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Tigers 80, East Carolina 53

CREDIT: ECU Athletics / Houston McCullough

The Tigers earned their second straight blowout victory Sunday afternoon at Greenville, North Carolina, easily handling an East Carolina team playing its first game in two weeks. Memphis hit 11 of 25 three-pointers, with seven players draining at least one trey, and had the game in hand (49-18) by halftime. The Tigers improve to 8-5 with the win (4-2 in the American Athletic Conference), while ECU drops to 7-4 (1-4).

ECU Athletics / Houston McCullough

Moussa Cisse

The Pirates were without coach Joe Dooley and suited up only eight scholarship players, the result of Covid testing within the program.

Freshman center Moussa Cisse led the Tigers with 14 points and nine rebounds in only 24 minutes of playing time. Four players off the Memphis bench scored at least eight points: D.J. Jeffries (8), Malcolm Dandridge (8), Damion Baugh (8), and Boogie Ellis (11). DeAndre Williams scored 11 points, pulled down seven rebounds, and handed out four assists.

Memphis held its opponent under 60 points for the fifth straight game. The Pirates shot 30 percent from the field and missed 18 of their 22 attempts from three-point range.

The Tigers will next face SMU . . . twice. The Tigers and Mustangs (8-2) meet Tuesday night at FedExForum, then will conduct a rematch Thursday night in Dallas. The first contest was rescheduled from January 14th after positive Covid tests in the SMU program.

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Tigers 72, Wichita State 52

CREDIT: Memphis Athletics/Joe Murphy

The Tigers found their range from three-point country Thursday night at FedExForum and earned their biggest win of the season over Wichita State. Memphis hit 11 of 18 three-pointers to pull away and cruise to its first victory of 2021 and the 50th win of Penny Hardaway’s three-year career as Tiger coach. Seven Tigers hit a long-distance shot, sophomore Landers Nolley leading the way with four of five trey attempts finding their mark. Nolley led the Tigers with 16 points.
Memphis Athletics/Joe Murphy

Moussa Cisse

The Tigers led by six (25-19) at halftime then expanded the lead with Moussa Cisse‘s best four minutes of the season. The freshman center scored eight points, six of them via slam dunks, to help the Tigers off to an uncharacteristic hot second-half start. When junior guard Alex Lomax drained a three-pointer eight minutes after halftime, the Tiger lead swelled to 16 points (48-32). Lomax scored a season-high 12 points off the Memphis bench and also handed out six assists.

The Shockers shot terribly throughout the game, missing all 12 of their three-point attempts before halftime and hitting only two of 23 for the game. Overall, Wichita State shot 29 percent from the field while the Tigers hit 46 percent of their attempts. Shocker guard Tyson Etienne entered the game averaging 17.9 points and scored only three (missing 11 of 12 field-goal attempts).

Memphis improves to 7-5 with the victory (3-2 in the American Athletic Conference), while Wichita State drops to 8-4 (4-2).

Cisse finished the game with a double-double (12 points and 10 rebounds) and DeAndre Williams scored 10 points for Memphis, his fourth double-figure scoring game in five outings.

The Tigers will next play Sunday afternoon at East Carolina (1-3 in the AAC). Thursday night’s contest was the first of four they’ll play in eight days, making up earlier games postponed by coronavirus testing policy among their opponents. They return to FedExForum Tuesday night to face SMU.

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Tulsa 58, Tigers 57

Which hurts worse: a loss by 40 points or a loss by a single point?

Almost precisely a year after suffering an embarrassing 40-point humiliation at the Reynolds Center in Tulsa, the Tigers suffered a one-point loss to the Golden Hurricane, their second loss in their last three games to the same foe (three other contests having been postponed due to Covid testing among their opponents). Elijah Joiner and Brandon Rachal combined to hit four key free throws in the game’s final three minutes to help Tulsa improve to 8-4 (5-2 in the American Athletic Conference). The Tigers fall to 6-5 with the loss (2-2 in the AAC).

Sophomore guard Lester Quinones hit a pair of late three-pointers that each drew Memphis within two points. But Quinones also committed a turnovers — the Tigers’ 21st of the game — with under a minute to play and Memphis down 58-55. DeAndre Williams scored after pulling down a missed three pointer by Landers Nolley, but it was too little (two points to make the score 58-57) and too late (only three seconds remained on the clock).

The Tigers led by nine points (24-15) in the first half, and by six at the break (32-26). But a pair of runs by Tulsa — one of 10-2, the other 9-0 — tilted the game in the home team’s favor. Joiner led the Golden Hurricane with 16 points and Rachal added 12.

Too many Tigers were ineffective after the three-week break to make a positive impact. D.J. Jeffries fouled out with only five points. Alex Lomax started at point guard but contributed only two points and a single assist in 20 minutes. Reserve guard Boogie Ellis missed all six of his field-goal attempts.

Nolley came off the bench and led Memphis with 13 points. Quinones scored 12, and sophomore center Malcolm Dandridge had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

The Tigers return home for their next game as Wichita State is scheduled to visit FedExForum on Thursday night. It will be the first of four games in eight days for a program eager to catch up on its season, and just as eager to find wins — multiple — to make the new year feel right.

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Who Are These Memphis Tigers?

CREDIT: Joe Murphy

Ten games into a bizarre, rhythm-free basketball season, the Memphis Tigers have raised as many questions as they’ve answered. Here are four, with attempts at defogging the view.

Who is the Tigers’ Alpha?
In Penny Hardaway’s first year as head coach, Jeremiah Martin became only the fifth Tiger to score 700 points in a single season. (Hardaway himself was the second.) Last season, freshman Precious Achiuwa filled the void left by James Wiseman and earned American Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors. But this year? Who is the man? A basketball team with four or five go-to players is a team without a go-to player.
Joe Murphy

Five players have led the Tigers in scoring in at least one game, with sophomores D.J. Jeffries and Landers Nolley each leading in three. Another sophomore, Boogie Ellis, scored 24 points in the Tigers’ opening game — the team’s second highest total of the season — but doesn’t even start. Jeffries may be the most talented player on the roster, and Nolley has ACC credentials (from his season at Virginia Tech). But based on a tiny sample size of three games, DeAndre Williams may end up the face of this team. (The Evansville transfer missed the first seven games awaiting NCAA clearance.) An Alpha must want the ball not just in a game’s closing seconds, but every minute he’s on the floor. Williams appears to have a fire in his belly this program desperately needs.

What does Tiger Nation think of this team?
Related question: Would a FedExForum crowd ever boo a Hardaway-coached team? We won’t find out this winter, not with the Tigers’ home barn virtually empty for pandemic reasons. But looking back at the team’s collapse over the final four minutes against Tulsa on December 21st, it’s not hard to imagine that being an uncomfortable walk off the court for Hardaway and his players if 15,000 fans had paid for a seat to watch. It’s one thing to lose two out of three games in South Dakota. Quite another to cough up a win against a team that utterly embarrassed you (by 40 points) last February.

Judging by social media, Memphis fans are getting restless. The choppy, low-scoring games, the myriad lineups Hardaway incorporates (as he must, still searching for a rotation that won’t cough up games like the one against Tulsa), the feeling a Top-25 ranking is becoming a pipe dream under the watch of a man who has been vocal about top-five aspirations. None of these worries will survive a nice, lengthy winning streak. Five games, maybe six or seven. The day will come when FedExForum is again packed on game night. If Hardaway’s team is going to suffer growing pains, this may be the season for it.

Is there a must-see game remaining on the Tigers’ schedule?
Circle February 14th and March 6th (or 7th) on your calendar. An upset of Houston — currently the AAC’s gold standard — would be a significant notch on Hardaway’s belt. The teams meet in Texas on Valentine’s Day, then in Memphis for the season finale. (The date hasn’t been finalized yet.)

What should expectations be for this team?
This question is related to the structure of the 2021 NCAA tournament, presuming there is one. (If you think you know the format — in the time of coronavirus — take a breath. March is a long way from now.) Will the field be expanded? Will the field be contracted for “bubble play” in a single location? Will conference tournaments be a factor?

It would seem a top-three finish in the AAC would be a reasonable bar for this team to reach. They were picked by the coaches to finish second (behind only Houston) after back-to-back fifth-place finishes in Hardaway’s first two seasons on the bench. The Cougars have separated themselves, rising to fifth in the national rankings, though Tulsa also proved to be thorny for the league favorites. SMU won its first six games before falling to Houston Sunday night. Wichita State? Memphis needs to be better than two or three of these programs, and in year three of the Hardaway era, that’s not a big ask. With a new year upon us, perhaps the Tigers can turn that proverbial corner and make hopes for madness in March a little less questionable.

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Tigers 58, USF 57

CREDIT: U of M Athletics

The Tigers erased a 12-point deficit over the game’s final ten minutes to steal a win from the USF Bulls Tuesday night at FedExForum. Lester Quinones drained a three-pointer from the right corner with just over a minute to play to break a 55-55 tie. When D.J. Jeffries deflected Caleb Murphy’s off-balance attempt in the closing seconds, the Tigers secured their second win in league play to improve to 6-4 overall and 2-1 in the American Athletic Conference.
U of M Athletics

The Bulls’ top scorer, David Collins, put only four points on the board and junior forward Alexis Yetna (11.5 points per game) missed the contest with a lower leg strain. Murphy almost made up for both with 20 points, hitting nine of 18 shots from the field. USF dropped to 5-4 (1-2).

Struggling to find offensive rhythm over the season’s first month, the Tigers incorporated a new offense — “the Lion set” — based on player motion and perimeter passing, with a big man in position for offensive rebounding. Results can be considered mixed, the Tigers having scored only nine more points than they did in their last outing, a loss to Tulsa.

USF erased a 25-23 halftime deficit quickly, with a 12-5 run to open the second half. But a 14-2 Tiger run set the final five minutes up for high drama, even in a virtually empty arena. A Quinones trey put Memphis up 51-48. An Alex Lomax steal led to a Quinones layup and a 55-52 lead with two minutes remaining. A Murphy trey pulled USF within a point (58-57) but it would prove to be the final bucket of the game, even with a Tiger shot-clock violation giving the visitors final possession.

Quinones led the Tigers with 13 points. DeAndre Williams added 12 and Landers Nolley 10. As for the new emphasis on passing, Memphis logged 17 assists on 24 made field goals, though the “flow” of the game would be described as frenetic, at best.

The Tigers will turn the calendar to 2021 facing five of seven January games on the road. They travel to Temple to play the Owls Saturday (tip-off at 11 a.m.). They then face UCF in Orlando (on January 5th) before their next home game (SMU, January 14th).

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Montgomery Bowl: Tigers 25, FAU 10

CREDIT: Julie Bennett/Memphis Athletics

The strangest football season in Tiger history came to a close on a happy note Wednesday night as Memphis beat Florida Atlantic to win its first bowl game since 2014. Senior quarterback Brady White threw three touchdown passes — including the 90th of his Tiger career — to help Memphis finish the season 8-3 and end a five-game bowl losing streak. (The Tigers’ last bowl victory had been in the Miami Beach Bowl, over BYU, six years ago.) The Montgomery Bowl replaced the Fenway Bowl this year only, an adjustment made for the ongoing pandemic. Attendance at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery was limited and social-distance restrictions were in place.
Julie Bennett/Memphis Athletics

Asa Martin

Among the stars for Memphis was senior defensive lineman Joseph Dorceus who entered the game as a fullback late in the second quarter and caught a touchdown pass from White in the front-right corner of the end zone. Asa Martin rushed for 96 yards on 15 carries to lead the Tiger ground attack.

The game was the first rematch in Memphis bowl history, FAU having beaten the Tigers in the 2007 New Orleans Bowl. The Owls finished the season with a record of 5-4.

The Tigers took the lead on a 53-yard field goal by Riley Patterson midway through the first quarter. White found Javon Ivory for a five-yard touchdown to complete the Tigers’ second possession of the game and give Memphis a 10-0 advantage. The Dorceus touchdown and an unconventional two-point conversion made the score 18-0, Memphis, at halftime.

Owls quarterback Nick Tronti threw a three-yard touchdown pass to T.J. Chase to close the Tiger lead to 18-7 five minutes into the third quarter. The Tigers fumbled the ensuing kickoff and FAU took over at the Memphis 24-yard line, but the Owls were held to a field goal. White’s third touchdown pass — to Calvin Austin III — on the Tigers’ next possession completed the game’s scoring.

White finished his 28th win as Tiger quarterback with 284 yards passing. Ivory caught seven passes for 126 yards and Tahj Washington pulled down eight passes for 105.

The Tigers gained a total of 469 yards and held FAU to 290.

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Tulsa 56, Tigers 49

CREDIT: Memphis Athletics/Joe Murphy

Count Tulsa among the programs Penny Hardaway’s Memphis Tigers are chasing.

In a game only an empty FedExForum could love, the Tigers made more turnovers (20) than field goals (17) and coughed up a late lead in falling to the Golden Hurricane 11 months after a 40-point embarrassment in Oklahoma. Landers Nolley gave the Tigers a 44-38 lead with a three-pointer with 4:30 left in the contest, but following a technical foul against Nolley, Tulsa scored 14 of the game’s next 15 points to secure its first win in American Athletic Conference play. (Nolley apparently said the wrong thing to the Tulsa bench after his trey.) Tulsa is now 3-3 on the season (1-1 in the AAC), while Memphis falls to 5-4 (1-1).

Memphis Athletics/Joe Murphy

DeAndre Williams

The Tigers took the lead early in the game on a dynamic dunk by Jayden Hardaway, son of a coach who earlier in the day signed a five-year extension to lead the Memphis program through the 2025-26 season. The Tiger lead extended to eight points (27-19) at halftime, though neither team showed any offensive fluidity.

A Darien Jackson field goal gave Tulsa a 45-44 lead, the midway point of that late 14-1 run that decided the game for the defending AAC champions. (Tulsa shared the 2019-20 regular season title with Cincinnati and Houston.) Jackson added two more layups in the final minute and finished with nine points off the Hurricane bench. Austin Richie led the visitors with 14 points.

Junior transfer DeAndre Williams made his first start as a Tiger and led Memphis with 13 points. No teammate scored as many as 10. Williams also pulled down nine rebounds. The Tigers made only 17 of 53 field-goal attempts.

The Tigers return to FedExForum for their next game on December 29th when USF comes to town. No tickets will be sold for the foreseeable future due to coronavirus restrictions.

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Three Thoughts on Tiger Football

CREDIT: Joe Murphy

• The Memphis Tigers need to win a bowl game, and the Montgomery Bowl will have to do. The Tigers finished 2019 by playing in the 84th Cotton Bowl, one of college football’s prestigious “New Year’s Six” events, an unprecedented stage for the Memphis program (and Ryan Silverfield’s debut as head coach). Almost precisely a year later, they’ll finish 2020 in the very first — and maybe last — Montgomery Bowl, an event replacing something called the Fenway Bowl for reasons to do with the ongoing pandemic. After facing one of the sport’s blue bloods (Penn State) in last year’s Cotton Bowl, Memphis will oppose a team whose initials — FAU — roll off the tongue of only the most devoted college football fans. (Florida Atlantic University finished second in the East Division of Conference USA, the Tigers’ old stomping grounds.)
Joe Murphy

Ryan Silverfield and Brady White embrace on Senior Day.

But the site and opponent really don’t matter. As well as the Tigers have played over the last seven seasons, they are riding a five-game losing streak in bowl games. They’ve come close, losing by a point (to Iowa State) in the 2017 Liberty Bowl and by three points (to Wake Forest) in the 2018 Birmingham Bowl. Two Tigers (Anthony Miller and Darrell Henderson) have reached All-America status without enjoying a bowl-game victory. It would be nice to see record-setting quarterback Brady White throw a 90th career touchdown pass (he needs three) and finish his career with a big, shiny trophy. Even if it’s a trophy no team will ever raise again.


• Over the first century of Memphis Tiger football, exactly one receiver topped 1,000 yards in a season (Isaac Bruce in 1993). A Memphis receiver has now topped 1,000 yards in each of the last five seasons. And junior speed demon Calvin Austin III did so this fall in just 10 games. It’s not such a surprise when you consider the philosophy transformation that arrived with coach Justin Fuente in 2012. Recruit with speed a priority. Create space with beyond-conventional play-calling. Find quarterbacks unafraid of throwing the ball down field. It makes for exciting Saturdays, gets Memphis on national highlight shows, and attracts precisely the kind of players who want to play fast and deep. (They all do.) The Tigers have a program-record seven straight winning seasons. Again, not such a surprise.

• It’s staggering to consider the directions Memphis and Tennessee have taken since the programs last played. Three years after Memphis played on home turf in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, the Tennessee Volunteers — owners of a 3-7 record — will appear in the event for the first time since 1986. The Tigers and Vols last met in 2010, a 50-14 victory for UT at the Liberty Bowl. Memphis has still won only one game (out of 23) against the state’s most decorated program. But check out the win totals over the last seven years for Tennessee: 7, 9, 9, 4, 5, 8, 3. And the Memphis win totals over the same period: 10, 9, 8, 10, 8, 12, 7. If football in the state of Tennessee were a see-saw, it has swung left (west) with a thud. And it’s not budging. The Vols are not on a future Memphis schedule, meaning the current drought between meetings — the longest since the programs first met in 1969 — will continue. And this is a shame for football in the Mid-South. That 1996 upset of Peyton Manning and friends lives on in the memory of Tiger fans. It would be nice to see these programs play with Memphis as the favorite.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Tennessee announced Monday afternoon that it will not play in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl due to Covid-positive tests within the program.

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Memphis Topples Houston, 30-27

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

It wasn’t as easy as it appeared it was going to be, but the Memphis Tigers eked out a last-second 30-27 win over the Houston Cougars at the Liberty Bowl on Saturday.

After building a 27-6 lead, Memphis appeared to have the game well in hand at the end of the third quarter. Then the Tiger defense surrendered three consecutive touchdowns in the fourth quarter, with Houston tying the game at 27 on an 18-yard pass from Clayton Tune to Bryson Smith with 28 seconds left.  Larry Kuzniewski

Brady White

Undaunted, Memphis quarterback Brady White quickly drove the Tigers 46 yards and got them into field-goal range. Kicker Riley Patterson nailed a 47-yarder as time expired, giving Memphis a second-straight undefeated home season at the Liberty Bowl.

White became the Tigers’ all-time leading passer in his final home game, and receiver Calvin Austin passed the 1,000-yard mark for the season, with seven catches totaling 74 yards, becoming just the fourth Memphis receiver ever to reach that mark.

With the win, the Tigers defeated Houston (3-4) for the fifth straight season, and finished the year with a 7-3 record, pending a likely bowl game invite. 

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Tigers 94, Mississippi Valley State 57

CREDIT: Joe Murphy

The Tigers went through the right kind of motions Tuesday night in throttling Mississippi Valley State at FedExForum. Sophomore forward D.J. Jeffries led Memphis scorers with 21 points as the Tigers improved to 4-2, again in front of a sparse crowd due to coronavirus restrictions. Valley fell to 0-6 with the loss.
Joe Murphy

D.J. Jeffries

The Delta Devils actually led, 8-7, before the Tigers went on a 14-2 run to take control eight minutes into the contest. The lead was 26 points (55-29) at halftime and swelled beyond 30 seven minutes into the second half.

Freshman center Moussa Cisse scored 14 points and pulled down 13 rebounds for the Tigers. Sophomore guard Lester Quinones also had a double-double, with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Boogie Ellis scored 18 points off the Tiger bench and Malcolm Dandridge added 10.

Tiger swingman Landers Nolley took a hard fall in the first half and was limited to nine minutes of playing time.

Treylan Smith led the Delta Devils with 19 points.

The Tigers play their next game Saturday in Atlanta when they face Auburn at State Farm Arena. Coached by old rival Bruce Pearl, Auburn is the only “Power Five” program on the Memphis schedule. American Athletic Conference play starts on December 16th when the Tigers visit Tulane.

“[Auburn] is a game we have been working on for almost a month now,” said Quinones after the win. “The past few games we’ve had are just leading into this game with Auburn. We’re excited and ready.”