After the disappointing loss at Gonzaga on Saturday night, the Tigers will hope to bounce back in their last non-conference game of the season when they take on the Jacksonville State Gamecocks.
Despite the Gamecocks (9-15) poor record and have lost 11 out of their last 13 games after a 7-4 start, coach Josh Pastner said at his press conference on Monday that he thinks the Gamecocks play hard but Memphis (13-8) must keep the focus on themselves.
“Obviously we got to get back (from the Gonzaga game) and focus on Memphis,” Pastner said. “Jacksonville State is well-coached. They have good players, they play hard and compete they get after it and they are intense. We’re not a team right now that can just show up, we’ve got to play well. It’s not about whether we’re playing Gonzaga or Jacksonville State. We need to play well every time we step on the floor.”
The Tigers have played well at times, but only have one marquee win so far this season against Cincinnati on Jan. 15 and Memphis is 1-6 against the RPI Top 50 this season. Nevertheless, Pastner said he is happy that they’ve had such a tough schedule this season and that he hopes it well them in the long run with the fact he has a younger team.
“Where we are right now, we’ve played a very tough schedule, you look at our numbers our strength of schedule is 25th in the country, which is great,” Pastner said. “Our non-conference schedule is 16th in the country, which is great, for a young team to play that type of schedule just shows you we did not back down from anyone and we continued to play our tough schedule. Hopefully the toughness of that schedule will help us to prepare in the second half of league play.”
One of the aspects that the Tigers hope to build on for the rest of the season is “valuing the ball” as coach Pastner has repeated throughout the season. Though Memphis got blown out vs. Gonzaga they only turned over the ball 10 times and Pastner said it now they have to find a way to address their other problem scoring droughts.
“The common theme was droughts and turnovers, we’ve done a much better job of turnovers, it’s now just the droughts,” Pastner said. “It happens. It just feels like it happened this year more than any of my time here at Memphis, we have got to get stops at the other end during that time. That’s important because you can’t keep having it compound and we have to be able to put the ball in the basket, some of that is maybe getting a call or two so you can get to the free throw line to stop the bleeding.”
Another promising sign for the Tigers is the improved play for sophomore forward Nick King. Since his DNP against Tulane on Jan. 24, King has averaged 12 points on 50 percent shooting and 6.5 rebounds playing 21.5 minutes per game in his last two games. Pastner said that King is critical part of their team.
“We need Nick (King), Nick’s a critical part of our team the last two games he’s played,” Pastner said. “He’s been a guy who’s been able to score for us do some different things, he’s always rebounded well, I think he’s a really good three-point shooter, when his feet are set and if he can make some of those threes that would help open things up too.”
Forward Austin Nichols said while the team is young and that they considered the loss against Gonzaga a learning experience, losing will never be acceptable.
“No one likes to lose for sure, and although it was a learning experience and we are a young team,” Nichols said. “We are a Division I team, we are the University of Memphis and whoever it is we got to be ready to play as far as I go and any of our teammates go we hate losing and we’re not going to say we’re young because we’re losing that’s not how I think or any of my teammates think.”
He also said when asked about fellow forward Shaq Goodwin’s scoring slump this season that he knows he feels because he knows what it’s like to be in a slump but that he has to trust the process and keep working hard.
“He’s just in a little slump, I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been in slumps before and it’s not fun,” Nichols said. “But he just has to keep working hard in practice and continue to trust the process as coach says and eventually he’ll start executing.”
Nichols also said the American Athletic Conference is wide open and that if the Tigers play well they can still earn a first round bye in the AAC Tournament.
“Yeah the conference is wide open, I’m not really sure where everyone ranks I don't really pay attention to that,” Nichols said. “I definitely feel like the conference is open, anyone can beat anyone on any given night and if we continue to execute and do what we’re supposed to do in conference we can get a first round bye.”
Memphis will take on Jacksonville State on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at FedEx Forum. The game will be available to watch on ESPN3.com.
