Why Memphis basketball has ‘no excuse’ for its blowout loss to Mississippi State

Mississippi State left no doubt from the jump Saturday afternoon.

The Bulldogs and No. 21 Memphis scored 5 points apiece in the first four minutes at FedExForum, but the Tigers quickly fell behind with a 13-0 run by Chris Jans’ team. Things didn’t get much better from there.

MSU led Memphis by as many as 24 points in the second half, and Penny Hardaway’s club never cut the advantage to less than 13 afterwards. The final score—a 79-66 Mississippi State victory—didn’t look as bad as it was throughout the game, but that’s only because the Tigers finished things with a 13-3 run in garbage time.

By then, a building packed to the brim with Memphians two hours prior had turned into a slew of Mississippi State fans breaking out in a “Maroon and White” chant. MSU players then loudly sang “Whoop That Trick” in the visitor’s locker room shortly after the final buzzer.

Memphis—having won six games in Quads 1 and 2 this season—isn’t as stung as it otherwise would be. But the blowout loss still undoubtedly leaves a bitter taste in the Tigers’ mouths.

“The only discouraging thing is I feel like we didn’t fight as hard as we could have,” Hardaway told reporters postgame. “You have to be better.”

The Bulldogs outdid the Tigers in basically all areas Saturday. They outrebounded Memphis 46-32, won the turnover battle 16-18 and scored more bench points (41-15) and points in the paint (38-18). Memphis guards PJ Haggerty and Tyrese Hunter scored 24 and 19 points respectively, but no other Tiger recorded more than 7 points.

Haggerty and Hunter shot a combined 46% overall, while the rest of the team finished at 6-of-25 from the field. Hunter, a 6-foot senior, expressed his wholehearted disappointment postgame.

“We really ain’t got no excuse, honestly. I feel like they came out wanting it more than us. We just gotta be consistent with the energy that we give…just have that dog and the fight in us coming out [and] starting the game,” he said. “I just told the guys in the huddle that we can’t come out hoping that they miss shots, hoping they don’t play hard and expecting everything just to fall our way. In my eyes, I kinda felt like we did, and we just gotta go out and take it.”

Memphis (9-3) is no stranger to the slow starts Hunter is referring to this season. It’s won five games after trailing at halftime, and its three losses all coincide with intermission deficits of 13 points or more. The Tigers sunk into a 16-point hole at halftime against Mississippi State.

What made it even more disappointing, at least for Hunter, is it happened in front of Memphis fans that sold out the lower bowl of FedExForum less than 24 hours before tipoff—largely because Hardaway and Co. spent much of this week relentlessly encouraging the 901 to be there. That fact is far from lost on the Tigers.

“Nobody’s gonna feel sorry for us, honestly. Like I said, we got a target on our back. We gotta embrace that,” Hunter said. “We gotta go get it, bruh…We can’t just lay down in the first half and try to put some pressure back in the second half. We just gotta get it [for] the whole 40 minutes.”

Memphis has the perfect bounce-back opportunity next week, however, when it hosts No. 17 Ole Miss on Dec. 28 (1 p.m., ESPN2). A victory would give the Tigers both revenge for last year’s narrow loss in Oxford, Mississippi, and their fourth Quad 1 win this season.

Hardaway called for fans to show up in droves as they did Saturday—promising that his club will make it worth their while this time.

“We’re gonna be better. I hope the fans will come out again,” he said. “That’s what fans are for—to be able to support the hometown team. These kids deserve that. To me, it’s disheartening because I feel like it shouldn’t be, ‘If we win, you decide to come back.’…The fans are supposed to be there for the ups and the downs.”