AP Photo/Hal Yeager

Memphis barely maintained its perfect record in a tough win at UAB.

Key Shot

By Dana O'Neil
ESPN.com

With a perfect season, a ridiculous in-conference winning streak and maybe a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament hanging in the balance, John Calipari experienced a strange reaction on the sidelines at Birmingham's Bartow Arena Saturday night.

As UAB refused to back down to Memphis' superior talent, panic surely was the mood of the day across the Tennessee border, where citizens have been waiting for their huge "Rocky Top Showdown" on Feb. 23 between the Tigers and the Volunteers.

Calipari was merely curious.

"There were maybe seven or eight minutes left and I thought, 'This is good. We need this,'" said Calipari by phone late Saturday night. "I needed to find out who I can put in games like this, who's going to make plays, who's going to go south, who's going to have the mind-set to miss a shot and keep going."

The obvious answers came in the forms of Chris Douglas-Roberts and Antonio Anderson. The pair practically played 2-on-5 against UAB, combining for 59 points and 22 made field goals, leaving the rest of the team to the mop-up duty of 20 points and six made shots in top-ranked Memphis' stunning 79-78 win.

The win, secured when Douglas-Roberts sunk a jumper, while being fouled on a spin move and then made the ensuing free throw with seven seconds to play, certainly seems to cement Memphis' appointment with destiny. The Tigers had no real business winning. They trailed by seven with 1:43 to play and missed nine consecutive field goals up to that point. Yet they are now 25-0 and have not lost a Conference USA game in 716 days.

But as March creeps closer, the more pertinent issue isn't who is rescuing Memphis but who Calipari believes is not on board. Once energized by his move out of the starting rotation, Joey Dorsey now seems lost. He had just one point and two rebounds against UAB, this coming after a game after a six-point effort against Houston.

Calipari said he's through offering pep talks to his enigmatic senior and will continue to skip over him on the bench until he believes Dorsey is ready to play.

That isn't the kind of stuff Memphis fans will want to hear, as "The Game" looms. Conventional wisdom holds that the Tigers have really one more major hurdle -- their date with Tennessee -- before completing the perfect regular season.

Calipari said he hasn't watched the Vols except for the few minutes he's caught on television, and he won't scout them until after Memphis' game at Tulane on Wednesday. For a man not paying strict attention, he sure knows a lot.

"They are the most talented team to ever come into our building," Calipari said. "Watching some of what I watched, I'm surprised they weren't No. 1 in the country at some point. That's how good they are."

S-T-R-A-N-G-E

By Kyle Whelliston
ESPN.com

ALBANY, N.Y. -- On a super strange Saturday in the city where the Super Bowl champion Giants train, a man named Manning came off the bench cold with eight seconds remaining, to hit a game-tying, overtime-forcing 3.

Loyola guard Greg Manning (no relation to you know who) ended up with a truly infinite box score line (5 points in 0+ minutes), when his Greyhounds rolled over the stunned Siena Saints 83-67 in overtime on the road in a key Metro Atlantic Conference battle.

But it was a controversial officiating decision directly preceding Manning's heroics -- a mad scramble on the floor with 16 seconds remaining in which Loyola was granted possession and a timeout, which set the scene for a bizarre postgame show.

Before the postgame press conference, Margaret McCaffrey, the wife of Siena head coach Fran, burst into the media room and addressed reporters.

"Do you want a headline?" she shouted. "We got hosed. H-O-S-E-D. Hosed."

Once McCaffrey arrived and stated he'd have no comments about the officiating, his wife interrupted a reporter's question.

"That's enough, Margaret," McCaffrey said. She left the room and the press conference continued.

So, too, continues one of the most fiercely fought MAAC regular-season races in recent memory, with four teams within a single game of No. 1 position. Siena and Rider sit atop the league with 11-4 records, and Niagara and Loyola are one game behind at 10-5. Keep an eye on this conference. The team that survives in this one-bid league will be battle-tested for its first-round NCAA matchup next month.

Key Notes

By Jason McCallum
ESPN Research

• Memphis beat UAB 79-78 on Saturday. It was the fifth time this season that the No. 1 team in the country played a game decided by one possession.

• Niagara's Charron Fisher scored 41 points in the Purple Eagles' 81-75 win over Iona. Fisher scored 45 points in his previous game, a 92-87 win at Loyola (Md.). He is the first Division I player with back-to-back 40-point games since Gonzaga's Adam Morrison scored 41 at San Francisco and 42 against Portland in consecutive games in January 2006.

• Kansas State's Michael Beasley scored 40 points and hauled in 17 rebounds in the Wildcats' 100-63 win over Missouri. It is his second 40-point, 10-rebound effort of the season. Only one other freshman in the last 10 seasons has had a 40-10 game and that was North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough, who had 40 points and 10 rebounds in a home win against Georgia Tech during the 2005-06 season.

• Aside from Beasley, the only player in Division I on Saturday to have at least 30 points and 10 rebounds was Morgan State's Jamar Smith, who had a career-high 34 points and tied a career high with 12 rebounds. Smith has recorded 12 rebounds three times in his career and the Golden Bears have lost all three contests -- including Saturday's 90-89 overtime loss at Florida A&M.

• Lester Hudson of Tennessee-Martin was at it again. The Skyhawks beat Southeast Missouri State 98-85, but Hudson recorded the only triple-double -- 26 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists -- in Division-I on Saturday. It is his second triple-double of the season (and his first was a quadruple-double). He's the third player in Division I to have multiple triple-doubles this season. The other two players are Louisville's Terrence Williams and Tony Lee of Robert Morris (who has recorded his in his last two games).

• Speaking of Terrence Williams, he recorded his 1,000th career point in Louisville's 80-72 win at Providence. He is the 59th player in Louisville history to reach that mark. No other school has as many 1,000-point scorers in its history. The Cardinals entered the day tied with North Carolina with 58 1,000-point scorers each.

• North Carolina State freshman J.J. Hickson grabbed 23 rebounds in the Wolfpack's 71-64 loss to Clemson. His 23 boards are the most ever by an ACC freshman. No ACC player has hauled in that many rebounds since North Carolina's Sean May had 24 in a home win over Duke on March 6, 2005.

• Arizona's Jerryd Bayless scored 31 points in Arizona's 67-66 home loss to Stanford. Bayless has scored 103 points in his last three games combined. The last Arizona player to score a combined 100 points in three consecutive games was Damon Stoudamire in the 1994-95 season.

• Connecticut's Hasheem Thabeet blocked eight shots and grabbed nine rebounds in the Huskies' 74-73 overtime win at South Florida. Underscoring how important his defense and rebounding has been, the Huskies got the victory despite the fact that Thabeet scored just six points.

• There were 33 games decided by one possession on Saturday, and the home teams were 16-17 in those contests.

• Ten ranked teams were on the road against unranked teams on Saturday and nine of them came out victorious. The only ranked team to lose at an unranked opponent was Georgetown, which lost at Syracuse 77-70. It should not come as a surprise, however, as the Orange and the Hoyas have tangled in the state of New York six times in the last five seasons -- and the Orange have won all six meetings. Those games include four contests at the Carrier Dome and two meetings in the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden.