Memphis dropped its second game in a row on Saturday with a 99-75 loss against Utah State. The Tigers played well for large portions of the game against the Aggies, but they gave up too many runs, including a pair of runs at the end of the first and second half.
Penny Hardaway’s team entered Logan undermanned after the head coach told Dave Woloshin on the pregame show that Zach Davis and Hasan Abdul Hakim had both been suspended indefinitely and weren’t with the team against Utah State. In addition to the suspensions, Quante Berry missed the game with a concussion that he suffered in practice prior to Thursday’s game against North Texas.
Memphis got out to a quick 5-1 lead early in the game, and the two teams traded leads for most of the first half. There were 12 lead changes through the first 20 minutes of the game, and the Tigers led by two points with 4:24 left in the game before the Aggies closed the half on a 22-6 run.
Utah State took a 14-point lead into the second half and quickly stretched it to a 19-point advantage nearly two minutes into the half. Memphis responded with a 7-0 run, but a few minutes later, the Aggies went on a 13-0 run to extend their lead to 21.
Jerrod Calhoun’s team was able to put the game into cruise control after that, but still added some last-second baskets to extend their lead.
The Tigers cut the lead to eight points at one point in the second half, but they only made four field goals over the final 10 minutes of the game.
As a team, Memphis shot 36.7 percent from the field and 22.2 percent from three-point range, and they won the rebounding battle 39-to-35. Three players finished the game with double-digit points, and Sincere Parker led the team with 21 points off the bench.
On the other side, Utah State shot 52.5 percent from the field, including 63 percent in the second half, and 35.7 percent from deep. The Aggies recorded 22 fast-break points and 22 assists, and MJ Collins led the team with 24 points.
Sincere leads the team again
Parker continued his recent success on Saturday and led the team in scoring and rebounding. The guard came off the bench again and finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds, a steal and only two turnovers in 30 minutes of action.
Parker has been one of the best players in the conference in recent weeks, and he’s averaging 23 points over his last four outings. In that span, he’s shooting 38.3 percent from the field and 50 percent from three-point range.
Hardaway continues to use Parker off the bench, and he has served as a spark with the second unit. While he’s coming off the bench, he’s playing more than 20 minutes a game, and Memphis will need him to continue to shoot the ball the way he has been over the last two weeks.
Dug McDaniel continues to struggle to find his shot
Dug McDaniel finished with 10 points, three assists and four steals, but he isn’t shooting at a high percentage. The guard went 3-for-12 from the field, and he is shooting 27 percent from the field and 7 percent from three-point range since the road game against UAB.
While he’s struggled with his shot, he’s still the best option the Tigers have at point guard, and he is still averaging 33 minutes in that span. For the season, McDaniel is averaging 12.8 points per game, but that number has dropped following the last few games.
Memphis needs McDaniel to find his shot over the final stretch of the season. The Tigers need the point guard at his best to have an opportunity to make a run in the conference tournament.
Game ends with controversy
The Aggies led the game by 13 points with 1:59 remaining in the contest before closing the game on a 13-2 run, including six points in the final 27 seconds. After the game, Hardaway was seen having words with players and members of the Utah State coaching staff, and he let out his frustrations during the postgame show.
“You can’t do what they did, though,” Hardaway said. “You can’t keep scoring the ball. We came out here to play this game. You have to have more class than that.”
Shortly after Hardaway’s quote, Calhoun addressed it during his press conference.
“Unfortunately, the way the rules are written with the analytics, the last two baskets we wouldn’t have scored if this was normal circumstances,” Calhoun said.
He added that because of how hard scheduling is for mid-majors, they weren’t able to get a lot of quad 1 and quad 2 opportunities, so they felt they needed to run the score up to boost their metrics.
The reaction led to a lot of back-and-forth on social media about which side was correct and how to fix this issue in the future. The Aggies will play Memphis next season inside FedExForum.