Here are my thoughts on the title game, won by Kansas by seven in overtime...

A lot will be made of Memphis's lack of free throw shooting late in the game, and yeah that hurts and that is a tangible statistic and now - 40 games into the season the smug know-it-all talking heads can finally say to Memphis coach John Calipari, "I told you so."

And it also hurts that they didn't foul with a three-point lead and less than 10 seconds to play, though Calipari claims they were instructed to and tried to and just couldn't get it done. I'm not buying it - Derrick Rose clearly was trying to avoid a foul just before Mario Chalmers hit his big three to tie it. For Calipari it must have been d??j?? vu as he replayed that "Barry Goheen game" from all those years ago.

And yes, losing Dorsey to a silly foul for his fifth didn't help matters, either.

And why in the world did Calipari not call a timeout with 10 seconds to play to make sure his guys knew what to do (i.e. foul). And further - once the shot did drop - why did Calipari not use a time-out to set up a play with 2.5 seconds to play?

Those things combined hurt Memphis down the stretch and contributed to their loss...........but they weren't the reason Memphis lost.

Here is the most important reason the Tigers are not the national champions this morning: With four minutes left and after making a run to take a lead the Tigers -- a high octane, free flowing, free spirited offensive team -- decided to try and slow the game down in order to run the clock.

That, to me, was a horrible strategy because Memphis was rolling, playing its aggressive style and had Kansas reeling and more importantly, the Tigers are just not a very good half-court team and they are not good at trying to slow the game down. In slowing down, they began to let the clock roll too long on every possession, the had to settle for awful shots as the clock expired and they enabled Kansas to catch its breath and get back into the game with good possessions at the other end.

Memphis always plays much better when it speeds the game up and the reason it built its lead last night was because it was able to do just that. And the bottom line is if you have a lead against an explosive team like Kansas, you better keep scoring until they have to start fouling because they are talented offensively and they are going to make a run.

I know, I get it - the old adage and the idea is that when you have a lead you want to run clock and shorten the game. That only works, however, if you have a team capable of playing that way and your opponent is not an explosive offensive team. I have seen far too many athletic teams like Memphis blow late leads trying to "run the clock" instead of just continuing to push the action and trying to extend the lead until the other team has to foul.

It was the equivalent of going to the prevent defense in football when your defense has played aggressively and crushed the other team's offense with a constant stream of pressure packages. It really makes no sense to turn off your aggressiveness at the most critical time of the game.

Kansas deserves a lot of credit for winning the game and making the plays down the stretch, but the reality is Memphis lost this one and the Tigers lost it because they didn't do the thing -- push the tempo -- that got them there in the final four minutes of the most important game of the year.