Penny Hardaway said he knew this was going to happen. Just by looking at his team in the pregame warmups, he said he could tell they were not the same upbeat team they were two weeks ago before the program was forced to pause due to Covid-19 health procedures. He knew Wednesday night’s home matchup with Tulane was going to be uncomfortable.
Early on, Memphis looked every bit like a team that had not played in eighteen days. Tracking the basketball as it pin-balled back and forth with every turnover made this feel more like watching a tennis match instead of a college basketball game.
Despite forcing nine Green Wave turnovers and limiting the visitors to just 25% shooting for the night, thirteen giveaways in the opening period severely hampered the offense and prevented the Tigers from pulling away.
Tulane’s struggles from three continued in the second half. They finished 2/19 from beyond the arc and just looked disjointed offensively all night. While Memphis certainly did not turn in their sharpest performance, they did what they had to and that was just win, 61-46. Now winners of seven out of their last eight, Memphis sits squarely in the mix in the American Athletic Conference standings.
“It was an ugly game, but we got the win like we needed to keep ourselves in the conversation,’ Hardaway said. “You got to win your home games. Now we have to go on the road and take care of business.”
The good: Despite clearly looking a bit rusty coming off a lengthy hiatus, Memphis dominated the glass 53-29, overcame twenty-six turnovers and still won by fifteen. Once they get back into the normal flow of a season, the offense should settle in to more of a groove.
The bad: Twenty-six turnovers (!!). Needing to get back to into a rhythm is understandable. Far too often Wednesday night, however, the mistakes being made felt like they were veering back towards the same bad habits they had finally ridded themselves of prior to the program pausing.
“There were some disappointing things in certain areas where the turnovers we had weren’t forced turnovers,” Hardaway said. “Self-inflicting turnovers. Being nonchalant with the basketball. I knew they would be exhausted and I would have to sub a lot, but going on the road, we really have to sure that up.”
Memphis will now gear up for consecutive road games against Cincinnati and South Florida. While Wednesday night’s win was a good way to ease back into the schedule after not playing in eighteen days, the room for error remains slim. Their defense is good enough to keep almost all their games competitive regardless, but important wins are not going to come easy if they cannot cut down on the turnovers.
“We hadn’t played in a long time and we only got two practices in,” guard Boogie Ellis said. “Our conditioning was just a little bit not there because we had some days off, but overall, I felt like this was a game to get our rust off. We really focused on defense today and trying to win on that end.”
Tip-off against the Bearcats is set for 12 p.m. Sunday at Fifth Third Arena.
