March 22, 2008

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Chris Douglas-Roberts' layup sparked a 15-2 run that effectively ended any hopes Texas-Arlington had for a momentous upset, and Memphis cruised to a 87-63 victory in the first round of the South Regional on Friday night.

"The time off, the body-to-body contact that we hadn't done in five days, it showed," Memphis coach John Calipari said. "I think they realize if they do that next game, it's been a heck of a year. It's not going to extend."

Douglas-Roberts led five Tigers in double figures with 23 points, and he also had seven rebounds, four assists and a steal. Derrick Rose and Antonio Anderson added 17 points each for Memphis, which improved to 34-1 with its eighth straight victory.

Next up is eighth-seeded Mississippi State (23-10), which beat Oregon 76-69 earlier Friday night.

"They're unbelievable," Texas-Arlington coach Scott Cross said of Memphis. "They have 10 players--their second five could probably start for a majority of the teams in the NCAA tournament."

Memphis shot about 52 percent from the floor, had seven steals and outrebounded the smaller Texas-Arlington 39-29. They were 9-of-20 from 3-point range, including 2-of-2 by Rose.

"They had to play their guys for 40 minutes," Cross said. "They were playing their top guys, and we gave them everything that we had."

That's exactly how the Tigers wanted it, though. They hadn't played since winning the C-USA tournament last Saturday, and Calipari said the Tigers needed a rough-and-tumble game to get them ready for the rest of the tournament.

"This is the type of game we needed in the first round because this shows how the rest of the tournament is going to be," Douglas-Roberts said. "The next game is going to be even tougher. I'm glad they came out and challenged us, and they really did compete out there."

"It was like pulling teeth a little bit to get our guys going some," Calipari said. "We needed that, though. It took a couple of our guys in the second half to change, to play differently, to play rougher and we kind of spread it out. When I look at these numbers, they're all pretty good."