No. 17 Memphis has had some close calls — but just one slip-up — on its way to the top of the American Athletic Conference this season.
The Tigers will have a chance to avenge that loss on Sunday afternoon when they host Temple in another conference battle.
When the teams met on Jan. 16 in Philadelphia, the Owls pulled off an 88-81 upset by doing two crucial things: Outshooting the nation’s best 3-point-shooting team from beyond the arc and dominating the glass.
Temple made 9 of 22 3-pointers compared with the Tigers’ 6-of-21 showing. Perhaps most importantly, the Owls nearly doubled them on the boards 49-25 as 6-foot-4 senior guard Shane Dezonie grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds to go with 15 points.
Other than that, Memphis (19-4, 9-1) has survived its close games in league action, winning three contests decided by four points or less and rallying down the stretch on Jan. 23 to subdue visiting Wichita State 61-53.
The Tigers’ latest game wasn’t in doubt over the last 10 minutes as Memphis cruised to an 83-71 verdict Wednesday at home against Tulsa.
Guard PJ Haggerty scored an efficient 23 points in his first game against his former team. Haggerty, who averaged 21.2 points per game last season for the Golden Hurricane, is averaging 21.7 points a game this season and has hit 51.1 percent of his field-goal attempts.
While Haggerty has been a model of consistency, Tigers coach Penny Hardaway said he felt the need to check on him before he faced Tulsa.
“Playing your old team, they’re mad that he left,” Hardaway said. “And they were going to try to take him out of the game.”
That didn’t work, nor did whatever was tried on Dain Dainja. The Illinois transfer had 21 points, six rebounds, four assists, four blocked shots and three steals in a performance that raised his scoring average to 12.2 ppg.
Memphis upped its Division I-high 3-point percentage to 40.3 by canning 9 of 21 shots from deep (42.9 percent) and finished the night at 56.7 percent from the field (34 of 60).
While the Tigers increased their winning streak to six, the Owls (14-9, 6-4) played without leading scorer Jamal Mashburn Jr. in a 100-91 double-overtime loss at South Florida on Thursday.
Mashburn, who’s averaging a career-high 22.1 ppg that ranks second in NCAA Division I, has a foot injury. A school spokesman said Mashburn’s status for the Memphis game is day-to-day.
Zion Stanford and Steve Settle III took up the slack without Mashburn. Stanford came off the bench and scored a team-high 23 points, nearly double his 12.2 average, and Settle chipped in a 21-point, 10-rebound double-double.
Settle’s output didn’t surprise his high-scoring teammate.
“I see him put in the work every single day, and he’s a great, terrific player,” Mashburn said. “He’s really a key piece.”
But Settle’s heroics weren’t enough to keep Temple from losing for the third time in five games. Defense has been the key issue in that stretch, as it has permitted an average of 89.4 points per game.
The win last month over the Tigers was just Temple’s first in the last seven meetings, with Memphis leading the series 15-12.
–Field Level Media
