The University of Memphis men’s basketball team doesn’t like to make life easy on themselves as they won a 70-58 game against the ECU Pirates on Wednesday night that was closer than the score indicated.
It all started so well for the Tigers (13-7, 6-3 American Athletic Conference) as they played one of their best halves of offense basketball of the season (8-12, 1-6 AAC), shooting 58 percent from the field and only committing three turnovers to help build a commanding 39-24 halftime lead.
Forward Austin Nichols led the Tigers with 12 points on 6-9 shooting in the first half and was un-guardable at times, Nichols would finish the game with 21 points, five rebounds, and two blocks.
Guard Markel Crawford continued his momentum from Saturday (15 points and 5 steals in a 57-55 win over Tulane), as he had another strong first half with five points and three assists including an impressive breakaway slam, Crawford finished the game with seven points and three assists.
Forward Nick King who did not feature versus Tulane, also had a strong first half off of the bench as he scored seven points and even made a rare three-pointer and also was aggressive on the glass as he grabbed six boards. King finished with 11 points and 7 rebounds.
However despite the impressive first half performance, in the second half ECU had quite a response as they shot an incredible 8-14 from the three-point line and finished 13-27 (49 percent) for the game. Guard Terry Whisnant led the three-point charge with fives threes of his own (5-7) and scored 17 points on the night.
As a result, with 3:50 to go the 15-point halftime lead was all the whittled all the way down to four at 62-58, and Memphis needed one final push to get the victory and they got just that. King made a huge jumper to extend the lead to six and right after Nichols made two key free throws to extend the lead to eight and Memphis would then go on to finish the game on an 8-0 run. ECU failed to make a field goal in the final 4:44 of the game.
The Tigers defense started and finished the game well as ECU shot 21-48 (44 percent) for the game and never let the Pirates lead again after they scored the opening basket with 19:41 left in the first half.
Another positive for the Tigers tonight was their ability to “value the ball” as coach Josh Pastner has been stressing as of late. The Tigers only turned the ball over six times, nine below their season average and won the turnover battle convincingly (13 to six.) They also passed the ball well against ECU’s zone defense as they had 19 assists on their 28 made field goals. Guard Avery Woodson led the team with five assists and also chipped in seven points.
Memphis also dominated ECU in points in the paint scoring 34 to ECU’s 12 and were the more aggressive team overall as the Tigers made 14 trips to the free throw line (8-14, 57 percent) compared to ECU’s three trips (3-3).
The Tigers will now head on the road to take on No.3 Gonzaga at the McCarthy Athletic Center in Spokane, Washington, on Saturday at 9 p.m. The game will broadcast on ESPN2.
