The Memphis Tigers fell to a 1-4 record for the season after suffering a 69-50 defeat at the hands of Louisiana Tech. This marks their third loss in a row and the second loss by a margin of over 15 points. Their next game is against Mercer, this Friday, where they’ll attempt to get out of their early season slump.
Outside scoring has been hard to come by
One of the biggest knocks on the Tigers is struggling offense. In each of their first three games, they’ve failed to score over 70 points and shoot a field goal percentage higher than 45 percent.
Those struggles continued in Sunday’s game, where they were only able to score 50 points and shot a season low 29.7 percent from the field. The team had difficulty getting a rhythm going on offense, especially from beyond the arc.
The Tigers were only able to connect on three of their 18 three-point attempts and freshman Kiera Coomber made two of the team’s shots, her only points of the game.
Alana Davis is the team’s saving grace
As previously mentioned, the Tigers struggled to get their outside scoring game going. They had to rely on their inside scorers, namely forward Alana Davis. Davis led the team in points with 15 and shot an efficient six of 13 from the field.
Davis led both teams in rebounds with 11, including five offensive boards that allowed her team much needed extra possessions.
She also was a presence on defense, accounting for three blocked shots and used size mismatch to make it difficult for the Techsters to get anything going in the paint.
Young players still need time to grow
Freshmen Jamirah Shutes, Gazmyne Herndon and Kiana Coomber saw substantial minutes in Sunday’s loss and were unable to change the course of the game. Combined, the trio had 15 points, 12 rebounds, two assists and 11 turnovers.
Unfortunately for the team, leading scorer Shutes only scored five points, a decrease from her average of 16.0 points per game. She only shot one of 10, or 10 percent of her shots, from the field
Post-game analysis
This was an eye-opening game for the Tigers, showing that they still need someone to step up to be a true scorer. They couldn’t get any shots going on the outside, which is their primary method of getting points and need to gain more consistency.
I expect head coach Melissa McFerrin to get her team into shape before it’s too late, even though they’re still going through their fair share of growing pains.
