Takeaways from Memphis’ exhibition loss against Arkansas

Memphis played its second exhibition game on Wednesday in Fayetteville against the Razorbacks. Arkansas will start the season as the No. 12 team in the country, and it rolled to a 93-81 victory.

John Calipari’s team brought in one of the top recruiting classes in the country, and several of them flashed against the Tigers. Freshmen Miikka Muurinen and Jordan Smith Jr. were in the starting lineup, along wth several upperclassmen.

Smith and Billy Richmond Jr. led the Razorbacks with 17 points. Muurinen added 10 points, 12 rebounds, two assists and two steals. 

Memphis shot 49.9 percent from the field and 30 percent from deep, and it turned the ball over 15 times and finished with 14 assists. Luke Almodovar and Nemanja Popović both led the team with 16 points.

Popović is as advertised:

It’s been a very newsy week for Nemanja Popović. Last Friday, fans got to see him for the first time in a game-like setting, earlier in the week he was granted eligibility from the NCAA, and last night he played his second exhibition against the Razorbacks.

Popović finished with 16 points, six rebounds, three assists and a turnover in 25 minutes of action. He was a force down low and make a handful of ridiculous shots in the game.

The Serbian was easily the best player on the court for the Tigers, but it raised a bigger question for Hardaway’s squad. When he was ruled eligible, the NCAA said he must sit for the first six games of the season.

The reasoning behind this decision stems from Popović’s 2021-2022 season, where he played only six games for Vojvodina due to an injury. Because of the injury costing him basically a season, the NCAA awarded him two years of eligibility after the six-game suspension.

The bigger question will be who replaces Popović if he doesn’t win his appeal. The backup big men, Maxim Logue and Corneilous Williams, combined for 15 minutes, and Logue recorded two points and four rebounds in nine minutes.

It will be interesting to see what the Tigers do on Monday if Popović isn’t available.

Turnovers:

Turnover were the biggest issue for Memphis on Wednesday, and they finished with 15. Jayden Reid, who didn’t turn the ball over last week against Mississippi State, led the team with five turnovers, while Tylik Weeks added three.

The Razorbacks showed of their athleticism on a lot of the turnovers, and they scored 26 points off those takeaways. The biggest concern is there have been a lot of careless turnovers over the two exhibitions, and it could become and area where opposing teams take advantage of turnovers, especially during the non-conference slate.

It’s hard to overreact to the turnovers after it was a strength in the first exhibition, but again, there were signs in both games that the Tigers can be careless at times with the rock.

The rotation becomes clearer:

With 13 new players on the roster, the biggest question was what the rotation would look like early in the year, and the Tigers answered some of those questions in these two games.

It appears the starting five with be Jayden Reid, Tylik Weeks, Luke Almodovar, Rihards Vavers and Nemanja Popović. Hardaway has made it clear that if Popović has to sit out the first six games, Logue will slid into that starting spot.

It also appears that Julius Thedford, Josh Holloway, Jerry Deng and Brandon Cummings will be players that Hardaway relies on off the bench. It will be interesting to see where Thedford factors in after he missed a portion of the preseason with an injury.