No. 17 Memphis has had some close calls-but just a slip-up on the way to the top of American Athletic Conference this season.
The tigers will have a chance to avenge that loss on Sunday afternoon when they host Temple in another conference battle.
When the law met on January 16 in Philadelphia, the owls pulled out of an 88-81 upset by doing two crucial things: to surpass the country’s best 3-point shooting team beyond the arch and dominate the glass.
The temple made 9 of 22 3 points compared to Tigers 6-AV-21 view. Perhaps most important of all is that the owls almost doubled them on the boards 49-25 when 6-foot-4 senior guard Shane dezonie took a match-high 13 returns to go with 15 points.
Other than that, Memphis (19-4, 9-1) has survived his close matches in the league Action and won three competitions decided with four points or less and collects the route on January 23 to facilitate Wichita State 61-53.
Tiger’s latest match was not in doubt in the last ten minutes when Memphis cruised to a judgment of 83-71 Wednesday at home against Tulsa.
Guard PJ Haggerty got effective 23 points in his first match against his former team. Haggerty, who was on average 21.2 points per match last season for Golden Hurricane, is an average of 21.7 points a game this season and has hit 51.1 percent of their field target attempts.
While Haggerty has been a model for texture, Tiger’s coach Penny Hardaway said he felt the need to control him before meeting Tulsa.
“Play your old team, they are angry that he left,” Hardaway said. “And they would try to take him out of the game.”
It didn’t work, and it didn’t do everything that was tested at Dain Dainja. The Illinois transfer had 21 points, six returns, four assists, four blocked shots and three steals in a performance that raised their point average to 12.2 ppg.
Memphis raised its division I-high 3-point percentage to 40.3 by preserving 9 out of 21 shots from depth (42.9 percent) and ended the night at 56.7 percent from the field (34 out of 60).
As the tigers increased their winning line to six, the owls (14-9, 6-4) played without leading goal scores Jamal Mashburn Jr. In a 100-91 loss of double overtime on South Florida on Thursday.
Mashburn, which on average is a career high 22.1 ppg that is ranked second in NCAA Division I, has a foot injury. A spokesman for the school said that Mashburn’s status of the Memphis game is day to day.
Zion Stanford and Steve Settle III picked up the slack without Mashburn. Stanford came from the bench and received a team high 23 points, almost twice as much as his 12.2 average, and sat down in a 21-point, 10-renew double double.
Settle’s production did not surprise his high -poetry teammate.
“I see him put in work every day, and he’s a big, fantastic player,” Mashburn said. “He’s really a key piece.”
But Setters Heroics was not enough to prevent Temple from losing for the third time in five matches. Defense has been the most important issue in that route, as it has allowed an average of 89.4 points per match.
The win last month over the Tigers was just the temple’s first during the last seven meetings, with Memphis that led the series 15-12.
-Field level media
