Tag: Memphis Beats Houston

• A win for the ages . . . or at least the decade.
Their 45-27 win at Houston Saturday has the Memphis Tigers on the cusp of the fourth 10-win season in the 104-year history of the program. (If you remember the first such season — 1938 — you belong in the president’s suite at the Liberty Bowl.) A win Saturday at USF would make it three 10-win seasons in six years for Memphis, an absurd sentence to write, much less say if you’ve waved a blue-and-gray flag for as long as a decade.

And speaking of decades, the win over the Cougars clinched a winning decade for Memphis, its first since the 1970s. A winning decade after putting up a 3-21 record the first two years of the period and being 28 games under .500 (10-38) after the 2013 campaign. Since 2014, though, the Tigers have gone 54-22. The 64 wins this decade are actually the most since the 1960s, when the Tigers, led by coach Spook Murphy, went 70-25-1. (College teams played fewer games — and there were fewer bowl games — in the 1970s, a decade that saw the Tigers go 60-48-1.) The program’s ascendance under, first, Justin Fuente and now Mike Norvell has been historic by measures both empirical and aesthetic. If you call yourself a Memphis football fan, count your blessings this month — this decade — for living in the right time.
Larry Kuziewski

Brady White

• Still doubting Brady White? Please stop.
The Tigers’ lone PhD candidate may not have the arm of Paxton Lynch or the elasticity in the pocket of Riley Ferguson, but Brady White has established himself as one of the best quarterbacks in the country, let alone the American Athletic Conference. As measured by passer rating — the original “analytic” statistic — White is seventh in the nation. And judge him by the company he keeps. Those ranked ahead of White are Jalen Hurts (of 8th-ranked Oklahoma), Tua Tagovailoa (5th-ranked Alabama), Joe Burrow (top-ranked LSU), Justin Fields (2nd-ranked Ohio State), Tyler Huntley (7th-ranked Utah), and Tanner Morgan (11th-ranked Minnesota). White, it should be noted, ranks one slot ahead of Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, a player many said was ready for the NFL last year, when he led his Tigers to the national championship as a freshman. White has completed 67 percent of his passes on his way to 2,852 yards, 28 touchdowns, and only five interceptions. Should the Tigers achieve the unachievable — a New Year’s Six bowl berth — it will be largely thanks to the under-appreciated “game manager” we’ll soon be able to call Dr. White.

• Downfield deliveries.
Part of White’s brilliance has been utilizing a corps of receivers unlike many seen in these parts before. Memphis has five players who have caught at least 19 passes and averaged at least 12.5 yards per catch. Consider that. When White finds Damonte Coxie (15.9 yards per catch), Antonio Gibson (25.0), Kedarian Jones (14.1), Joey Magnifico (17.5), or Kenneth Gainwell (12.5), the result is, on average, a first down. Add Calvin Austin into the mix, and the numbers get silly: The sophomore from Harding Academy has only caught 12 passes but is averaging 21.6 yards per catch. It’s a bounty of weapons at White’s disposal, with merely a 1,000-yard rusher (Gainwell) standing behind him in the Tiger backfield. We should have a degree of sympathy for the defensive coordinators at USF and Cincinnati. Or maybe not. Let the aerial show continue.

Unlikely. Unscripted. Unexpected. And purely gratifying.

With their star point guard being fitted for a walking boot, the Memphis Tigers erased a nine-point deficit over the game’s final 16 minutes and upset the 23rd-ranked Houston Cougars Thursday night at FedExForum. Junior swingman Raynere Thornton came off the bench and scored a season-high 21 points (four of five from three-point range) in just 19 minutes of playing time to lead the way along with senior forward Jimario Rivers, who scored a career-high 21 points of his own. The two players combined to hit 17 of 18 free throws, every one of them critical in the biggest win in two years under coach Tubby Smith.

Memphis improves to 17-11 with the victory and 8-7 in the American Athletic Conference while Houston’s five-game winning streak ends, leaving the Cougars with a 21-6 record (11-4 in the AAC). Rob Gray led Houston with 30 points.
Larry Kuzniewski

Jimario Rivers

“It was a great win for us,” said Smith after the game, having changed his shirt following a postgame locker-room drenching. “I can’t say enough about our kids. They raised their level of play, raised their level of intensity. Especially after Jeremiah [Martin] went down. Walking out at halftime, I said, ‘We’re gonna win this one for you.’ We had outstanding effort throughout the lineup. Most complete game we’ve had all year long.”

Memphis point guard Jeremiah Martin — the AAC’s top scorer — limped off the court with 5:16 left to play in the first half. He turned an ankle with his team down 31-24 and would not return to action. (Martin scored nine points, dropping his average from 19.3 to 18.9.) The injury, it turned out, only added to the dramatic effect of the Tigers’ first win over an AP-ranked opponent under Smith. (Memphis beat Final Four-bound South Carolina in December 2016, but the Gamecocks were ranked only in the coaches’ poll.)

Playing before a louder-than-they-looked crowd (announced attendance: 6,536), the Tigers stayed within competitive distance through halftime (down 43-39), but looked to be a beaten team when the Cougars surged early in the second half to a 58-49 lead. But a pair of Thornton free throws at the 10:52 mark put the Tigers in front (63-62). Back-to-back three-pointers by Thornton and junior guard Malik Rhodes put Memphis up by six (74-68) with 7:11 to play. The three points were the first for Rhodes since his return from a two-game suspension for a violation of team policy.

The Cougars closed within four points with a minute to play, but Thornton and Rhodes each hit a pair of free throws in the final minute to secure the win. The Tigers outscored Houston 42-27 over the game’s final 15:40 to clinch an 18th consecutive winning season for the program.

“Jeremiah’s a great player, but when he went down, we fought for one another,” said Rivers. “We tried to get as many stops as we could. If we moved the ball on offense, we knew we could score.”

Smith said the key to Thornton’s long-distance shooting touch is an age-old tip: look at the rim, not the ball. “I’ve been putting up more shots after practice,” said Thornton. “Building my confidence.”

Rhodes was especially pleased to join a postgame press conference, even if it meant discussing his recent punishment. “My teammates have been there for me, from the day I got suspended,” he said. “They told me I just have to keep proving myself. That three felt good.”

“I hope it inspires them to listen,” emphasized Smith. “They did a good job of following the game plan. That’s the toughest thing for them, staying focused for an extended period of time. They did that tonight. You’ve got to play with emotion, but without being emotional. That’s been a real challenge for us. Act like you’ve been here before. You’re supposed to make that three. You’re supposed to make that stop. That’s what we taught you to do.”

The Tigers’ three remaining regular-season games are against teams below them in the AAC standings. Pay no attention to underdogs and favorites, at least not with Smith in the room. “I expect them to be better,” said Smith. “This is certainly going to build confidence. It’s gonna build confidence in me, that I can play Malik Rhodes. That Raynere Thornton is making shots. They can get the job done when they’re put in a position to do it.

“They won’t be looking past tomorrow. They just won’t. They’ll want to, but I won’t let it happen. I’ve been in this business 45 years. I’m secure in who I am, and I’m pretty damn successful at what I do.”

The Tigers travel to Connecticut for their next game, where they’ll face the Huskies this Sunday. They’ll finish the regular season by hosting USF on March 1st and East Carolina on March 4th.