March Madness 2013: Memphis Barely Escapes St. Mary’s 54-52

One of the best games so far on Thursday has been between the Saint Mary’s Gaels and the Memphis Tigers and that’s not just because the other games have been blowouts. Both teams are seed pretty far apart, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell if you had watched the game as both teams battled it out to the very end.

Saint Mary’s had a very interesting trip to the showdown with Memphis. After hearing that they would be playing in the “first round” play-in game, the Gaels  rushed to the airport only to find that there wasn’t a crew available to take them to their matchup ahead of schedule. So the Gaels had to wait until Monday to fly out to prepare and play on Tuesday, fly again and practice on Wednesday and then play Memphis on Thursday.

And you thought your travel schedule was hectic.

Still, despite all the inconveniences the Gaels managed to win on Tuesday and then battle the Tigers hard on Thursday with very little rest. It wasn’t an offensive shootout, but you really wouldn’t be able to tell that the Gaels had just come off such a whirlwind based on their performance. But it ultimately wasn’t enough to overcome the Tigers, even though the game managed to be the first of the day to actually come down to the wire.

The game ultimately came down to free throws, and St. Mary’s choked when it counted the most. The Gaels missed a crucial free throw near the end of the game that ended up being a massive lost point. Despite that, St. Mary’s refused to quit, and pulled within a two points with under 15-seconds left in the game. Still, while they are heading home after the second round, after the journey they’ve been on it’s really hard to call this one a loss for a team that has been through so much in a short amount of time but still managed to sink their teeth into a nail biter of a game.

Memphis tried to pull away in the last few minutes of the game, not unlike the way they did against Southern Mississippi in the Conference USA title game this past weekend. In that game, Memphis dragged their feet the whole game, allowed Southern Mississippi to get back in the game but pulled away at the end when it counted most.

The same story was told on Thursday when Memphis was held under 50 points for over 48 minutes despite holding a strong lead at halftime. But this time around the end result to Memphis’ closing statement was a lot closer than before, which means their time in the tournament may be limited.

The question now is how long can Memphis last playing this kind of basketball? They’ve gotten very lucky twice so far in beating Southern Mississippi and now Saint Mary’s, but Michigan State is a far better team than both of the Tigers previous opponents combined. They’ve escaped by the skin of their teeth once, but that’s not how you win this early on in the madness.