Post Game: Tiger Blue, Memphis Flyer

Tigers 86, UAB 71

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 14:58:00 -0600

Not since 2003 — when they played in The Pyramid — had the Memphis Tigers' drawn as large a crowd (of players) for Senior Day as they did in today's regular-season finale at FedExForum. The pregame ceremony stirred 18,289 Tiger fans as it always does, and three of those seniors — Charles Holt, Stan Simpson, and Ferrakohn Hall — received a farewell ovation unlike any they'll ever experience again.…

Tigers 89, Southern Miss 73

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:14:08 -0600

The Tigers won their second straight Conference USA regular-season championship Saturday with a rather thorough dismantling of the league's second-best team. A midcourt steal followed by a breakaway dunk by junior guard Geron Johnson spurred an 18-3 run to end the first half, giving Memphis a 46-30 lead.…

Tigers 81, Houston 74

Frank Murtaugh — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 23:25:30 -0600

And sportsmanship prevails.

With five seconds left in tonight's game at FedExForum, Adonis Thomas received a pass from Chris Crawford under the Houston basket, the Cougar defense conceding the final moments of the Tigers' 17th straight victory.…

Tigers 93, UCF 71

Frank Murtaugh — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:06:06 -0600

"It's not a birthright to win 15 games in a row. It's not a birthright to have another 20-win season.…

Tigers 94, Tulsa 64

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 16:14:58 -0600

Tulsa coach Danny Manning enjoyed his share of dominant games during his All-America playing days at Kansas. So the first-year head coach surely appreciated what Tiger senior D.J. Stephens did Saturday afternoon: four dunks, a three-pointer, four blocks, nine rebounds, and a career-high 15 points.…

Tigers 73, Marshall 72

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 16:26:00 -0600

"They're better than their record. They've got a great offensive rebounding team; they hurt us on weak side rebounding.…

Tigers 71, Tulane 60

Frank Murtaugh — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:55:38 -0600

The Tigers discovered one surefire way to stop their recent trend of allowing big leads to slip away: Let the opponent take the big lead.

Having lost 20 game in a row in its series with Memphis, Tulane took the floor tonight at FedExForum with a noticeable energy charge.…

Tigers 60, Harvard 50

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:37:31 -0600

The Tigers took a big lead today against an overmatched team. Then halftime came.…

Tigers 67, East Carolina 54

Frank Murtaugh — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:56:43 -0600

Joe Jackson's first jump shot was nothing but net. Shaq Goodwin scored on a put-back in traffic.…

Tigers 62, Lipscomb 56

Frank Murtaugh — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:25:22 -0600

Can a six-point victory be more deflating than a nine-point loss? Five days after losing to sixth-ranked Louisville, the Tigers tested the riddle tonight at FedExForum with a listless win over a Lipscomb team that had lost by 34 to Belmont.…

Louisville 87, Tigers 78

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 17:10:41 -0600

The 6th-ranked Louisville Cardinals did what villains do. They stayed in the locker room for the pregame national anthem.…

Tigers 83, Austin Peay 65

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 15:16:01 -0600

The Tigers started this afternoon's game as though breakfast hadn't quite settled. The Austin Peay Governors were the sharper team just after the noon tip-off, taking an 8-3 lead and holding a 10-8 advantage at the first media timeout, 4:16 into the contest.…

Tigers 84, Ohio 58

Frank Murtaugh — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 20:59:19 -0600

And a fan base exhaled.

On what amounted to Newcomers Night at FedExForum, the Memphis Tigers rode the high-octane play of Shaq Goodwin and Geron Johnson to a much-needed win over a team that less than nine months ago played in the NCAA tournament's Sweet 16.…

Tigers 93, UT-Martin 65

Frank Murtaugh — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:39:49 -0600

"We had to get the crowd back tonight," said Memphis coach Josh Pastner after a form-holding drubbing of the UT-Martin Skyhawks. "That was on us.…

Tigers 42, Southern Miss 24

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 20:16:00 -0600

Progress can be a subjective unit of measurement. Until, that is, a 1-8 football team proceeds to score 125 points over its last three games for its first three-game winning streak in four years.…

(#17) Tigers 65, Samford 54

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 22:27:45 -0600

Two nights after losing by 26 points at second-ranked Louisville, the Samford Bulldogs found themselves down only three (54-51) with 4:18 to play in tonight's game against the 17th-ranked Memphis Tigers at FedExForum. Playing methodically on offense and relying on a 2-3 zone defensively, the Bulldogs reduced a 12-point deficit to three over an 11-minute stretch that had 16,275 U of M fans wondering if the all-but-impossible might happen: a basketball loss on the same day as a football win.…

Tigers 81, North Florida 66

Frank Murtaugh — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 22:14:39 -0600

You can forgive public-address announcer Chuck Roberts for his enthusiastic emphasis of “Memphis, Tennessee” as he introduced the Tigers’ starting lineup tonight at FedExForum. For the first time in a quarter century, you see, the U of M opened a basketball season with five Memphis natives on the court.…

UCF 35, Tigers 17

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 23:24:14 -0500

Fumbles are damaging to the chances of a good football team. For a struggling team — facing one of its league’s pacesetters — fumbles are positively deadly.…

Tigers 14, Rice 10

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 22:52:27 -0500

“It wasn’t pretty, but we found a way to get it done.” Justin Fuente was strangely subdued shortly after his first victory as a head football coach. And the trouble was, his comments could barely be heard over the joyous screams from the Tiger locker room next door.…

Middle Tennessee 48, Tigers 30

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 22:48:56 -0500

Many football games are won with precise execution. Just as often, though, games are lost with mistakes.…

UT-Martin 20, Memphis 17 (full report)

Frank Murtaugh — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 08:55:00 -0500

As far as introductions go, the script seemed firmly in place. A crowd just shy of 40,000 filled most of a dolled-up Liberty Bowl to greet rookie coach Justin Fuente and sound off a new era for a football program desperate for a positive vibe.…

C-USA championship: Tigers 83, Marshall 57

Frank Murtaugh — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:37:53 -0600

It’s come to feel as customary in March as a green tie on the 17th. Another Conference USA basketball tournament in the books, another Memphis Tiger team cutting down the nets.…

C-USA semifinals: Tigers 83, UCF 52

Frank Murtaugh — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:09:05 -0600

In terms of wake-up calls, the Tigers’ two-point loss to UTEP on February 18th at FedExForum is working its way into the history books. Since that deflating upset, Memphis has won all six games it has played, and by margins that read like a lottery number: 23, 20, 29, 12, 18, 31.…

C-USA quarterfinals: Tigers 65, UTEP 47

Frank Murtaugh — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:05:18 -0600

The first three minutes of tonight’s Conference USA quarterfinal were worrisome for those wearing blue at FedExForum. Not quite three weeks after the Tigers’ most dispiriting loss of the season, Memphis fell behind the very team that delivered that defeat — the UTEP Miners — 10-2.…

Tigers 84, UCF 55

Frank Murtaugh — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:31:22 -0600

Let’s go ahead and get this over with: Tonight’s Tiger victory was ’Spoon-fed.

On an evening when Wesley Witherspoon and Preston Laird were honored as departing seniors, Memphis avenged a January loss to UCF by eviscerating the Knights in front of 17,784 raucous fans at FedExForum. (Even with a late tip-off on Tuesday night, it was the second-largest crowd of the season.)…