For the third time in four years, Memphis Men's Basketball made the NCAA Tournament. They have the highest seed since 2009, where John Calipari led the Tigers to their last Sweet Sixteen appearance.
The Big Dance is always a highlight of the sports calender because of all the different stories that each team carries with them. For Memphis, it's all about breaking through into the second weekend of the tournament. What many may not know is the story of the Tigers' first round opponent, Mountain West champs and 12-seeded Colorado State.
To help tell the story of the Rams, The Daily Helmsman reached out to Micheal Hovey, sports editor at The Rocky Mountain Collegian, the student newspaper of Colorado State University.
"We were seeded seventh in our conference. That's a big part of our storyline," said Hovey. They were picked this low in the preseason poll despite making the NCAA Tournament last year in an at-large position.
The underdog story of the Rams was only amplified by rough non-conference performance, going 6-5 and taking brutal losses to UC Riverside in overtime and being blown out by rivals Colorado. At this point, many bracketologists had CSU in the "next four out" area of the bubble if they were even mentioned at all.
As the Rams headed into their conference slate against the always stacked Mountain West, Hovey says that this was the focus for the team. "I can't speak for the players or the coaches themselves, but...for most mid-major schools or for CSU, the goal was to go into the Mountain West conference tournament and perform."
That is exactly what they did. Riding a 10-game win streak to and through the conference tournament behind stellar performances by Nique Clifford, the Rams played their way into the NCAA Tournament.
As for how they match up with Memphis, almost everyone is going with the 12 seed due to Tyrese Hunter's injury. Despite being a two-point underdog according to Vegas, the Tigers could still give CSU trouble down low on both ends of the floor with Dain Dainja and Moussa Cisse.
"We've had some struggles early in the game against both Boise State and Nevada; each of their star players were around 6'9 or 6'10, it was Tyson Degenhart [and] Nick Davidson," said Hovey. In the Mountain West championship game, Degenhart put up 22 points, seven rebounds, two assists and a block for Boise State, meanwhile Davidson also gave the Rams 22 and six boards in the quarterfinal.
They key to a Colorado State victory lies within their execution from beyond the arc and off of Memphis turnovers. In all of the Tigers' out-of-conference losses, Memphis turned the ball over more than their opponents and allowed them to shoot at a 33.3% or better clip from downtown.
For context, the Rams have shot 36.6% from three this season and force 11.2 turnovers per game.
If the Mountain West champs can get the win, it would be their first time reaching the second round since 2013 and put an exclamation mark on an incredible underdog story. For Memphis, a win would put them one step closer to the elusive second weekend. Regardless, something's got to give when the Madness descends upon Seattle.
The Tigers and Rams play on March 21 at 1:00 CST on TBS.
