Beyond all the obvious things like defense and depth and experience, the Tigers’ 76-63 victory over Arizona last night showed me something more subtle but incredibly necessary for them to win a national championship: In a high-profile game, Memphis does not have to rely on its guards to get things done offensively.

It’s been proven over and over in the NCAA Tournament that teams with great guards and mediocre post players simply don’t win national titles. You can get to the Final Four, perhaps, but to win six straight games in March and April, you need big people to provide easy points you can count on.

Last year, Florida’s top three big men accounted for 38.5 percent of the team’s points. Here’s how the previous national champions this decade stack up by the same statistical standard:

2006 Florida — 40.2 percent
2005 North Carolina — 47.2 percent
2004 Connecticut — 37.3 percent
2003 Syracuse — 51.2 percent
2002 Maryland — 38.1 percent
2001 Duke — 47.9 percent
2000 Michigan State — 34.5 percent

Admittedly, this is a flawed statistical analysis for many reasons. With Syracuse, for instance, you have to count Carmelo Anthony as a big on that team, even though he is more of a wing. But the point remains, I firmly believe that legitimate national title teams have to get roughly one-third of their points from their big people.

How does Memphis stack up in that regard? Through 11 games, 28.4 percent of the Tigers points have been scored by Robert Dozier, Joey Dorsey and Shawn Taggart. That’s up from 26.9 percent last season by Dozier, Dorsey and Kareem Cooper. It’s also worth nothing that Dozier and Dorsey have each missed two games due to injuries, so the Tiger bigs would probably account for well over 30 percent if they had been healthy.

Though Dorsey is pretty much giving you what he’s going to give you — a consistent 8 to 12 points — Tiger fans have every right to be encouraged by the uptick in production from Dozier (19 points against Georgetown, 18 against Arizona) and Taggart (15 points against Arizona).