After falling to eighth place East Carolina on Tuesday, Memphis will hope to bounce back against the South Florida Bulls this weekend.
Although South Florida (7-18, 1-11 American Athletic Conference) is in last place, the Tigers seem vulnerable after the loss of star-forward Austin Nichols, who was taken out by a sprained ankle during the loss to Temple last Saturday.
While Memphis took a 25-21 halftime lead against ECU on Tuesday, the loss of Nichols showed on both sides of the ball as they got outscored 43-28 in the second half and allowed the ECU Pirates to shoot 46 percent from the field in the game.
As bad as ECU may be, South Florida is much worse.
They haven’t won a game in over five weeks. Their last victory was ironically against the Pirates in a 58-53 home win for the Bulls on Jan. 3.
There are just a couple of things the Tigers will have to clean up before the trip to Florida this weekend, scoring droughts and turnovers.
The Tigers only shot 37 percent in the loss to ECU, and without Nichols to bail them out of tight spots this will only put more pressure on the rest of the team to pick up their shooting percentages.
Pastner said regardless of how this season has gone they can’t start feeling sorry for themselves.
“We can’t be pointing the finger,” Pastner said in a press conference. “We can’t use the injury as an excuse. We’ve got to get the job done and that means getting the win. We’ve got to play better. Be better. We have to defend better at key times that’s just what it comes down to.”
He deflected criticism of his players at the press conference on Wednesday.
“When we lose a game it's on me,” Pastner said. “I’m captain of the ship.”
Two players who showed a bit of promise in the loss were forwards Shaq Goodwin and Nick King. Goodwin had a double-double with 13 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks. King also scored 13 points and had eight rebounds off the bench.
The turnover bug has also came back to sting the Tigers as they turned the ball over 19 times against the Pirates. Guards Kedren Johnson, Markel Crawford and Goodwin combined for 12 turnovers with four apiece they will have to take care of the ball for the Tigers to have any success until Nichols comes back.
This game will be the battle between the two teams in the conference who turn the ball over the most. Memphis turns it over 14 times a game (14.2), worst in the conference. The Bulls are second worst giving the ball away 13.8 times a game.
South Florida is tied for the worst scoring offense in the American along with the Cincinnati Bearcats, only scoring 62.3 points a game.
However, the Bulls lost one of their key pieces indefinitely on Jan. 27 when forward Chris Perry began experiencing chest pains during an evening workout and hasn’t played since. He was third in the AAC in rebounds with 7.1 a game and also chipped in with 10.7 points per game for the Bulls.
The Tigers will still have to account for the third-leading scorer in the American in senior guard Corey Allen Jr. who is averaging 15.5 points per game for the Bulls and had a 32-point outburst in South Florida’s overtime loss to Tulsa on Jan.31. Allen Jr. is also the team’s leading three-point shooter, shooting 35 percent from three.
Memphis will take on South Florida on Saturday at 11 p.m. at the Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida. ESPNU will televise the game.
