NCAA Final Four Notebook

By Matt Santillo

SAN ANTONIO (Ticker) -- The national championship game on Monday is going to be full of emotion for Memphis' Joey Dorsey. The lone senior starter for the Tigers, Dorsey will wrap up his collegiate career win or lose. "It will be like Senior Day, very emotional," Dorsey said. It will culminate an up-and-down four years at Memphis for the 6-9 Dorsey, who will end up as Conference USA's leader in rebounds and, if he can score nine points in the title game, will be one of four players in school history with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. Despite the impressive stats, Dorsey has been considered a bit of an enigma while with the Tigers. A hulking player, the forward has lacked focus at times, failing to take advantage of his tremendous physical gifts against inferior players or not showing up in big games. "I get on him," Memphis coach John Calipari said. "The reason (that) I get on him is because I know how good he is. I've seen a big block sometimes three times in a game. I've seen him dunk with his head on the rim. But I've also seen him - we throw the lob and he's not ready, he fumbles it out of bounds. He did that a couple of times. I know how good he is." Dorsey has also been plagued by maturity issues in the past, infamously shooting off his mouth prior to last year's South Regional final in which he called Ohio State's Greg Oden "overrated." Dorsey also claimed that he would grab 20 rebounds, but instead failed to score and had more fouls (4) than boards (3) as Oden and the Buckeyes went on to the Final Four. This season, Dorsey has shown that he has done some growing up, being happy to just fill his role and go along for the ride. Although he failed to score in Saturday's 78-63 win over UCLA, Dorsey was all smiles at the postgame press conference, content in that he grabbed 15 rebounds and posted two big blocks. Without him rocking the boat, Dorsey's teammates have made it a point to declare that they are going to play Monday's game with the intent on sending out their senior on a high note. "Winning for Joey would mean so much," Tigers guard Chris Douglas-Roberts said. "We all know everything he has been through and that he was with this program before it was really anything. This team wasn't very good before my '05 class came in. I will probably be more happy for Joey when we win than he will be for himself." "My teammates told me that this is for (me), go out, rebound and we will take care of the rest," Dorsey said. The old Dorsey would not have relied so much on his friends.

NEW RIVALRY? Although Monday's title game will be Kansas' first matchup with Memphis since the 1980s, the two schools have been foes in the more recent past. According to both Jayhawks coach Bill Self and the Tigers' Calipari, Kansas and Memphis are very frequent recruiting rivals, even clashing for some of the top talent that will bring one of the two schools a national crown Monday. Self made a push for both Douglas-Roberts and freshman star Derrick Rose, failing to sign either of them, but he made it to the Final Four in his fifth season regardless. "Well, I feel like I know 'em pretty well since I recruited 'em both, you know, couldn't get either one of them," Self said. "But, we went up to Cass Tech, I believe it was in Detroit, I believe his (Douglas-Roberts') junior year, if I'm not mistaken, and coach (Danny) Manning and myself went up there. We went up there and gave our pitch. Obviously he wasn't very impressed or Cal (Calipari) did a much better job selling it than we did." According to Calipari, it is a common occurrence for Memphis to battle with Kansas in terms of players. "We probably recruit the same type of kids and the same players," Calipari said. "(We) recruit more against Kansas than against anybody else."

NO OBSTRUCTED VIEW THIS TIME: The last time Kansas won a national championship, Self was in attendance. Working as an assistant with his alma mater Oklahoma State at the time, Self was at Kemper Arena in Kansas City in 1988 when Danny Manning led the Jayhawks to a thrilling upset over rival Oklahoma. What does Self remember about that night 20 years ago? "That my seats were really bad and they were at the top of the building," he said. Odds are very good that Self will have a much better vantage point when Kansas attempts to find a way to slow down Memphis' dynamic duo of Douglas-Roberts and Rose and capture its third national title.