The Memphis basketball team opened up the 98th season of Tiger basketball with a dominant win over the LeMoyne-Owen Magicians, 120-66. The addition of head coach Penny Hardaway has conjured a lot of excitement and looks promising for the 2018-19 season.
The much-anticipated game had to wait 10 more minutes after the tip-off due to a clock malfunction. LeMoyne-Owen secured the tip-off, but after a turnover, Isaiah Maurice knocked down the first bucket of the game. From there, Memphis maintained the lead the entire game, relentlessly scoring on LeMoyne-Owen.
"Finally, it felt great," Maurice said. "We've been working hard up to this point. It's Division II, so we expected to win, but our focus was just go out there and execute, and that's what we did."
The red shirt junior forward knocked down seven of his 10 field goal attempts. Additionally, he was perfect from the free-throw line, going 4-4, and scored 18 points on the night. But Maurice was not the only Tiger who was hot offensively in the game.
Tyler Harris, 5-foot-9 point guard from Cordova, led all players in the game with 26 points. Harris was 8-15 from the field and knocked down five of his 10 three-point attempts. He was also perfect from the free-throw line. Harris said he enjoyed the style of play from his new head coach.
"The way he wants us to play is very fun, like he wants us to run and like a very fast paced game," Harris said. "That's the type of game I like to play anyway."
The Tiger offense flowed smoothly with everyone on the team getting an opportunity to shoot. Five of the Tigers scored in double digits. Hardaway said his team passing the ball around to each other was what impressed him most.
"I stress moving the ball," Hardaway said. "And my most proud stat was 32 assists — that's really distributing and sharing the ball. That is something that we want to continue to do."
By the end the first half, the Tigers were up 59-25 over the Magicians. Hardaway mentioned how his team played reflects closely to how he wants them to play. Moving forward, nevertheless, he said there is still room for improvement.
"It was close to how I really want to be," Hardaway said. "120 points, I love that part, but we fouled too much, and you know, we turned the ball over like 15 times. Unforced turnovers and fouling, if we can get that down, I think we are going to give ourselves a great chance to beat some good teams."
Hardaway's team put on a show of offensive power in front of the No. 1 high school recruit in the nation, James Wiseman, who was in attendance at the game, along with an announced 6,373 other fans.
Despite the high scoring, Hardaway said none of his players wowed him because he sees them playing at this same high level during practice.
"No, nobody surprised me," Hardaway said. "I mean everybody did what we've seen them do in practice. I think a lot of the guys surprised the crowd, but we know what guys are capable of, and we have to get better, but I was still proud of the guys and how they played today."
Isaiah Maurice dunks the ball. Maurice had 18 points and shot 70 percent from the field.
Tyler Harris shooting over a defender. Harris led the all scorers with 26 points.
