Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Post Game Tigers 73, Rice 51
Posted by Frank Murtaugh on Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 10:56 PM
For the first 32 minutes of playing time, tonight’s Memphis-Rice game at FedExForum was without a spark. Late January, a rainy Wednesday night, with, well, Rice in town. No spark.
Then Jacksons collided.
With the Tigers leading by 22 points and 7:31 to play in the game, Memphis guard Joe Jackson took a breakaway pass from Chris Crawford and raced toward what appeared to be a crowd-raising slam dunk. Instead, Rice guard Tamir Jackson closed from behind and slammed his Tiger namesake to the floor. (The 6-foot Joe Jackson has to get seriously elevated to dunk the ball; his fall was a long one. Landed on his left shoulder, which was still sore after the game.)
As the two Jacksons quickly rose and confronted each other under the basket — Joe acknowledged that Tamir was apologizing — three Memphis players and one excited head coach stormed onto the floor to prevent a brawl. The end result: a flagrant-two foul for Tamir Jackson (which came with an automatic ejection) and ejections of Tarik Black, Will Barton, and Trey Draper for leaving the Memphis bench.
- Larry Kuzniewski
- Joe Jackson
“We’ve talked about this before,” said coach Josh Pastner after the game. “We’ve worked on it before. You can’t leave the bench.” Pastner himself ran to the scene, he explained, to break up any potential fight. (He was visibly pointing at Tamir Jackson as the players began separating.) “It’s a normal reaction. I was concerned about Joe. That was a hard foul, and he was airborne. We’re down two starters as it is, with Charles [Carmouche] and Adonis [Thomas].”
Officals after the game confirmed that all three ejected Tiger players will be eligible to play in the team’s next game (Saturday night against Marshall at FedExForum).
Joe Jackson received a technical foul for his reaction to the foul, but was not ejected. He scored seven points and dished out four assists in 27 minutes on the floor, his most action since the Georgetown game over a month ago. “It was a real hard foul,” Jackson admitted after the game. “But we’ve got each others’ back.”
On paper, the game was to be a showdown between a pair of Conference USA Player of the Year candidates. Rice’s Arsalan Kazemi was held to four points and eight rebounds (he’s nursing a sore knee). And the Tigers’ Will Barton scored but nine points and grabbed eight rebounds before his ejection.
Sophomore guard Chris Crawford led Memphis with 15 points, his third game with at least 12 this month. Antonio Barton scored 11 and Tarik Black scored 10 (hitting all five of his field goal attempts) despite being limited to 17 minutes due to foul trouble and the ejection. The Tigers pulled down 16 offensive rebounds and shot 43 percent for the game.
With Marshall’s loss to UAB tonight, the Tigers are now tied atop C-USA with Southern Miss (each team now 5-1 in league play).
“I feel we’re getting better,” said Pastner. “It doesn’t guarantee you any wins, but it guarantees you can sleep at night knowing you’re getting better as a team. We’re getting better in every area. We’ve got to make sure we do it every time we get on the floor.”
Comments (4)
Showing 1-4 of 4
Damn, the headline had me sweating. Everyone knew about the in-game suspensions but the headline sounded like it would be for an additional game or games.
My suggestion to the guys, if the score is at least 25 points in our favor with only 5 minutes to play, leave the bench for your buddy.
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The Cincy-Xavier fight has effectively derailed Xavier's season, since that team no longer plays with the same confidence as before. In the Tiger's game, Rice's Jackson was assessed a flagrant foul, with Memphis shooting two free throws AND getting the ball back. Meanwhile, Memphis' Jackson pushes off on an apologetic opponent, gets assessed a technical foul himself, and Memphis no longer gets the ball afterwards. In a close game, that could have been the difference. When will they learn that being disrespected and reacting physically shows lack of control and an absence of the type of maturity that is needed to triumph over opponents who intentionally provoke outbursts to disrupt your team? And the knuckleheads who left the bench? Seriously, Will Barton at 6'6" and 175lbs. is not what anyone would call an enforcer. I think Coach Pastner knows what these guys need to do, but the players aren't doing it. Could it be that they don't fear the coach at all? I don't think Calipari's methods would work for Pastner, but they are effective for him. Josh needs to find a way to get his players' attention, and soon, because all the basketball knowledge in the world will not help if that info doesn't make it's way onto the court.
Go Grizz. I'm tired of the Tiger brats. Nothing more than selfish kids with tats. They all pretend to be ready to fight for their teammates, but they obviously pout on the bench when the same teammates get more playing time than them. And Josh, you looked like an idiot in that scrum. I'm glad the Rice coach called you out after the game.
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