Category: Tiger Blue

Senior Day at the Liberty Bowl is always about goodbyes, but today’s pregame ceremony before the Tigers’ Battle for the Bones with UAB had an extra dollop of remorse. With last Monday’s announcement of coach Tommy West’s dismissal, each hug he delivered to his 25 seniors seemed to be a goodbye embrace to the program — and greater football community — he commanded for the last nine years.

• Brett Toney

Had the script held, West would have walked off Rex Dockery Field as a winner, the third Memphis coach to reach the 50-win plateau. Instead, a visiting senior — UAB quarterback Joe Webb — took over and led his Blazers to a 31-21 win and possession of the world’s most famous bronze rack of ribs.

• Consider this ironic twist on the last decade of Tiger football. National footage of any of the 6,000 yards DeAngelo Williams rushed for with Memphis was a gold nugget — and just as rare — for Tiger fans. But when his former coach unleashed a five-minute rant on what is needed to improve the program . . . SportsCenter! Now!

• Tommy West

Those five minutes will live a long time in reflections of West’s time atop the U of M program. What’s regrettable is that his message — a sound one — gets lost in the volume and emotion with which it was delivered. Consider the words minus that volume and emotion (like, say, reading them): “History will repeat itself, folks, if [the administration doesn’t] do something about it. But our fans have to demand that the new guy be given a level playing field. Stobart stood here and he was a bad coach . . . but good enough to beat Southern Cal. Rip became a bad coach . . . but he beat Peyton Manning and Tennessee. At some point, we have to do the things necessary to make this program what we want, or do away with it. It’s too painful, for coaches, players, and people. Every day I’ve been here has been a fist fight.”

Had West chosen to deliver this precise message in an interview format, perhaps sitting down, the content would have been just as powerful for the Memphis community, particularly for its football boosters. And it would not have been picked up by national TV producers aiming to titillate, aggravate, and agitate. A great lesson for parents (and office managers) to pass along: It’s not so much what you say, but how you say it.

There was nothing automatic about tonight’s Opening Night win over the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s favorite Tigers. It may have been a life-changer for rookie head coach Josh Pastner — “I’m only 799 behind Jim Boeheim,” he cracked after the game — but it was no automatic win. With seven scholarship players in his rotation, and only two players you’d classify as “big men,” Pastner will count the wins from his first season in the big chair like a 2008 stock broker counted his coins. None taken for granted, and every last one counts.

After jumping out to a 17-6 lead, the U of M went four minutes without scoring — allowing JSU to close within two — before putting 14 on the board in the next three. Sophomore guard Elliot Williams (making his Tiger debut after a freshman season at Duke) drilled two three-pointers in the spurt, on his way to leading Memphis with 19 points for the game. Jackson State started the second half on an 11-3 run to make things interesting again, only to watch Williams and another Memphis rookie — juco transfer Will Coleman — impose themselves in such a way that the final score did seem to fall in line with recent lid-lifters against the likes of Savannah State, UT-Martin, and Fairfield. A huge disparity in free throws — Memphis made 30 of 48 while JSU hit 7 of 13 — reflected the push-it-to-the-rim offense Pastner is urging out of his undersized team.

• Wesley Witherspoon

“We can’t afford lapses,” said Pastner after the game. “It can’t be 28 minutes, 32 minutes . . . it’s gotta be 40 minutes.” The challenge, though, is maintaining a lapse-free, frenetic pace that can hide the team’s lack of size, with a bench not deep enough for many reinforcements. “It’s going to be a fine line,” added the coach. “Conditioning, while also staying fresh — physically and mentally — with our lack of numbers.”

A few things on my mind as we close in on the start of the 89th season of Tiger basketball (tip-off at 8 pm tonight, FedExForum):

• How will Josh Pastner manage what is essentially a two-man frontcourt? Pierre Henderson-Niles — in a new body, it should be noted — and Will Coleman are bound to get in foul trouble (and often) this season. “Going small” isn’t a bad idea when you can put Willie Kemp, Elliot Williams, Roburt Sallie, and Wesley Witherspoon on the floor together. But when the other team “goes big” and they have to be defended? If I were to track any one variable for the 2009-10 Tigers, it would be the development of Henderson-Niles and Coleman as this team’s backbone.

• Josh Pastner

• Is Willie Kemp ready for a leadership role? He was the starting point guard as a freshman for a team that went 33-4. But playing behind Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans the last two seasons, Kemp found himself clinging to the periphery of John Calipari’s rotation.

Dajuan Wagner. Shawne Williams. Derrick Rose (remember him?). Tyreke Evans.

If John Calipari’s tenure at the U of M is remembered for anything, it will be for the star “one-and-done” players he lured to Memphis from as far away as Philadelphia and Chicago. Among Calipari’s expected stars this year at Kentucky will be John Wall, a player he initially recruited to Memphis, and one certainly bound for the 2010 NBA draft.

Sports Illustrated‘s Michael Rosenberg has a take on the NBA-mandated one-and-done phenomenon.