Before the season John Calipari sarcastically said that if a fight ever broke out during a University of Memphis men’s basketball game, judging by his team’s size, he thought they could hold their own.
Calipari found out that he was right after a loose ball scuffle, involving Tiger forward Rodney Carney and University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s Antwan Emsweller, turned into a 16-player battle royale with a little over five minutes left in the first half.
Memphis (2-1) won the game 78-58 and the fight, six punches landed to two.
Memphis’ Anthony Rice and Clyde Wade were ejected from the game. Almamy Thiero and Billy Richmond, who were were on the bench in street clothes, were ejected for coming off the bench when the fight broke out.
UAPB’s Lamarquis Blake and Don Fleming were also ejected for coming off the bench, while Ensweller was the only player on either team tossed for fighting.
Calipari said he thought some members of UAPB (0-2) might have thought the Tigers were a soft team after losing to Austin Peay State.
“It spreads quickly if people think your team is soft,” Calipari said. “It spreads around the country like wild fire and so (UAPB) came out and they thought (Memphis) is a soft team here and we’re going to talk, but the problem is they talked to one of the wrong guys.
The real trouble began when one of the Lions got into with a couple of Memphis players who weren’t dressed out for the game.
“I do have a couple tough guys here and they talked to one of those guys,” he said. “You can’t talk to that guy because he only knows one thing.”
A tape of the fight will be filed with Conference USA who will determine if any of the Memphis players involved in the fight will be suspended.
Calipari said the Tigers, who added three walk-ons to their roster this week, can’t afford to lose anymore players.
“If you keep taking guys out, I’m going to be playing the kicker on the football team, the quarterback and the gy at the front desk that answers the phone,” he said.
Carney, Duane Erwin, John Grice, Earl Barron and Nathaniel Root finished in double-figures for the game.
Root saw extra playing time with the loss of Wade and Rice and scored a career-high 11 points, three rebounds, three assists and three steals.
Barron led all scorers with 18 points and said the incident showed that Memphis players look out for each other.
“We’re a family and we are going to stick together no matter what,” Barron said. “Nobody’s going to come into our house and disrespect us like that. We’re going to stand up for each other and if somebody tries to mess with somebody in our family, then everybody else is going to jump in and help.”
Erwin had perhaps the best performance of his career with 14 points, four rebounds and five blocks. He seemed to play more motivated and more aggressive after the melee.
“They just came in talking noise and disrespecting us,” Erwin said. “They were talking to us like we were nobodies. They came into our arena talking crazy and it just didn’t add up.”
After losing to Austin Peay, future opponents will try and test the Tigers physically, like UAPB, Duane Erwin said.
“Since we lost to Austin Peay everybody is going to come into or gym thinking that (were soft) and we just got to prove the wrong.”
