Game Thoughts Memphis

[I.I.]

1. A terrible match up for us with limited inside players against the two best 6'10" McDonald's All-Americans in the league.

2. Referees seemed to really skew this game. I rarely mention them. but this was obvious even to the announcers who were perplexed. 20 or 25 more free throws or more for Memphis.

3. When Birt is off offensively, we lose, when he is on we win. That has been us the past ten games. His defense was suberb and gets a lot of credit there.

4. Taplin and Ray picked up the slack and kept us in it until the Memphis players finally stopped shooting outside and got smart.

5. I thought we might press after Tarrant got his 4th foul and Memphis had no guards. We could have blitzed them at that point with our depth at guard and speed. But no we let them walk it up and throw it inside.

6. The pundits will gladly move us out I suspect. I feel bad for the kids who got this far.

7. Go win the tournament in Orlando. Not out of the question. Cincy is the only team I would fear.

 

[bigzit]

Good thoughts. I think point 3 was the #1 problem today... he was forced to play crazy hard defense. That energy caused him to lose some of his offensive game today. He was just off all day and I think it was due to his defensive intensity.

I think Tulsa is on the bubble if it gets to the Championship game. Because it would have to beat a Top 50 RPI team most likely....

 

[I.I.]

Even the best Memphis fans are laughing about the officiating ! Here is a typical post from the Dockery Finch Board.

"When Lawson doesn't turn it over, he's as good as anybody. Sure helps to get a foul called on other team every time we drive to the hoop. Tulsa has to be pissed...nothing like being at home."

 

[slacker48]

61 Free Throws in the game, 61. I go to games to see the players play not the officials to blow their whistles.

I tuned in late but the flow and the way the game was officiated tiled toward Memphis, they only have two guy that can play and a coach who cannot coach. But they had officials who could blow and blow.

That is not right NCAA officials to not allow the kids to play and demonstrate their skills, isn't that what we pay to comes and see, is superb athletics play their guts out, but NO we saw officials who wanted to showcase their skills, and blow and blow, 61 times.

 

[TU 1978]

It's too bad the officials didn't inhale their whistles and choke on them.

 

[I.I.]

One thing to remember is the Championship AAC game will not be over until an hour before selection Sunday starts. The committee will probably have to make a decision on the two teams by halftime to make the deadline.

 

[Gmoney4WW]

Which probably means if one of them is us, then they'll probably pick UConn or Cincy if that's who we are playing. If it were us and Temple, that would be an interesting dilemma for them. Might mean our conference got one less team in, seeing as how they wouldn't want both Temple and us in the Tourney. Probably would mean no at large for the tourney loser.

 

[Air_Raid918]

Does anyone know the actual extent of Smith's injury? Someone posted in the Alley that he's done for the season with a torn labrum. Yet, Haith said pregame he took part in practice, just non-contact. Kelly Hines also tweeted that Smith took part in pregame warm-ups in Memphis.

 

[Lumpuckeroo]

Good thoughts. I think point 3 was the #1 problem today... he was forced to play crazy hard defense. That energy caused him to lose some of his offensive game today. He was just off all day and I think it was due to his defensive intensity.

I think Tulsa is on the bubble if it gets to the Championship game. Because it would have to beat a Top 50 RPI team most likely....

Bad timimg to have an "Off Day". Woodard missed alot of 3's also.

 

[TU_BLA]

Bad timimg to have an "Off Day". Woodard missed alot of 3's also.

We still scored 82 pts...not being able to shoot late is a product of a jacked up rotation created by phantom foul/T calls. Honestly, if Memphis shoots 30 FTs to 22 for us that's a normal home court advantage...They made 10 more FTs than we took. Yes the 2nd half was more evenly called, but Swannegan still picked up a phantom 4th foul backing away from Goodwin. The damage was 18 fouls against us in the 1st half and it made our bench shorter and destroyed our rotational flow. If the refs call it equally and use the same standard as to what is a foul for both teams, TU probably wins 75-65.

I thought Haith did as good a job as he could given the ridiculous circumstances. If I'm Haith though...knowing the score difference late and understanding you're not coming back....I go off on the refs, go ballistic, and get thrown out sticking up for his players. I call the refs out during the press conference, during interviews, during the call-in show tonight, I post it on Twitter and tell the AAC they should be ashamed to be associated with referees that are clearly biased. IF ANYTHING, the AAC should be trying to protect TU and the bid...

 

[dfwcanefan]

One thing to remember is the Championship AAC game will not be over until an hour before selection Sunday starts. The committee will probably have to make a decision on the two teams by halftime to make the deadline.

That's a good point, and I feel like it could help our chances a little if we were playing a team that's already in the field (probably UConn or Cincy) since they'd need to conditionally juggle the bracket in order to leave us out. If we play a team that isn't in the field (not sure about Temple, but that includes everyone else) it would be bad for us since the path of least resistance would be for them to slot Tulsa/Houston winner as a 12 seed in the South.