BREAKING: THE NBA'S FAVORITE FINAL FOUR TEAM

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The Tigers are charming their way into many a pro baller's heart.

There were a ton of celeb sightings at the various regionals—the elder Bush rooting for Texas, John Smoltz and Steve Mariucci lending support to buddy Tom Izzo's Michigan State team, both LeBron and Rip Hamilton showing up for Davidson—but no Final Four team boasts the NBA fan base that Memphis does.

Sure, North Carolina may have more actual alums playing in the League but for the pros that bypassed college, U of M is the de facto alma mater. T-Mac showed in Texas' territory to root on little brother Chance at the end of the Memphis bench. Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire and LeBron James both professed their Tiger love in our last issue. Sometimes it feels like the NBA is burning up Memphis players' cell phones worse than Kelvin Sampson during recruiting period.

G Antonio Anderson:
"They like to play our style. Amare was going to come here, Chris (Douglas-Roberts) and Derrick (Rose) are good friends with LeBron. Everyone's been doubting us all year so those guys call and let us know that they believe in us. They like our style because they don't want to see guys running plays and they like that we can go one-on-one."

G Derrick Rose:
"Jeff Robinson knows Baron Davis and Al Harrington because he went to the same high school as Al and Baron. He knows Andrew Bynum too because he's from New Jersey. They talk all the time. Those guys are always asking about us. Everyone on this team has friends in the NBA."

F Joey Dorsey:
"Not just NBA, we've got rappers too. Irv Gotti loves us. It's our style of play and where we come from. We've all got bad backgrounds and I think they identify with that. Carmelo (Anthony) and Rudy (Gay), I talked to both of them before we played and they just told me to play hard, put them on my back and just get the win."

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