Each day for the rest of this week, we’ll be previewing one of this year’s Final Four participants, little gunners that they are. oops, we’re about to drop something. What? Knowledge. (That’s deep, but true.) But since we’re babbling idiots, we found another blogger who knows a lot more about the team than us. Yesterday we handled UNC; today – the Memphis Tigers, with the help of Sadie from Go Memphis Tigers.

You know what’s delicious with crow? Barbecue sauce, and lots of it. Strong on spice, just the right amount of sugar and rich in flavor – anything that kill the awful taste of being wrong.

Anything to make the pain go down more easily.

Sufficit to say, we were wrong about the Tigers; we thought a conference season’s worth of weak opponents would leave them ill-prepared for the tournament, but, we suppose that’s the beauty of the tournament. After a close call against Mississippi State in the second round, they’ve breezed their way to the Final Four.

For a much more informed view on the Tigers as we get ready for Saturday, Sadie was kind enough to provide some expert biased opinion. Her responses to our questions come after the jump.

Were you surprised by the margins of Memphis’ victories in the last two rounds? It seemed like after the Mississippi State game, the Tigers played with a chip on their shoulder that they haven’t had all season.

No. I was present at those Regional games in Houston, and while I was certainly pleased with the way they played, I wasn’t truly surprised. I was relieved, though, following their less than inspired performances in the first two rounds. Call me a homer (trust me, I deserve it), but I really believe that the Tigers can beat anyone when they play their best ball. It just so happens that they played their best those two days.

And they definitely have a chip on their shoulder, and at least partially rightly so. Calipari may like to play up the “us against the world” idea, but it’s clearly true that very few “experts” thought the Tigers would make it that far. Several picked us to lose to Mississippi State, even more to Michigan State, and nearly EVERYONE picked Texas over the Tigers. They’re playing like they have something to prove because they do.

All week, mostly because it’s an easy story, the media has said that making the Final Four validates the job that John Calipari has done since coming to Memphis. Do the fans actually feel this way? Did he need to make a Final Four for you to believe that Memphis basketball was back?

Yes, I think most fans probably do feel that way. If they hadn’t made the Final Four, most fans would have felt like the team didn’t live up to their potential this year, especially considering the Tigers have been ranked no lower than #3 since the preseason. The Final Four was where we thought this team could go.

However, I don’t think Cal would have been run out of town on a rail if they hadn’t made it, it just would have been a disappointing finish. After two years in the Elite Eight, the Final Four was generally seen as the next step, and to not take that step would have stung. On the other hand, it’s been 23 years since the Tigers have been to the Final Four, it’s not like we’ve gone every year for decades. It still felt just a little like a dream when I watched them cutting down nets in Houston on Sunday afternoon.

Was there a point somewhere in the season where you genuinely started to believe this team could win the title?

Well, I did make hotel reservations for San Antonio back in October. But that’s just my ridiculous optimism, because I tend to think every year is THE year (even though THE year hasn’t happened in 23 years). But when it moved past optimism to true belief – I would have to say it was over the course of a few games in December (Georgetown and Arizona). By the first of the year I was starting to really believe it.

On the offensive side of the ball, we think Memphis and UCLA are pretty evenly matched, especially at the guards. What do you think Memphis needs to do to create scoring opportunities for Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose?

The key is to balance the offense – when Robert Dozier is scoring, Joey’s getting offensive rebounds, and Antonio Anderson is hitting threes, it makes it a lot easier for CDR and Rose to get those opportunities. That’s pretty obvious, of course, and really a lot of it has to do with the guys themselves: are they calm, relaxed, focused? They beat themselves more often than they are beaten.

On the defensive side of the ball, though, we see some pretty distinct mismatches down low. Do you think Joey Dorsey can guard Kevin Love (and, importantly, keep him away from the offensive glass) all game? If not, what will the Tigers need to do to compensate?

Yes, I think Joey can. He’s got a big point to prove, and I can guarantee you that he won’t be calling Love out pre-game with talk of David & Goliath. After his poor performance against Greg Oden last year, Joey is ready to show what he can do on a big stage. But, he’ll need help and I think he’ll get it. Robert Dozier is underrated defensively and Shawn Taggert has been stepping up, especially against Texas. Also, Andre Allen is a bulldog and Antonio Anderson is not given nearly enough credit for the defensive spark he provides.

Fill in the blank – If the players are relaxed and having fun in the first half, I’ll be confident that Memphis is going to beat UCLA.

Fill in the blank – If Joey Dorsey is frustrated and unfocused in the first half, I’ll be extremely worried.

Final question so you can have a little fun – what would you say to the folks who downgraded Memphis for being in C-USA all season – you know, folks like us? (We’re idiots, by the way.)

I’d say… thanks for planting that very big chip on the Tigers’ shoulders! I’d also say that it hasn’t stopped just because we’re in the Final Four. There’s still a perception that we don’t belong there, despite the way we dismantled Michigan State and Texas. For example, Joe Gergen, from Newsday wrote, “If we were talking families here, the first three would be the Rockefellers, the Carnegies and the Stanfords; Memphis would be the Clampetts.”

And I can’t respond any more fittingly than Geoff Calkins, a writer for Memphis’ newspaper, The Commercial Appeal:

“A beagle won the Westminster dog show. A former stripper won the Oscar for best original screenplay.

Who says a basketball team from Memphis can’t win the NCAA championship?

And when it happens, really, no need for the rest of you to apologize.

In the words of Jed Clampett: ‘I reckon you done what you done because you didn’t know we was who we was.’”

Truer words have never been spoken.