Looking for Their Real Stripes

Who are the Memphis Tigers? Apparently, the answer is not so simple.

Sure, you know they’re the Conference USA champions, the top-seeded team in the Oakland Regional and a major obstacle for UCLA or any other team hoping to reach the Final Four.

But if every team has an identity, after two games and one contradictory interview session in Dallas, I still can’t tell you who the Tigers are.

“We’ve just got to make the game hard for the other team,” Memphis Coach John Calipari said. “That’s all. That’s what we are.”

They’re tall, talented and two-deep everywhere. On a day when Dallas was tormented by torrential rain, flash floods and thunder so loud you could hear it inside American Airlines Arena, it was only appropriate that this Noah’s Ark-ready team beat Bucknell, 72-56.

The Tigers have a pair of lanky swingmen in Rodney Carney and Chris Douglas-Roberts.

They have a pair of small, talkative point guards in Darius Washington and Andre Allen.

They have a pair of bulky big men in Joey Dorsey and Kareem Cooper.

Where’s the weakness? Well, there are four freshmen, four sophomores and only one senior among the nine players who average double-digit minutes. Carney is the senior, and he can get a little too loose out there.

“We’re inexperienced, folks,” Calipari said.

So, yes, sometimes they’ll throw the ball away, or not box out enough -- Bucknell had a surprising 11 offensive rebounds Sunday.

And they have yet to show they can pull out the squeaker, having lost the NIT Season Tip-Off championship game to Duke by three points in their only game decided by less than five points this season.

Bucknell Coach Pat Flannery’s one lament Sunday was that his Bison couldn’t get closer than nine points in the second half to “see who was going to make plays for them. We just couldn’t knock one down to get it to that point.”

The reason Bucknell couldn’t close the gap was because of Memphis’ long, quick defenders. The Bison kept taking bad shots early in the clock because it didn’t think it could get anything better later on.

“Our half-court defense is still our staple,” Calipari said. “That’s who we are.”

OK, so they’re not the team that’s tough to play against. They’re the team with the half-court defense.

There’s one label that irks Calipari, one he insists they most definitely are not.

“For some reason, everybody thinks we’re a pressing, three-point shooting team,” he said. “I don’t know where that came from. Everybody [says] well, they shoot too many threes. I’m like, ‘Have you watched us play?’ ” But then again, those guys on those teams, they’ve got to say something. So they just say it. B-a-a-a-a-h. Say it. But that’s not what we are. We’re a balanced, skilled team. Pass, catch and shoot.”

OK, so they’re not the team that’s tough to play against or the team with the half-court defense. They’re a skilled, balanced team.

Oh, and versatile. Just ask Allen, the backup point guard.

“We can play with anybody in the country,” he said. “If you want to grind it out, we can play grind-it-out ball. You want to play fast, we can get up and down.”

In case you were wondering, Calipari is the coach who guided the Marcus Camby-led Massachusetts Minutemen to the Final Four in 1996. We know this because someone asks about it or he brings it up every 10 minutes.

He made the comparison when asked what he likes about this Memphis team.

“I like that they get along,” Calipari said. “I told them, ‘You’ll never be on another team like it. You better enjoy.’

“I had one other team this way. My ’96 team wanted it as bad for themselves as I wanted it for them. These guys wanted it as bad for themselves as I’ve wanted it for them. They’re taking me for a ride.”

That’s a little false modesty, making it sound as if Calipari were strapped into the child safety seat. He recruited winners instead of scorers, going after players who were members of state high school championship squads. And he has them playing defense, sharing the ball and sharing playing time.

“I was very impressed with the way they pass the basketball, very impressed with the way they look for each other,” Flannery said.

Allen saw how hot teammate Antonio Anderson was during warmups and told him that during the game, “If you don’t shoot the ball, we’re going to have to fight in the locker room.”

Imagine that, a player willing to go to blows over a teammate’s lack of shots.

“That’s us,” Carney said. “We drive to the hole, kick it, try to find the open man. We’re not a selfish team at all.”

The unselfish team? I thought they were the tough-to-play-against team. Or the half-court defense team. Or the skilled, balanced team.

Ah, never mind. They’re the good team. The best team, top to bottom, in the bracket.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande go to latimes.com/adandeblog.