The Tigers hope to return to conference play with a victory when they take on the Temple Owls this weekend.
Memphis (14-8, 6-3 American Athletic Conference) is coming off two non-conference games and split them, losing at no.3 Gonzaga last Saturday and winning against Jacksonville State on Wednesday. The game against Temple (16-7, 7-3 AAC) will start the first of the Tigers final nine regular season conference games.
One sign of encouragement from the victory over Jacksonville State was the performance of junior forward Shaq Goodwin. Goodwin had 16 points and 7 rebounds and even made the second three-pointer of his college career in the victory.
Coach Josh Pastner said after the Jacksonville State win, Goodwin played well but he needs to carry it over into conference play.
"I wanted to get Shaq going. He had a good stat line, he just has to keep that going,” Goodwin said. “He made some shots in the first half. We need him to be really good for us. He needs to consistently put up 16 and seven every game. We're counting on him and he knows that. I thought he played well tonight. He played well against Gonzaga, but he just didn't make shots. He was competing there. We need him to continue to play at a high level.”
However, Jacksonville State is not Temple, the Owls are having a strong season in and are third in the American and are on a four game winning streak. Temple also defeated the no.8 team in the country the Kansas Jayhawks 77-52 on Dec. 22.
Temple does a great job of taking care of the ball as they average the fewest turnovers per game in the conference with just a little over 10 per game. The Owls also take the ball away from their opponents at the third-best rate in the conference averaging nearly seven steals a game.
If recent games are anything to go by, the Owls won’t have much success in taking the ball away from the Tigers. Memphis has only committed 13 turnovers in their last two games.
Pastner said his team has come a long way since the opening game of the season against Wichita State, in terms of “valuing the ball.”
"I was really proud of our guys. We had three turnovers in 40 minutes,” Pastner said. “In our first game against Wichita State, we had 24 turnovers. I know Jacksonville State is not Wichita State, the point is we're valuing the possession of the ball.”
The Owls’ biggest Achilles heel this season has been their poor shooting percentage. Temple is last in the conference in field goal percentage at 38 percent and 340th overall in the nation. Though Temple is fourth in the conference in three-pointers made per game at 6.7 a game, they are only shooting them at a 31 percent clip, third-worst in the AAC.
Although Temple has one reliable three-pointer shooter in junior guard Quinton DeCosey. He leads the Owls in scoring with 13.3 points per game and despite shooting only 37 percent from the field is shooting 38 percent from three.
Memphis will take on Temple on Saturday at the FedEx Forum at noon. ESPNews will broadcast the game.
