Tomorrow morning's meeting between the Memphis Tigers and the Gonzaga Bulldogs will mark the third straight year these two teams have met each other in a midseason-showdown setting. For the last two seasons, the Tigers have won this high-octane rivalry.
But this season is different, with the Tigers having a No. 1 ranking at stake and Gonzaga returning to FedExForum with a team Memphis Coach John Calipari said is better than the Adam Morrison Bulldogs of 2005.
"Their team this year, in my opinion, is better than the team with Adam Morrison and (J.P.) Batista because they still have some of those guys," he said. "That team was good. But this team - with the guys they have and the way they're playing - is better."
Two years ago at FedExForum, Gonzaga's All-American Adam Morrison was able to score 34 points against the Tigers defense. However, Memphis contained him in crunch time and held him to no field goals in the final 9:31 of the game to defeat the Bulldogs 83-72.
Last year's game in Spokane, Wash., was a different story as Memphis lost Shawne Williams and Darius Washington, and Gonzaga lost Adam Morrison to the NBA draft. The game also proved to be a tighter contest as it took an extra five minutes of overtime to decide who won that rematch.
The game went down as an instant Tiger classic as Memphis guard Chris Douglas-Roberts sealed the victory with a game-winning runner with 5.6 seconds left on the clock.
"I don't think they're thinking about the shot last year, they're just thinking about coming in and beating us," Douglas-Roberts said. "They're just like any other team. They're going to be real motivated just to play the No. 1 team in the country. But Gonzaga is a good team, so it's not like any other team. Gonzaga is a team known for taking down great teams."
Just like the last two seasons, the Tigers will go into Saturday's game on a winning streak. In 2005, the Tigers had won seven in a row before the Gonzaga game and had a 14-game winning streak before last year's game. Also, Gonzaga had its nation-leading 50-game home winning streak snapped in the game before playing Memphis last season.
This year, Memphis is on an 18-game win streak, still has its 42-game home winning streak intact and is playing their second game as the No. 1 team in the country.
All of these factors could cause any team to come out and play uptight basketball, as seen Wednesday night against Tulsa, but Coach Calipari and his players said they do not think that was the case Wednesday and will not be the case Saturday either.
"I can't honestly say that (we were tight) because most of the time we play without worrying about where we're ranked,"said junior Robert Dozier. "Whether we're No. 2, 23 or 25, we never really worry about rankings because it doesn't matter come April or March."
Calipari said he thought his players were mature enough to handle the pressure without him having to tell them to handle the pressure. A part of that comes from the veteran core of Dozier, Joey Dorsey, Antonio Anderson, Andre Allen and Douglas-Roberts.
However, Calipari said his bench helps out even more when guys like Dorsey or Dozier struggle to find a rhythm. Wednesday, Dozier had only three points on 1-7 shooting. Shawn Taggart, on the other hand, had 14 points on 5-9 shooting off the bench.
"Doneal Mack has done it, Andre (Allen) has done it, Willie (Kemp) has done it and Jeff Robinson has done it," Calipari said. "They need to understand that their performance dictates their minutes, or someone else's performance is going to dictate their minutes.
"If Robert Dozier was playing out of his mind, Shawn Taggart may not have gotten as many minutes. But (Dozier) played his first game of the year, which means Shawn Taggart had minutes. What did he do with those minutes? He said 'You should be playing me more.'"
Even though these seemed like harsh words for the second-year starter, Calipari continued to say that he was not worried about Dozier's bad game or his future as a starter.
"I just told him 'You laid an egg.' That's it. But Tag went in and did it. Whoever it is, it is. We just march on to the next game."
Perhaps the Tulsa game was a blessing in disguise for a Memphis team with two more nonconference games on tap. If the Conference USA is as weak as many other teams from other conferences seem to think, a tough, grind-out conference game should prepare the Tigers for the intensity of games like Gonzaga and Tennessee.
"We need a bunch of games like that," Calipari said. "I want every team to come out and play us like that. The thing we have to understand when they (Tulsa) missed a lot of open shots, Gonzaga's not missing those.
"Gonzaga's a team that prides themselves on making those shots. They've got three or four guys that can make them. So we better understand, defensively, we gave up a lot of wide open shots, they just happened to miss."
Wednesday night at Tulsa appeared to be a tough game for Memphis as they led the Golden Hurricane by only four points at the half. Though Memphis was able to win by 15 points, this normally high scoring offense that averages 82.2 points per game was held to 56 points and only 37.9 percent from the field-the third poorest shooting performance of the season.
One positive Memphis can take away from Wednesday's victory is that they held Tulsa to a 30.9 field goal percentage, seven points below Memphis' season average of 37.1 percent. Also, Joey Dorsey, who had 15 points and 12 rebounds last year against Gonzaga, had just two points but 19 rebounds in Wednesday's game to eclipse 1,000 boards in his Memphis career.
"The great thing about Joey is that he's got two arms, two legs, he's got a mind and he makes choices," Calipari said. "Some of those choices, he chooses not to do what he did against Tulsa, which is go and get every ball with two hands.
"But here he goes with 19 rebounds and three blocked shots. It's okay when you get 19 rebounds with two points. He's 2-4 from the line. That's okay if you get 19 boards and three blocked shots."
With their first game as No. 1 out of the way, the Tigers will turn their attention to Gonzaga. Although Gonzaga is unranked this year, they have only four losses (five fewer than last year leading up to the Memphis game) and will have the services of junior Josh Heytvelt in this year's contest. Heytvelt was out with an injury in 2005.
Last season, Heytvelt sat out the Memphis game while serving an indefinite suspension for being arrested and charged with drug possession. Up to that point, Heytvelt was averaging 15.5 points and 7.7 rebounds per game before his suspension last season. This season, Heytvelt is averaging 11.9 points and 5 rebounds a game.
"I know they'll come ready to play," Dozier said. "They're at full strength this year. They have a couple of new guys coming this year, and they're on a five or six-game winning streak. They're going to come in on a roll, and they're going to be prepared. We just have to be ready for the lick they're going to throw at us."
The Tigers and the Bulldogs tip off at FedExForum at 11 a.m. on ESPN.
