The Memphis men’s basketball team has passed the midway point of its 2015-16 campaign. Coach Josh Pastner and his squad has accumulated a 12-5 record (3-1, The American), which is one win ahead of last year’s team. That Memphis team finished 18-14 and missed the postseason for the first time since 2000. Here is a deeper look at the Tigers’ 2015-16 season so far, by the numbers.
78:Memphis’ faster tempo has led to more than a double-digit increase in its points per game average. The Tigers are 86th nationally scoring 78 points per contest through 17 games this season, compared to last season when they finished 178th (66.5). Senior point guard Ricky Tarrant Jr. has made a positive impact, and leads the team in assists averaging 3.5 per game. As a result, it has led to much more enjoyable team to watch compared to last year’s, even if the win-loss record isn’t much different, to this point.
40: However, for all the talk of Memphis playing more up-tempo and an enjoyable team to watch, its efficiency this season has been a problem. The Tigers are shooting a woeful 40 percent from the field, 320th in the country. It’s four percent down from last season’s team, by comparison. While freshman forward Dedric Lawson has impressed this campaign averaging 14.5 points and 8.9 rebounds per game, he’s only shooting 40 percent from the field. Consequently, it’s a fair reflection of the Memphis team this season: ultimately productive but inefficient.
30: So if Memphis is scoring nearly 12 points more per game this season, and it’s shooting a worse percentage from the field, where are the extra points coming from? The answer is from the free throw line. Coach Pastner told me one of his goals at the beginning of the season was to get to the free throw line often, and they’ve more than succeeded. The Tigers are getting to the line 30 times per game this season, good enough for fifth in the nation, compared to 18 per game last season.
The team’s free throw makes per game has gone up from 12 to 22, as a result. While the Tigers’ free throw percentage (73 percent) isn’t great, the extra attempts at the foul line have kept Memphis in virtually every game this season and the Tigers will need to continue to utilize the charity stripe in the stretch run.
36: Another reason Memphis has remained competitive despite its poor shooting is it has held its opponents to 36 percent shooting from the field. The re-addition of assistant coach Damon Stoudamire to the Tigers’ coaching staff has once again made Memphis one of the strongest defensive teams in the country.
14: The Tigers have 14 games (all in-conference) before the start of the AAC tournament starting with a crucial road game at Cincinnati Thursday night. Memphis is 2-5 against the RPI Top 100 as of Tuesday, but opportunities remain against the likes of SMU (8), UConn (64), Tulsa (69), Cincinnati (74) and Temple (84). If Memphis is going to make the NCAA Tournament, the Tigers push for the postseason needs to begin now.
Tigers point guard Ricky Tarrant
