The men's soccer team doesn't tow the company line. They tell you who they want to play in the conference tournament. They openly admit they're looking ahead to the NCAA tournament. Every Tuesday, they wait on the national rankings, just to see where they stand.
They answer questions without referring to a how-to-handle-the-media manual and rarely produce a canned response.
But once they hit the field of play, they validate one of the oldest clichés in sports. They really do take it just "one game at a time."And that might be the most unusual attribute for this wildly successful team.
The Tigers (13-3-1 overall, 8-1 in Conference USA) finished their regular season with a 6-0 drubbing of Lipscomb. That victory capped a five game stretch of consecutive shutouts, where Memphis defeated the opposition by a combined score of 19-0. During that streak, Memphis handled a nationally ranked team (UAB), a winless team (Lipscomb) and everything in between. But the way they win has stayed the course.
"There's no doubt about the commitment to stop the other team from scoring," said head coach Richie Grant. "We're putting our bodies in front of shots and taking great pride in maintaining the shutout."
The Tigers will put their pride -- and their bodies -- on the line this Friday in the C-USA tournament in Louisville. As the conference champion and No. 1 seed, The U of M receives a first round bye and will face the winner of the South Florida-St. Louis match.
That's quite an accomplishment for a team that had modest expectations to start the season.
"We set goals at the beginning of the season and one of them was to get to the Conference tournament, said senior midfielder Daniel Dobson. We just have to take it one game at a time."
Even if they prefer to play in the present, they have no qualms about peeking into their NCAA tournament future.
"I think about it every day," said senior defender Justin Dyer. "We all do. I'm not going to lie to you. We sit at the computers (on Tuesday) just waiting for the polls to come out. It's something we've never experienced before. We all wonder what's going on. I don't really know how to handle it except to go and try to win the next game and improve our ranking."
That ranking continues to climb, topping out at No. 11 in this week's coaches poll. That number puts the Tigers firmly in the NCAA tournament picture.
But the Tigers have more immediate concerns, and many have a very specific way of expressing them.
"The majority of us want South Florida -- that's the only team we haven't beaten in conference so far," Dyer said. "They're that one team that's keeping us from being extra confident."
On Oct. 9, the Bulls beat the Tigers 2-0, handing them their only conference loss. It also is the only loss in Memphis' last 13 games, a stretch where they've gone 11-1-1. But South Florida has haunted The U of M for years, posting an 11-1-2 record all-time. None of the current players have even beaten the Bulls.
Then again, steep odds are something this year's team is used to."For me it seems like we're breaking all sorts of records this year," Dyer said. "And none of the seniors has beaten (USF) yet."
As for St. Louis, Memphis won a 2-0 decision three weeks ago to start their current five-game shutout streak. However, the Billikens have won four straight C-USA titles.
Either way, Memphis has a tough tourney task and no experience about how to handle it. But that doesn't worry Grant.
"If you can play well against Conference USA, you can play well against any team across the country," Grant said. "We fear no one, and we're going to be going against the best teams once again."
