After beating Tulane in the regular-season finale on Sunday, Memphis started the American Conference Tournament with another game against the Green Wave, but things looked different Wednesday night, leading to an 81-69 loss.
These two teams aren’t strangers to close games. Five of the last eight games have been decided by two points or less, but that wasn’t the case on Wednesday.
The game started with chaos after the Tigers were charged with a technical foul for not turning in their starting lineup prior to the deadline, which is 10 minutes before the start of the game. Asher Woods made the free-throw to take a 1-0 lead before the opening tip-off.
Penny Hardaway made a change to the starting lineup and started Dug McDaniel, Curtis Givens III, Quante Berry, Zach Davis and Thierno Sylla, and he only played an eight-man rotation. All five starters and Aaron Bradshaw played 21 or more minutes, while Julius Thedford and Sincere Parker played 15 and 14 minutes off the bench, respectively.
Memphis struggled to knock down shots all night, and they finished shooting 36.1 percent from the field and 22.7 percent from deep. Four players finished in double figures, but there weren’t many players that the Tigers could rely on.
Thedford finished 4-for-4 from the field and made five free throws, but he only played 15 minutes and fouled out of the game. Hardaway has relied on Sincere Parker as a spark plug off the bench, but the senior went 0-for-7 from the field and finished scoreless for the first time this season in only 14 minutes of action.
After taking an early three-point lead in the first few minutes of the game, the Green Wave started knocking down three-pointers and quickly turned their four-point deficit into a six-point lead. Tulane continued to find success on the offensive end of the court, while the Tigers struggled to make shots, and it closed the first half on a 16-7 run.
Memphis started the second half with a 9-3 run to make it a two-point deficit, but Ron Hunter’s team responded with a 10-1 run to take its first double-digit lead of the game. From there, the Green Wave never led by less than 10 points, and cruised to a 12-point win.
The Tigers also struggled from the free-throw line, converting on only 69 percent of their attempts, while Tulane made 82.1 percent of its attempts from the charity stripe.
McDaniel, Davis and Givens all finished in double figures in the starting five, but they combined to shoot 35.3 percent from the field. Davis led the team with 12 points and added eight rebounds, two blocks and two steals in 32 minutes of action.
Memphis turned the ball over 12 times, and the Green Wave turned them into 11 points off turnovers, while the Tigers turned 10 turnovers into 15 points. Hardaway’s team also won the rebounding battle 45-to-40, and they scored 18 second-chance points on 16 offensive rebounds.
On the other side, Tulane shot 35.5 percent from the field, 41.2 percent from deep and 82.1 percent from the free-throw line, and only two players finished with more than 10 points. Rowan Brumbaugh put the team on his back and finished with 35 points, eight rebounds and two assists in 37 minutes.
The game came down to three-point making, and the Green Wave finished with 14 made three-pointers, including five from Brumbaugh.
The loss puts an end to the Tigers’ season, and they’ll finish with a 13-19 record. There are many questions surrounding the Memphis program, and it feels like an extremely important offseason.