OXFORD, Miss. — Memphis basketball, as per usual under head coach Penny Hardaway, is at an early-season crossroads.
It started 5-0 with three wins over top 90 KenPom teams—a road triumph at Missouri on Nov. 10 and two neutral court victories in last week’s Battle 4 Atlantis against Michigan and Arkansas, which upset No. 7 Duke Wednesday. While Memphis was never ranked in that stretch, it did receive more votes than any other unranked team in the AP Top 25 poll for three straight weeks. But the Tigers have now lost their last two games—a 79-63 stinker against Villanova in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship and a 80-77 heartbreaker at Ole Miss Saturday.
Memphis started relatively well against the Rebels, and looked like the better team throughout most of the contest. It went on a 19-2 first half run after falling behind 7-0 in the game’s opening minutes. David Jones scored 16 points in the first half, and Malcolm Dandridge put an exclamation point on Ole Miss by posterizing former Tiger Moussa Cisse with 1:44 left in the half. The Tigers shot 41.2% from the field in the game’s first 20 minutes to take a 37-30 halftime lead.
Things got even better to start the second half. The Tigers went on a 6-0 run in the first 1:11 of the period to take a 43-32 lead, their largest of the game. And it then seemed liked Memphis was on its way to cruise control and a fourth victory over a top 100 KenPom opponent.
That’s when a switch suddenly flipped in Chris Beard’s team, and the Tigers were perhaps doomed right there. Ole Miss went on a 21-8 run in just over 5 minutes to grind out a 53-51 advantage, and could hardly be stopped after that. Memphis managed to retake the lead and even cling on to it for the majority of the second half.
But the Rebels eventually broke the Tigers’ barrier and took a 75-73 lead with 2:11 left to play. Memphis tried its best to take back control, but it ultimately failed since the Rebels hit 6 of their last 8 field goal attempts. Guards Jaylen Murray (22 points), Matthew Murrell (20 points), Allen Flanigan (18 points) and others were not to be denied.
Murray in particular couldn’t miss with a 7-of-14 overall clip, and he also made 4 of his 6 attempts from 3-point range. With 18 seconds showing on the clock, the Saint Peter’s transfer converted a layup that made the score 79-77 and proved to be the game-winner for Ole Miss.
“We couldn’t guard him,” Hardaway said postgame. “We put everybody on him…All you can do is tip your hat to someone like that. We’re gonna need that from our guys as well. We have guys that are capable of doing that and taking over games. It just hasn’t happened yet.”
Memphis and Ole Miss shot 42% and 45% respectively from the field, but the Tigers also shot 11% from 3-point range compared to a 50% clip for Ole Miss. The Rebels won the second half 50-40, a collapse Memphis only blames on itself.
“[Ole Miss] played better defense than we did…[We were] letting our offense dictate our defense,” Hardaway said. “We weren’t making the shots, and they got hot on the other end…We didn’t disrupt enough in that stretch where we lost the 11-point lead.”
Dandridge was perhaps the Tigers’ best player in the second half Saturday. Beyond the highlight dunk over Cisse, he kept Memphis afloat through much of its struggles. The 6-foot-9 center finished the game with 13 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocks in just 20 minutes played.
Only Jones finished with more points (22) than Dandridge. The fifth-year senior was also tied with wing Jaykwon Walton for being the Tigers’ second-leading rebounder behind Jones and forward Nick Jourdain, who both grabbed 7 boards. But he still thinks he could’ve done more to help the Tigers win.
“I always feel like I can do better,” Dandridge said. “[I need to] protect the basket more, play better defense and take advantage of the times where I have smaller guards and smaller people on me, because I was turning the ball over a little bit.”
Hardaway also feels like he could’ve done more, or made better decisions. He certainly could’ve had a better plan for Memphis’ final possession of the game trailing 80-77 with six seconds left, one that perhaps involved Jones getting the ball instead of Jahvon Quinerly (who missed the game-tying 3-pointer badly) or Ashton Hardaway (who the play was originally designed for). In fact, Jones didn’t even take a shot in the final 5:50 of the contest, an even bigger mistake in of itself.
Hardaway said so minutes after the fact.
“I’ll take full blame for that…I should’ve put the ball in David’s hands,” he said. “David had it going—definitely gotta take [blame] for that.”
It’s not all up to Hardaway to fix Memphis’ problems, though. Others have to step up and be what they’re supposed to be, particularly Jordan Brown. The 6-foot-11 center won the Lou Henson Award at Louisiana last season. The award annually recognizes college basketball’s best mid-major player. And the fifth-year senior was very-much worth the honor with his averages of 19.3 points and 8.6 rebounds per game in 2022-23.
Brown’s been a shell of that player this season, however. He’s now averaging 6.1 points, 3.9 rebounds and 13.4 minutes per game. He played 31.9 minutes per contest last season. The fifth-year senior almost completely disappeared against Ole Miss Saturday after picking up two fouls in the first 1:23 of the game and playing just seven minutes total. He finished the game with 2 points and 1 rebound, which simply isn’t good enough given the expectations for him heading into this year’s campaign. Hardaway knows the Tigers need more out of Brown moving forward.
“I gotta trust Jordan more. [Seven] minutes is not enough for a guy of that level,” he said. “We need him to be a double-double guy, but he can’t do it playing [seven] minutes…I have to do a better job because we have to take advantage of Jordan on the offensive end. And we haven’t done that yet.”
In fact, Hardaway thinks Brown might be the key to unlocking the Tigers’ interior presence offensively.
“I think it’s more on Jordan telling the guards, ‘Hey man, trust me. Get me the ball,'” he said. “[Brown] has to be more vocal.”
The Tigers now gear up for two more road opportunities at VCU (Dec. 6) and at No. 14 Texas A&M (Dec. 10) in the next week. They then get home dates against Clemson (Dec. 16), Virginia (Dec. 19) and Vanderbilt (Dec. 23). Since Memphis plays in a weaker AAC this season, it’s vital for the Tigers to defeat at least a few of these quality opponents to build an NCAA Tournament-caliber résumé. And Memphis must be better in all facets to adequately do so.
“I hope that we grow from our mistakes,” Hardaway said. “We’re making a ton of mistakes and still able to be in games, and we just gotta cut out those mistakes. These guys didn’t ask for this schedule. I put this schedule together, so everything that’s happening is on my back. But we have to learn from our mistakes and really just get better every game.”