Memphis Tigers breeze past Marshall, ready for E. Carolina

The win did not come easily. The Thundering Herd used "in your face defense" and a crisp offensive flow to open the game on an 8-0 run. The Tigers struggled to get the ball down low in the first five minutes of the game, resorting to long three-pointers. Senior Brittany Carter finally got the Tigers on the board just under the 15-minute mark with a three-pointer to cut the lead to 8-3.

Jasmine Lee turned in a monstrous game last night, scoring 21 points and pulling down 15 rebounds as the University of Memphis women's basketball (15-4, 5-1) team defeated the Marshall Thundering Herd (12-7, 3-3) 71-58 in front of an announced crowd of 2,263.

 "They made up their mind that they were going to be the tougher team and be physical," Lee said. "Their whole mindset was ‘If we out-tough them then we are going to win the game and when they started off it looked like it.'"

After the Herd took an early 10-3 lead, Lee placed the team on her shoulders. Lee sparked a 13-5 run in which she scored 10 of the Tigers' next 13 points to give Memphis a 16-15 advantage with 10:14 remaining.

The Herd did not buckle, however. Marshall shot a stellar 48.5 percent (16-33) from the field while holding the Tigers to a modest 35.1 percent (13-37) and outrebounding Memphis 24-19 to hold a 37-32 halftime lead.

"I certainly don't want to say they (Marshall) are desperate, but they had a very high motivation level coming into today's game," Tigers' head coach Melissa McFerrin said. "We talked about that this week, about not being surprised by the physicality whether it is practice or in a game."

The Tigers came out of the locker room running. After struggling to find an offensive identity in the first half, Memphis found success with its full-court pressure, suffocating the Marshall attack to begin a 19-4 run to start the second half.

With the Tigers up 51-43 with 11:08 remaining in the game, Marshall put together its last run of the game to pull within six points at 55-49. Memphis refused to let the Herd back in the game though, turning to Carter and Lee down the stretch. After Carter scored just four points in the first half, the Preseason C-USA Player of the Year went 5-8 from the floor in the second half with 11 points and finished second on the team behind Lee with 16 points.

The Tigers closed the game by outscoring the Herd 16-9 and despite being outscored 28-6 off the bench for the game, Memphis forced 27 turnovers and shot a respectable 70.4 percent (19-27) from the free throw line compared to Marshall's season low 10 attempts.

The Tigers return to action on Sunday when they travel to face the East Carolina Pirates. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m.