won but neither is better than UNC, UCLA or maybe even Georgetown. Memphis doesn’t need to watch film of last night’s home game to figure out why they’re no longer undefeated. All they have to do is look at their coach.

It was John Calipari who told everyone with a microphone or a note pad and a pen that he didn’t care about his team’s dismal performance from the free throw line. He insisted that his team would make free throws when it counted and last night, to the surprise of no one except their coach, they didn’t.

It was John Calipari that reportedly referenced the New England Patriots’ run at perfection and wanted to emulate that attitude all while allowing himself and his players to go on television and talk about a perfect season and what it meant. He allowed himself and his players to buy into their own hype. And Saturday night it caught up to them.

While the game had no shortage of emotions and energy, it wasn’t the marquee matchup that some of us had hoped for. From beginning to end, it was sloppy and turnover-ridden on both sides. I came away from last night’s game with the knowledge that neither of these teams will be the national champion at year’s end. Both teams have glaring inadequacies that shown through last night.

Tennessee is a pretty good team from the outside. They shoot well, Chris Lofton is a pretty clutch shooter from the perimeter but the team has no inside presence and would struggle to defend teams with strong postmen like North Carolina, UCLA, Georgetown and Indiana. They don’t rebound the ball well on offense or defense and don’t take care of the ball particularly well either. That could be a problem come tournament time where teams that do the little things well are rewarded with final fours and national championships.

Memphis’ issues are well-documented. They’re a tough team in transition but they can’t outrun everybody and their achilles’ heel, regardless of what their coach believes, is their free throw shooting. The Tigers went 7-15 from the charity stripe last night, including one trip to the line late in the game where Chris Douglas-Roberts missed the front end of a huge one-and-one opportunity that may or may not have costed them the game. The Tigers are also a poor shooting team, particularly from outside, despite what the beginning of last night’s game would indicate.

Tennessee should enjoy their ranking for the time being because I don’t see them getting through the rest of the regular season unscathed, let alone the SEC tournament.

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