Before even discussing free throws, there are two things I'd like to get out of the way.

1) It's way too easy to poke fun at Coach Calipari for comments he made earlier in the season regarding his lack of concern about Memphis's poor free-throw shooting. I'm not going to add any additional salt to the wound, even though I once said I would. To quote myself: "Reality is coming, Coach Calipari. It's coming in the form of a 1-point loss when you miss 15 free throws. At this point, I'm almost rooting for it."

It's not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be, but more importantly, criticism of Calipari for poor free throw shooting right now isn't valid, either (we'll get to that in a second).

2) There are a million "if they just did that," or "if he just did this" scenarios in this game, but I firmly, firmly, firmly believe that Kansas won this game, as opposed to Memphis losing it. If Kansas made no spectacular plays, and Memphis blew it on free throw shooting, that would be one thing. But Kansas made spectacular plays, one after the other. They ripped this victory away from Memphis.

That said...

It just sits there on the box score, staring at you. There's no way to make it go away. Memphis, having struggled with their free-throw shooting all year long, missed four of their last five free throws in a game that went into overtime.

Let me say this, though. What people talked about during Memphis's previous 39 games was terrible free-throw shooting from Joey Dorsey (37.8%), Antonio Anderson (57.7%), Andre Allen (43.2%), Willie Kemp (38.3%), and Doneal Mack (39.0%).

Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose were both over 70% on the year (71.1% and 71.4%, respectively).

But those were the guys laying the bricks down the stretch. Douglas-Roberts missed his last three free throws, and Rose missed one of two. So yes, free throw shooting did kill Memphis, but it wasn't the same free throw shooting that people, myself included, harped on all year.

It's not like Calipari had this problem, neglected it, and it cost him. Two players who didn't have that problem, and who had made game-winning free throws before, suddenly couldn't hit anything when the game was on the line.

This wasn't an old infection rearing its head at an inopportune time. It was a brand new infection, from guys who were supposed to be immune.

Prior to that, Memphis had made 11-of-14 from the line, and I was thinking to myself, as such a fantastic game unfolded, that I was glad it wasn't going to be decided on something like poor free-throw shooting. And then, quite suddenly, it became a huge factor.

Related: The Big Dance, C-USA Basketball