Four teams seek two spots in quartet

HOUSTON – This is it, Memphis. Your big chance.

To prove you’re not an upset waiting to happen. To make up for losses in the regional final the last two years.

To declare Derrick Rose the best point guard in the land. To show that free throws are for getting into pickup games at the YMCA, not winning NCAA tournament games.

All the top-seeded Tigers have to do is beat second-seeded Texas in the South Regional final today and they’ll be off to the Final Four, forcing everyone to acknowledge that John Calipari’s one-loss team is as good as they keep saying they are.

And if they don’t?

“There’s nothing that would lead me to tell them I’m disappointed,” Calipari said Saturday. “Not even a bad game.”

History won’t be as compassionate.

Memphis has a whopping 102 wins over the last three years. The only team to do better was Kentucky, circa 1996-98 – and those Wildcats had two titles and a runner-up finish to show for it.

In a tournament famous for Cinderellas, the Tigers are hoping to wind up more like the Little Engine that Could – going and going, then finally making perseverance pay off.

“The previous two years, we weren’t ready,” said Chris Douglas-Roberts, the team’s leading scorer. “We didn’t know what the NCAA the game was like, the intensity level, everything.”

Memphis’ experiences include missing 14 straight 3-pointers in a regional final against UCLA two years ago and blowing a five-point lead late in the second half against Ohio State last year.

No wonder when legacy talk comes up, Calipari changes the conversation, bragging about having graduated 15 of 17 seniors and telling stories about the collection of “For Sale” signs plucked from his front yard after rough losses in his early days of building this program.

Still, even he knows the importance of getting over the hump now, with the guys who’ve taken them to the brink, such as big man Joey Dorsey, a senior, and Douglas-Roberts, who is likely to offer his services to the NBA.