The Memphis Tigers face one of their toughest tests of the conference season Thursday night on the road at Cincinnati, and as always the contest will be an intense clash of styles.
Memphis and Cincinnati are two teams traditionally known for playing very quickly and slowly, respectively, and the trend is certainly true this season. According to KenPom.com, the Tigers rank 11th in the nation in pace, while the Bearcats slot in at 308th out of 351 Division I programs.
For the Tigers, it can be a challenge to adjust to a half court style game as opposed to the more free flowing up-and-down style the team is used to.
“That’s a big impact on us because we like to run and gun and get easy layups,” freshman forward Dedric Lawson said. “We just have to be disciplined on offense and defense and make sure we can get the best shot we can get to be successful.”
But while games with opponents like Cincinnati thrust Memphis into uncomfortable situations, the Tigers have actually fared quite well in them dating back to the start of last season. In games against the top 150 teams in the NCAA according to KenPom, Memphis holds a 6-10 record in that time vs. teams ranked outside of the top 150 in pace, compared to only 1-7 against teams inside the top 150.
According to Tiger head coach Josh Pastner, shot selection is a key component to adjusting to teams that want to slow the game down.
“For us we want to play a higher pace, but more than that, even against a team like Cincinnati, we don’t want to take early shot clock threes, we don’t need to take bad shots, because bad shots, early shots that are not good shots lead to them getting fast break opportunities which can reenergize their crowd and get them easy baskets,” Pastner said.
In the Tigers’ two most recent showings against teams outside the top 150 in pace shooting was a clear issue. Memphis was able to come away with wins over South Florida and Temple in those contests, but both were in ugly fashion as Pastner’s squad shot a combined 40-126 across the two games. Three-point shooting was especially poor, as the Tigers converted only 4-of-22 attempts from distance at South Florida and 4-of-16 vs. Temple.
Despite the poor offense, Memphis was able to fall back on its defense in those two games. Both South Florida and Temple shot below 38 percent. If the Tigers are to come away with a third consecutive victory over a slow-paced team it will likely require another solid showing from the defense to muck up the game and prevent things from getting out of hand when the shots aren’t falling offensively.
Memphis had mixed results when it played the Bearcats a season ago, splitting the season series with the Tigers winning 63-50 in Memphis while Cincinnati took a 77-65 victory on its own home floor on senior night.
The Tigers will aim for their fourth American Athletic Conference victory of the season as they take on the Bearcats Thursday night in Cincinnati. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. and the contest will be nationally televised on ESPN2.
Josh Pastner will hope to lead Memphis to win over the Bearcats Thursday.
