PJ Haggerty maintained his usual cool, calm demeanor before, during and after No. 17 Memphis’ 83-71 win over Tulsa, his former team, inside FedExForum on Wednesday night.
“It was a regular game to me,” he told reporters postgame.
It’s easy to believe Haggerty, since he had quite a regular performance—at least for him. The 6-foot-3 guard totaled a game-high 23 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. He scored 15 of those in the second half while splashing in three of Memphis’ six 3-pointers during the period.
The Tigers led the Golden Hurricane by just 5 points at halftime after allowing 24 first-half points in the paint. But Haggerty led the charge in a 44-37 final period that saw Memphis launch a 31-15 run over nine minutes and 16 seconds to claim a 19-point advantage.
Memphis coach Penny Hardaway figured his star point guard was emotionally ready to square off with his former coach (Eric Konkol) and teammates. Hardaway checked in anyway, though, since he didn’t want to repeat the mistake he made last month.
Haggerty isn’t the only American Athletic Conference (AAC) transfer on Memphis’ roster this year. Another one of the Tigers’ four is Colby Rogers, who played for Wichita State last season. Rogers (10.9 points per game, 38.5% 3-point shooting) is a 23-game starter and arguably Memphis’ biggest threat from the perimeter.
Wichita State stifled its former leading scorer, however, when it came to town on Jan. 23. Rogers shot an abysmal 1-of-10 from the field and notched just 3 points against the Shockers. Hardaway partially takes the blame for that, since he wrongfully assumed Rogers didn’t need a pregame pep talk. The seventh-year headman couldn’t leave anything to chance with Haggerty.
“I felt like I had to go to PJ and kinda check his temperature on where he was.” Hardaway said. “They’re mad that he left, and they were gonna try to take him out of the game. I just wanted to make sure he was good.”
But Hardaway admits there are some differences between the two situations, since Haggerty left his former school on better terms than Rogers might’ve. Outside of a brief confrontation between the two teams at halftime that Hardaway called “friendly banter,” nothing too extracurricular occurred in Memphis’ fourth Quad 4 victory this season.
“They know PJ’s temperament. He’s not ever a guy that’s gonna leave upset. He just made a decision for himself to move on. Those guys understand that, because that’s the business,” Hardaway said. “It wasn’t any bad blood. You would be able to tell if there [was] bad blood. There would’ve been harder fouls on him if that were the case…To me, the energy on Colby was way worse than the energy on PJ.”
The Tigers’ next game is anything but regular for Haggerty and starting center Dain Dainja, who recorded 21 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 blocks and 3 steals against Tulsa. Memphis (19-4, 9-1 AAC) gets its rematch with Temple, which handed the Tigers their only conference loss last month, at home on Sunday (1 p.m., ESPN2).
Both have plenty of gripes from that dreadful evening in Philadelphia. Dainja headed a frontcourt that put forth an embarrassing effort on the glass. The Owls outrebounded the Tigers 49-25 while grabbing 22 offensive boards—just three shy of Memphis’ total rebounding production. Dainja grabbed just 5 rebounds in 22 minutes after committing 4 personal fouls.
Haggerty, meanwhile, cost Memphis crucial points down the stretch with three missed free throws in the final 120 seconds. It’s carried over too, since the John R. Wooden Award candidate is shooting just 64% at the charity stripe in his last six games.
None of that matters anymore, though, since the two are far more interested in revenge than reflection.
“Get back,” both said in succession.
“That’s all it is. Y’all are gonna see Sunday,” Haggerty said.