Memphis basketball steamrolls Missouri in first non-conference test.

Caleb Mills gave Memphis basketball a C- for its sluggish victory over Jackson State Monday night.

He just might give the Tigers an A+ for their win over Missouri inside Mizzou Arena Friday night.

Memphis—headed by Rick Stansbury for the second straight game—stormed back from a tough first half to throttle Mizzou 70-55. The Tigers jumped from No. 34 to No. 26 in KenPom with the win. Memphis (2-0) can likely mark this game as a Quad 1 victory, even though Missouri (1-1) dropped from No. 56 to No. 70 with the loss. The NCAA’s NET rankings, which have yet to release this season, award a Quad 1 win to a team that defeats a top 75 opponent on the road. Earning wins in the first two quadrants—there are four total quadrants—is crucial in building one’s NCAA Tournament résumé.

As indicated, the game was truly a tale of two halves. In the first half, Memphis shot 11-31 from the field, made only two 3-pointers and trailed by as many as 14 points. The Tigers also compiled 7 turnovers and shot 2-6 from the free throw line in the game’s first 20 minutes.

But everything turned around for Memphis on the other side of halftime. The team started the second half on a 12-3 run to take the lead, and never looked back. Memphis was 16-of-31 from on its field goal attempts, shot 50% from deep and out-rebounded Missouri by 12. Defensively, it held Missouri to just 5-26 from the field and 2-11 from the perimeter. All in all, the visiting Tigers won the second half 44-22.

Memphis now has a week to prepare for its next game against Alabama State inside FedExForum, which will be the third and final outing of head coach Penny Hardaway’s suspension, before heading to The Bahamas to take part in this year’s Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.

Here are some takeaways from the Tigers’ big win.

Jahvon Quinerly—at his peak—is (probably) Memphis’ best player.

Quinerly, a 6-foot-1 transfer point guard from Alabama, struggled in his first two games in a Memphis uniform.

He scored just 6 points in an exhibition against LeMoyne-Owen and also compiled 3 rebounds, 2 assists and a whopping 4 turnovers. He shot just 2-for-7 from the field in the Tigers’ regular season-opener against Jackson State and coughed the ball up three more times. Hardaway, however, wasn’t concerned.

“In all fairness to JQ, he’s been out a month,” Hardaway said Wednesday. “He only got one exhibition before getting into [the Jackson State] game. So, he’s still trying to get back to where he was. Before he went out, he was looking really, really good.”

The suspended coach’s confidence in Quinerly was more than justified Friday. The Tigers’ starting point guard was also their most valuable player, recording 18 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals in 34 minutes. He had 14 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists in the second half alone. Quinerly also shot 7-of-10 from the field and 2-4 from 3-point range. Whether he was blowing by Mizzou defenders to the rim, or dropping them to the floor at the top of the key, Dennis Gates’ team had no answers for the Hackensack, N.J. native.

Vintage JQ 🍇

Memphis G Jahvon Quinerly (@RealJahvonQ) put on a SHOW in their 70-55 win on the road at Missouri.

18 PTS
8 REB
5 AST
3 STL
7-10 FG

The best player on the floor tonight.@BluffCity_Media | #GTG🐅 pic.twitter.com/VTztDMdRyr

— Hitmen Hoops Media (@HitmenHoops) November 11, 2023

Quinerly’s mind-boggling production should be nothing new, though. The former McDonald’s All-American is one of the most accomplished and experienced players college basketball has right now. Quinerly, who was the 2021-22 SEC Preseason Player of the Year, helped lead Alabama to three NCAA Tournament appearances, two Sweet 16 appearances, two SEC Tournament titles and two SEC regular season championships. He averaged 11.7 points, 3.7 assists and 2.3 rebounds per game in his tenure with Nate Oats’ program. And that’s with a down 2022-23 campaign, in which he played just eight months after tearing his ACL in the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

Jordan Brown—last year’s Lou Henson Award winner—is a great college basketball player. So is David Jones, who’s averaged double-figure points at two different Big East programs. Jaykwon Walton is one of the country’s best perimeter shooters (40% last season). Mills is an experienced, lethal scoring guard.

But Quinerly—at his peak—just might be the best player on the Tigers’ star-studded roster. The question is how often can they get that version of him.

If the answer is regularly, Memphis will be extremely hard to beat for any team in the country, including AAC preseason favorite Florida Atlantic.

Memphis’ defense turned around in the second half.

Mizzou guard Sean East II had his way with Memphis in the first half.

East scored 14 points in the game’s first 20 minutes while shooting 5-of-8 from the field and 2-of-4 from 3-point range. Forward Noah Carter also had a good first half, chipping in 8 points on 3-5 shooting.

Neither East nor Carter played well in the second half, though. In fact, no Missouri player did. Gates could only look in awe as he watched his team launch brick after brick towards the end of the game. If they weren’t doing that, they were getting smothered by Memphis’ stifling defense. Mizzou made just 5 of its 26 field goal attempts in the second half, and things would’ve been even worse had Memphis not awarded it 14 free throw attempts.

The visiting Tigers compiled 7 steals, blocked 6 shots and forced 16 turnovers. Memphis also scored 10 points off those turnovers and nabbed 36 defensive rebounds, including a team-high 9 from Jones. Missouri finished with just 33 total rebounds.

Hardaway said Wednesday that his team needed to play “Memphis basketball” against Missouri if it wanted to win. UCF transfer Jayhlon Young said he wanted the Tigers to look like “a bunch of dawgs.”

It’s safe to say they did both of those things and then some.

Jordan Brown dominated in limited action.

The 6-foot-11 center, who once again didn’t start Friday, played only 17 minutes against Missouri. That didn’t stop him from getting his, however. Brown scored 12 points on 6-10 shooting and grabbed 5 rebounds, achieving a plus-minus score of 10.

This has become an early-season trend for one of the country’s finest big men (19.3 points and 8.6 rebounds per game last season). Brown also compiled 11 points and 5 rebounds in just 20 minutes of action against Jackson State. This is a stark contrast from his 31.1 minutes per game he played at Louisiana last year.

If Memphis can keep Brown on the floor for longer spurts—and perhaps re-insert him into the starting lineup, it makes the Tigers even more dangerous.

When in doubt, just keep shooting.

The 3-point shot was instrumental in Memphis’ second half run.

In the half, the Tigers shot 5-of-10 from beyond the arc. Quinerly and Jones each made two in the period. Memphis finished the game 7-19 from the perimeter overall. Walton scored 13 points on three made 3-pointers. Jones finished with 10 points and the aforementioned two 3-pointers in the second half. Nobody else on the team besides those three made a perimeter shot.

If you only count Quinerly, Jones and Walton’s shooting numbers, that amounts to a 7-14 clip.

The Tigers also shot 51.6% from the field as a team in the second half, with four different players making at least three shot attempts. Five Memphis players scored at least 6 points in the final 20 minutes of play.

Memphis’ veteran shot-makers made their presence known against Missouri, and were ultimately why the Tigers won. Hardaway, Stansbury or whoever’s coaching should continue to lean on them as the season goes on.