Friday night at 7 p.m., the Memphis Tigers (2-0) will face off against the Ohio Bobcats (1-2) inside of FedExForum.
Memphis, coming off an 80-74 road win at UNLV, will look to maintain its undefeated record against the team that was the unanimous favorite in the MAC preseason poll, voted on by the head coaches in the conference.
The MAC is a good mid-major league, as shown by their three wins in the past six NCAA tournaments, so to be the favorite of it coming into the season speaks highly of Ohio’s potential.
In terms of roster continuity, these are two incredibly different teams. Unlike Memphis, who only returned one scholarship player from last season, Ohio returned eight players from a 20-win team last season. Kenpom ranks Ohio 28th in the country in minutes continuity, while Memphis is all the way down at 318th.
Despite the continuity for Ohio though, they have gotten off to a rough start, with losses to a James Madison team that is much diminished from the 12 seed that upset Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament last year and an Illinois St. team thought to be in the middle of the Missouri Valley Conference this year.
The main reason for this rough start is their horrible defensive play to start the season, allowing 83.0 ppg, which ranks 336th in Division 1. They are allowing teams to shoot 52.1% from the field and a whopping 48.1% from behind the arc, which rank 357th and 359th in the country, respectively. There are 364 teams in men’s Division 1 college basketball.
Now, while their defense is bad, to put it mildly, their offensive firepower is their path to winning basketball games. This begins with their second and third leading scorers from last year, point guard Shareef Mitchell and 6’8 forward AJ Clayton.
Clayton, in particular, could give Memphis problems, as he is a great stretch big, shooting 37% from 3 for his career. Another player to watch is 6 '4 guard AJ Brown, who is not a wide receiver for the Eagles, and just came off of a 20-point performance against Illinois St. Mitchell did not play in their loss on Tuesday but may be available against Memphis.
Ohio plays very small and likes to stretch the floor, with Clayton regularly being their center. The defensive matchups could be interesting, and I would expect Penny Hardaway to counter with a good helping of 4 guard lineups that have been seen regularly this season, which could actually be a real strength. According to Evan Miyakawa, Memphis’ best lineup through two games, is PJ Haggerty, Tyrese Hunter, Baraka Okojie, Colby Rogers, and Dain Dainja. Expect to see some variation of this four-guard lineup get some real minutes tonight.
The keys to the game will be for Memphis to take advantage of Ohio’s poor defense, particularly behind the arc, and to take advantage of their athleticism and size.
There has been much consternation about Memphis’ three-point shooting, which has been good enough at 37.8% in their first two games after their rough shooting in the two preseason exhibitions against North Carolina and Alabama. Colby Rogers and PJ Carter should have a good game from deep, as there will be plenty of open shots from that range against this Ohio team.
Memphis can also really dominate Ohio in the paint on both sides of the ball with Moussa Cisse’s rim protection and Dain Dainja’s size and scoring ability in the paint. Memphis’ bigs should outclass Ohio’s significantly as long as they are able to defend against Ohio’s bigs’ shooting ability.
Finally, Ohio likes to play fast offensively, and Memphis loves to speed teams up due to their athletic advantage they have over most of their competition. Expect this game to be high scoring, and for Memphis to really try and run on Ohio and keep the tempo up.
According to Kenpom, this should be Memphis’ easiest non-conference game, as Ohio ranks 162 there, almost 60 spots below the next worst team Memphis plays in their loaded non-conference schedule. With so few opportunities for easy wins, Memphis needs to take advantage of one when they get it and dispel any hope early for Ohio to try for an upset bid. Expect Memphis to win convincingly, in a high scoring affair at FedExForum, before they travel west to San Francisco and Maui.
