No. 1 vs. No. 2, Saturday night, less than six minutes remaining, tight game … and Dick Vitale went into a shtick coma. (We were out boozing with friends and didn’t take copious notes, but we certainly remember a below average performance.)

Down the stretch was vintage Vitale – chock full of generalized, surface observations, offered up with his usual heaping of verve and gusto. You could have muted the game and done your own effective commentary. Earlier today, radio guys Mike & the Mad Dog spent about 10 minutes killing Vitale for how little he talked about the actual game down the stretch, but instead chose to focus on: The passion of college basketball! South Carolina is a sleeper! Priscilla Presley! Eight teams are in the mix for a No. 1 seed! They also added an interesting tidbit – CBS uses ESPN guys like Jay Bilas and others for March Madness … but the network wants nothing to do with Vitale because the Clown Prince of College Basketball is short on astute observations and long on dimestore opinions.

Why wasn’t Vitale hammering John Calipari, who ran nothing resembling an offense over the final six minutes? Basically, Memphis handed the ball to freshman Derrick Rose and let him go to work. Sure, he was effective, but when the Tigers didn’t get him the ball in the final minute, Antonio Anderson forced a leaning brick from the foul line with the game on the line. If Cal gets all the props for building a monster in a meek conference, surely he must face some criticism here, right?

We were all duped (well, not everyone). Calipari, once again, has a team of run and jump athletes who can’t shoot free throws or effectively run a half-court offense. Tennessee is eerily similar – except it shoots free throws well and is much more active on the glass (or was Saturday night).

As much as we’d like to hammer Vitale for a mediocre performance, we’ve got to lean Calipari here. Another fantastic choke job for one of the game’s best cheaters.

Tennessee 66, Memphis 62 (Bruce Ball Blog)