Memphis basketball – Memphis Flyer

For the first time in more than five weeks, the Memphis Tigers took the floor for a game that wouldn’t be analyzed primarily for who is not playing. A certain star freshman was absent for an eighth straight contest, but we now know James Wiseman is actually no longer a star freshman with the Memphis Tigers. With Wiseman’s departure from the program — announced via Instagram Thursday — the Tigers who beat Jackson State Saturday afternoon are largely the players Memphis will ride in hopes of ending a five-year NCAA tournament drought. (The notable exception is Lester Quinones, the guard who missed his fifth game Saturday as he recovers from a broken right hand.)

Larry Kuzniewski

Precious Achiuwa

Led by Precious Achiuwa (20 points and nine rebounds in 26 minutes), the 11th-ranked Tigers easily handled JSU for their eighth straight win and improved to 10-1 for the season. It’s the best start to a season for Memphis since Derrick Rose and friends won their first 26 games on their way to the 2008 Final Four. The winning streak is the program’s longest since an 18-game run in the 2012-13 season (the Tigers’ last in Conference USA).

Tiger coach Penny Hardaway acknowledged that the Wiseman saga has been a shock to his system, but isn’t all that surprised by his team’s record or ranking. “I’m not surprised because of how hard we work,” he said following the win. “But it’s incredible. This team deserves a lot of credit for everything we’ve gone through, to be on this winning streak and 10-1.”

The Tigers played sloppily in their first home game since December 3rd, committing 18 turnovers before halftime. But they also led throughout the game’s forty minutes, putting Jackson State in a 16-point hole (33-17) merely 13 minutes into the game. Isaiah Maurice played like a man wanting to absorb some minutes Wiseman’s departure will create. The Tigers’ lone senior scored six points, pulled down six rebounds, and blocked four shots in 16 minutes of action. Malcolm Dandridge also appears to be in the mix for more playing time. The freshman is still finding game form after left-knee surgery, but scored seven points and grabbed five rebounds in 19 minutes off the bench.

D.J. Jeffries scored 13 points for Memphis, his team-leading ninth game this season with at least 10. Tristan Jarrett led JSU (3-9) with 20 points.

“It takes a lot of discipline to play the same way against every team,” said Achiuwa, acknowledging the Tigers’ struggles to protect the ball, particularly in the first half. “We gotta stay locked in, no matter who we play.”

“I don’t feel we get the respect we deserve,” added Jeffries, “but that’s good. It means we have something to prove.”

Hardaway welcomes another week-long break for his team, a chance to collect some proverbial breath before conference play. (The Tigers host New Orleans on December 28th, then league-rival Tulane visits FedExForum on December 30th.) But he’s grateful for the team he now knows is his, and on the cusp of the nation’s Top 10. “I’m proud of the team,” he emphasized. “It’s something we imagined. To be where we are right now, I’m very proud of that. Just to get [another] win is a blessing.”

The year 2017 will forever be a significant year in Memphis history for a pair of statues that came down. Let’s make 2018 (or at least 2019) a significant year for a statue we erect.

I’ve been campaigning for years now to see Larry Finch in bronze, a larger-than-life Memphian we lost too soon. (Finch died in 2011 at age 60 after being confined to a wheelchair for almost a decade following a stroke.) After years of uncomfortable and divisive debate about statues that represent a form of history to some and racial oppression to most, let’s make Memphis better by saluting one of this city’s great unifiers with the ultimate, perpetual tribute.

Larry Finch’s credentials for such an honor? After starring at Melrose High School, Finch chose to play basketball for his hometown college, then known as Memphis State University. This was not a blue-chip recruit choosing to join a winner. Memphis State finished the 1968-69 season (Finch’s senior year at Melrose) 6-19, the previous season 8-17. But Finch and his Melrose running mate, Ronnie Robinson, felt they could transform a program. And with the arrival of coach Gene Bartow for Finch’s sophomore season — his first playing for the varsity, as freshmen were not then eligible to play — a program was indeed transformed.

Larry Finch

Having gone 6-20 without Finch in 1969-70, the Tigers finished 18-8 in 1970-71, made the NIT with a 21-7 record in 1971-72, then secured the status of legends by reaching the 1973 NCAA championship game. Finch finished his playing career with a school-record of 1,869 points. The only three men currently above him on the Tiger chart needed four years to pass Finch’s total. His career scoring average of 22.3 points per game remains a Memphis record, unlikely ever to be broken.

Finch was an assistant coach for the next Tiger team to reach the Final Four (1984-85), then coached his alma mater for 11 years, guiding the likes of Elliot Perry, Penny Hardaway, and Lorenzen Wright. He’s one of only two men to win 200 games at the Tiger helm and fell one victory short of a third Final Four in 1992.

Those are Finch’s credentials as a basketball player and coach. But he deserves a statue as much for the when of his life as the what. Finch had just completed his junior season in high school when Martin Luther King was killed at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. The ensuing years were ugly, divisive, and painful, TIME magazine going so far as to label Memphis “a decaying Mississippi River town.” Integration efforts felt forced, perhaps because they were. School busing proved to be a disastrous experiment.

Amid all the social discomfort, Larry Finch thrived. And a town without a major-league sports franchise found a team around which to rally, as one. Finch was as Memphis as the Mississippi River, and the life he brought this region is precisely the opposite of decaying.

How do we get Finch’s statue built? And where does it go? The plaza at FedExForum would be a great spot, though I’ve heard nonsensical protests: “Finch never played for the Grizzlies. He never played in FedExForum.” A statue of Cool Papa Bell stands today in front of Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and Bell never played in the major leagues, let alone for the Cardinals. Might the Grizzlies step up and spearhead this movement? They’d sell more tickets, not fewer, with a statue of Larry Finch in the background of fans’ pictures. (If not the FedExForum plaza, put the statue in front of the new Laurie-Walton Family Basketball Center, the palatial training facility for the program on the Park Avenue campus.)

As for how . . . contact your favorite Memphis booster. This remains a small town. Anyone remotely close to the Tiger program knows a booster with deep pockets. Surely enough could be collected to pay the right sculptor to bring Larry Finch (and his magnificent jump shot) to life once more. The handsome statue of blues legend Bobby “Blue” Bland that now stands on Main Street cost upwards of $50,000. This can be done. And it should be done. Memphis has cleared itself of imagery that divided for decades. Let’s create an image that will unify and inspire for decades to come.

Frank Murtaugh is managing editor of Memphis magazine.