South Carolina head coach Dave Odom has been in this position before. His team just hasn’t.
Odom, in his second year with South Carolina, won the NIT Championship as head coach of Wake Forest two years ago. Odom’s Gamecocks, though, have never been past a quarterfinal round of any national tournament.
Memphis, on the other hand, has some experience in the NIT championship game — it just came in 1957, when the Tigers lost to Bradley, 84-83, in the finals.
The Tigers (26-9), however, did make the semifinals of last year’s NIT tournament in Madison Square Garden, and figure to lean on that experience when they play the Gamecocks for the NIT title tonight at 8 on ESPN.
“We have a couple breakdown guys that can get it on their own and we didn’t have that a year ago,” Memphis head coach John Calipari said of the difference between last year’s third-place team and this year’s squad. “We had to throw the ball into the post every time. That’s what our offense was.
“Now we can do that, but we can also give it to somebody like Antonio (Burks) and just go get a lay-up. Or we can give it to Dajuan Wagner to just go and create a shot. We’re more of a threat because of that.”
Wagner scored a career-high 32 against Temple Tuesday night, pushing Memphis into tonight’s championship game.
South Carolina (22-14) was an upset winner over Syracuse Tuesday night. Aaron Lucas led the Gamecocks with a season-high 20 points while big man Tony Kitchings and Jamel Bradley scored 13 apiece.
South Carolina also showed its ability to hit from long range in that game, draining 8-of-16 from behind the three-point line.
A win would give Memphis its first-ever national tournament postseason win.
