A common thing some folks seem to forget about Derrick Rose’s one year at Memphis is that he was not the Tigers’ best player that season. Instead, it was Chris Douglas-Roberts, who doubled as the team’s leading scorer and a consensus First-Team All-American.
Rose settled for Third-Team honors.
Quiet and introverted back then, the 18-year-old Rose joined a Memphis program in advance of the 2007-08 season that was returning four starters and coming off back-to-back Elite Eight appearances. So, for the most part, especially early on, he kinda just tried to fit in and actually posted a single-digit scoring line in three of his first eight games, then did the same in three of his final four games before the start of the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Believe it or not, as crazy as it sounds in hindsight, there was a time when some Memphis fans called into local radio stations to ask if Andre Allen might be a better option at point guard.
But then D-Rose took off.
As the story was once told to me, the Memphis coaching staff eventually made it clear to Rose that the Conference USA schedule the Tigers rolled through was over — and that it was time to stop deferring to his older teammates. They more or less convinced him that his team would only go as far in the NCAA Tournament as he took them. They pleaded with him to push things to another level.
What followed was one of the greatest individual runs in NCAA Tournament history.
Rose was just an amazing force, game after game, while overwhelming big brands with elite point guards. He took down Michigan State (with Drew Neitzel) in the Sweet 16, then Texas (with D.J. Augustin) in the Elite Eight, then UCLA (with Darren Collison and Russell Westbrook) in the Final Four. In the days leading up to that showdown with the Bruins, I called then-UCLA coach Ben Howland, who happened to be tearing through Memphis tape in his office when he answered. I remember…
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