6) NCAA Football, No. 7 Texas Tech @ No. 1 Texas, November 1
It figures that the only regular season entry in this list is a college football matchup. This contest had everything a fan could ask for. It was an old-fashioned Texas shootout between two gunslingers. It pitted a perennial powerhouse in Texas with its rich tradition and history against its far less accomplished little brother and in-state rival in Texas Tech in their annual contest. This was a series in which Texas had won the last five in a row from their black-and-red rivals.
The twist was that while Texas was poised for a championship season and had earned the number one ranking in all the land, Tech was not far behind at No. 7, and both teams came into the game unbeaten at 8-0.
A national television audience may have been alarmed at the fact that Texas appeared to have left their offensive skill at home. As the Horns were completely unable to move the football in the first quarter, Texas Tech managed every score possible; a safety, field goal, and a 3-yard Baron Batch touchdown run to end a first quarter that had all of Lubbock rocking.
On a second quarter drive by Texas Tech, Graham Harrell converted a key 3rd-and-14, then found Eric Morris on the next play for an 18-yard touchdown strike and incredibly, little brother Tech led the number one team in the nation 19-0 in the second quarter.
Texas was eventually able to get on the board in the quarter with two field goals, although one of them was only because Michael Crabtree fumbled at the Red Raider 29. The Longhorns then moved the ball all of three yards before converting a 43-yard kick. Their second drive at the end of the half was more impressive, but still resulted in only three points, and the surprising Red Raiders went into the locker room at halftime still ahead 22-6.
Texas still couldn't move the ball on the opening drive in the third quarter, but this time their special teams bailed them out. After pinning Texas Tech on their own one via a 61-yard punt, Tech was stopped three-and-out and forced to punt from their own end zone. Jordan Shipley fielded it near midfield and expertly worked his way downfield, making use of numerous blocks from teammates to reach the end zone for a 45-yard touchdown return. Texas had cut the deficit to 22-13 and amazingly, the Longhorns was hanging around without the benefit of any offensive firepower.
This problem would continue to rear its ugly head for Texas later on when McCoy, already backed up on the Texas seven, threw his first interception of the game to Daniel Charbonnet. The defensive back was able to turn his way upfield and reach the end zone untouched for a 29-13 Tech lead. As the Tech crowd grew delirious and ready to celebrate the greatest win in Red Raider history, the Longhorns looked like anything but a number one team.
As Texas continued to struggle on offense, they managed to get help from the Red Raiders secondary as a 15-yard pass interference penalty on Jamar Wall got Texas a first down on 3rd-and-15. Four plays later, Colt McCoy found Malcolm Williams on a short pass. Williams then dusted nearly the entire Texas Tech secondary with his speed. Three tacklers in the area failed to lay a hand on him as he streaked to the end zone. Thanks to a failed two-point conversion, the score was now 29-19 Red Raiders going into the fourth quarter.
Texas Tech moved the ball inside the Longhorns' nine, but a 16-yard sack of Graham Harrell made sure the field goal was no chip-shot. The kick was blocked and Texas would end up with the ball at their own nine.
McCoy only needed one play to rekindle the kind of explosiveness that Texas fans had come to expect. Firing a deep ball down the left sideline, he found a streaking Malcolm Williams, who had badly beaten the defender en route to a 91-yard lightning-strike score. Texas had climbed back to within three at 29-26 with 11 minutes left and a hush came over the crowd.
Tech answered with a slow methodical drive into Texas territory that stalled at the 25. A 42-yard kick from Donnie Carona was good and the Red Raiders boosted their lead to six at 32-26, leaving just under six minutes left for Colt McCoy and company.
Starting at the Texas 20, McCoy responded with a drive worthy of a number one team. Mixing short passes with handoffs to three different running backs, Texas found themselves at the Tech four-yard line with less than two minutes to go. Vondrell McGhee did the honors, running straight up the middle into the end zone on a draw play to give Texas an improbable lead at 33-32 after the extra point with just 1:29 to go.
Now behind for the first time all game, it was Harrell's turn to come up with the big drive in the clutch although he only needed a field goal to win. A solid kickoff return by Jamar Wall got the Red Raiders a short field at the Tech 38. On four passes, Harrell was able to get three first downs, stopping the clock and saving precious seconds. This put Tech at the Texas 28 with 17 seconds left. Normally, one would say they were in field goal range. Yet Harrell knew that kicker Donnie Carona had been shaky, making only four of nine field goals on the season. He had not made a kick over 40 yards until the 42-yarder he made in the previous drive. The Tech quarterback was still looking to move the ball downfield.
Harrell faced a rush as he dropped back and up to avoid the potentially catastrophic sack from the side. On the move, he found receiver Edward Britton in the flat, but Britton could only get a hand on the ball and pop it up in the air. Blake Gideon of Texas came rushing over for the easy interception as Lubbock drew eerily silent.
Gideon never held onto the ball though, even as it initially appeared to most as a clear interception, and the officials were on it immediately ruling it incomplete and giving the Red Raiders a second life.
Eight seconds remained on the clock, and Harrell still was going to play it as if a 45-yard field goal try was out of the question.
With two seasons, a rivalry and an epic upset on the line, Harrell got plenty of protection and fired a rocket to the far sideline towards a heavily guarded Michael Crabtree at the 5-yard line. Crabtree had caught 9 passes for 99 yards up until that point. This one he caught inches from the sideline while fighting off an oncoming defensive back. Immediately, he was wrapped up with both arms by a second man, cornerback Curtis Brown. The Texas sophomore seemed to take the situation for granted, though. Figuring he could easily pull Crabtree out of bounds, he seemed to let up on his grip and Crabtree doggedly burst free for those last five yards, carefully stayed inbounds, and an ecstatic romp through the end zone ensued with one second left. This one slip of the grip had just turned the college football world on its ear and a dumbfounded Brown could only watch as the rabid Tech crowd enveloped the field.
For Graham Harrell, it was not only the touchdown pass of a lifetime, but the cherry on top of a mind blowing 474-yard passing game.
Sure, they would need to clear the field in order to play out the final remaining second, but when Texas did not score on a miracle lateral return and the fans rushed out to dance a second time, Texas Tech had officially won the biggest game in the school's history (not to mention their 500th win in school history, as well as their first over a No. 1-ranked opponent) and knocked Texas off its perch as king of the hill.
Texas Tech would briefly move up in the rankings to No. 2, putting themselves in position to play for the national championship before eventually losing to fifth-ranked and eventual national finalist Oklahoma and falling out of the title picture, although with quite a respectable 11-1 record. The 2008 edition may have been the greatest team in Red Raider history.
Texas would not lose another game before or since, but that lone defeat was still enough to keep them out of the running for the title game. Florida and Oklahoma, both one-loss teams, edged them out to play for a championship in January 2009.
Final score: Texas Tech 39, Texas 33
5) NCAA Men's Basketball Championship, No. 1 Memphis vs. No. 1 Kansas, April 7
With Florida finally off the radar, two fresh, top-seeded powerhouse teams got their first shot at a championship. While Kansas had not won since the days of Danny Manning and Larry Brown in 1988, Memphis had a barren title history, only having been to the title game one other time and falling to UCLA 35 years ago. With both teams seeded number one, this title match had no clear favorite.
Kansas controlled play through most of the first half by playing strong inside, driving and slashing to the basket while Memphis kept pace with a barrage of threes and long jumpers. Notable for Kansas was guard Mario Chalmers, who killed the Tigers by scoring on a three, a fast-break layup and a basket inside off his own miss for seven points in just 2:06 time. This was in addition to his 4 steals in the game, three coming in the first half. Conversely, outstanding Memphis guard Derrick Rose was being shut down by Sherron Collins, who held him scoreless in the first half after the first three minutes of the game. Kansas took a 33-28 lead at the half, Memphis first halftime deficit of the tournament.
The second half would start a see-saw trend in the game, as the lead swung back and forth like a pendulum. Five lead changes and two ties reflected the tense play. Derrick Rose would finally announce his arrival and end his scoreless streak at 12:10 of the second half with a coast-to-coast drive. Shortly thereafter, the talented guard would unleash his full wrath on the unsuspecting Kansas defense.
After Rose scored again on a short layup off glass, he would drain a three to give Memphis a 49-47 lead and force a timeout from Kansas with 8:11 left in the game; then a pull-up jumper in the lane; then a spectacular up-and-under layup off glass and the foul, forcing yet another Kansas timeout. After Rose made the free throw, the Memphis lead was upped to seven points with just 5:10 left until collegiate immortality.
Kansas had gone cold, scoreless over the last four and a half minutes. Finally, Sherron Collins broke the streak with a layup of his own. Of course, Rose had quite an answer to that. Fading away at an improbable angle, Rose somehow banked a near-three off glass to put Memphis up 56-49 on what CBS play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz, perhaps prematurely, anointed "The shot of the tournament." Rose had now scored his team's last 10 points over a span of 4:05 and more importantly, had brought Memphis to the brink of their first title with what looked like icing on the championship cake.
With 2:13 left and Memphis still up seven, Kansas coach Bill Self went to his last resort. Knowing Memphis' shooters had achilles heels at the line, the Jayhawks went to the intentional foul and sent Robert Dozier to the stripe. Instead of faltering, Dozier made both to bring the Memphis lead up to nine, the game's largest. This now made for a 16-4 Memphis run to pull away.
If Kansas was to have any hope left, they would have to score quickly. Big man Darrell Arthur canned a quick 18-foot jumper with 1:54 left, leading Memphis to call timeout in order to substitute out the weaker free throw shooters. Antonio Anderson's inbounds pass to Derrick Rose seemed sound until Sherron Collins came in at the last second to poke it away, then flipped a nifty pass over his shoulder to Chalmers in mid-air to save it from going out of bounds. A second later, Collins was set up with a wide-open three from the corner and did not miss. At 60-56 with still 1:45 left, this sequence turned the title game from a coronation back into a ballgame.
Despite being back in the game, Kansas continued their strategy of intentionally fouling. Chris Douglas-Roberts coolly made both to make the lead six again. With 1:23 to go, Memphis made another key error when Dorsey fouled Chalmers for his fifth. The star center and defensive force had ended his senior season just over a minute too early. Chalmers made both free throws.
Chris Douglas-Roberts was immediately sent back to the line for a one-and-one and this time, he missed the front end, playing right into Kansas' hands. Arthur then made a short fadeaway jumper in the paint over Shawn Taggert, Dorsey's backup. This, at the one-minute mark, cut the lead to two.
Now Kansas played straight-up defense as Memphis drained the clock, finally Douglas-Roberts was forced into an erratic falling shot that Kansas rebounded and went on the fast break looking for the tie. Collins drove to the basket, but the ball slipped out of his hands untouched. Antonio Anderson quickly turned it into a Memphis fast break and found Douglas-Roberts at the basket. Arthur saved the play for Kansas by fouling before the agile guard could score and send him to the line once again. Now only 16.8 seconds remained.
The fact that it was a two-shot foul didn't help, as the player known as CD-R seemed to have hit a disc error. Both shots were bricks, but, Taggert for Memphis collected a backbreaking offensive rebound. Kansas now had to foul Derrick Rose with just 10.8 seconds and the lead still 62-60. They then called their final timeout.
Memphis' weakness had finally surfaced. Rose missed his first free throw as well before making the second. Memphis had now missed four of their last five from the line, three of them coming from Douglas-Roberts.
Down three, Kansas now had to inbound and go the length of the floor. Collins took the ball downcourt at a furious pace and stumbled out of control at the three-point line. Somehow, he dropped a pass off for Chalmers before going careening out of bounds like a base runner trying to break up a double play at second base. Chalmers calmly took one dribble to the top of the key, and went up for a fadeaway three with Derrick Rose nearly draped over him. With all Kansas' hopes on the line, the shot pierced the net and the hearts of every Memphis fan. It also spawned the legend of Super Mario Chalmers. The shot tied the game at 63 with just 2.1 left. Dozier would try a half-court heave at the buzzer, but it barely caught the backboard and suddenly the half-buried Jayhawks had forced an incomprehensible overtime session.
Memphis was in even more trouble now because they had to play an overtime without Joey Dorsey, their big man in the middle.
Kansas struck first in the overtime on a Collins steal and a difficult fast-break layup by Brandon Rush, who played high-speed keep-away from two defenders before scoring. Memphis called timeout instantly, as if in full-on panic mode.
This did not help matters much as Kansas got a defensive stop, which led to a pretty alley-oop from Chalmers to Arthur. By now, everything was rolling downhill and sure enough, Kansas opened up a six-point lead one possession later on another easy score, this one from forward Darnell Jackson. Kansas had now come from the depths, answering Memphis previous 16-4 run with an 18-3 stretch of their own.
Douglas-Roberts would finally get Memphis' first field goal of the overtime with just under a minute left, a three that cut the six-point lead in half to keep Memphis in the game. Yet he curiously then decided to deliberately foul Chalmers, who was just too good in this game to miss either shot. This put Kansas up by five and the Tigers never got close again. This would be remembered as the night the Kansas Jayhawks came back from the dead to win the NCAA championship. Chalmers had scored a mere 18 points and yet his impact on the game throughout numerous clutch situations was immeasurable. On top of his heroics in the finale, Super Mario was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
Chalmers now plays for the Miami Heat, where no one, not even teammate and 2006 NBA Finals MVP Dwyane Wade, can say he has ever made a bigger shot.
Final score: Kansas 75, Memphis 68 OT
Other College Hoops Honorable Mentions
- 2/23 Tennessee 66 @ Memphis 62, Tyler Smith jumper ends Memphis' 26-0 start
- NCAA Tourney West Region first round, Western Kentucky 101, Drake 99 OT, Ty Rogers' winning three at the buzzer
Coming soon: Games No. 4 and No. 3
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