For the third consecutive game, head coach Penny Hardaway and his #18 Memphis Tigers (13-4, 3-1 AAC) were outrebounded by their opponent on Thursday night. Unlike the previous two outings, however, the Tigers were unable to eke out a victory on the road against the Temple Owls (11-6, 3-1 AAC). After hard-fought victories over North Texas and ECU, the Tigers found themselves on the wrong side of an American Athletic Conference game for the first time this season, falling to the Owls in Philadelphia 88-81.
In what’s becoming an upsetting trend for the Tigers, Memphis was dominated on the glass by their opponent. Temple pulled in 49 rebounds in Thursday night’s contest, nearly doubling Memphis’s paltry 25 rebounds. The Owls even managed to pull in 22 offensive rebounds, nearly matching the Tigers’ total rebounds on the night.
Speaking to the media following the loss, Hardaway was crystal clear in his message to the team: do better.
“We can’t go another game like this ever again. It was a butt-kicking. Every team in this league is gonna come out and crash the glass on us. If we don’t do something about it, every game is gonna be tough. It doesn’t have to be tough.”
Crashing the glass is something their opponents have excelled at. Through four games in AAC play, Memphis has been outrebounded three times and are allowing 16.75 offensive rebounds per game. If that average held for a full season, it would rank 364th out of 364 NCAA Division I teams in offensive rebounds allowed per game. Hardaway vowed after the game that his team would never allow that type of performance again this season:
“We’ll never give up—and I know you should never say never—22 offensive rebounds again. That just can’t happen. That’s very embarrassing.”
Memphis Tigers’ Bigs Aren’t Rebounding
A major contributor to the Tigers’ rebounding struggle has been a lack of consistency from the bigs in their rotation. Nicholas Jourdain (6’7”), Moussa Cisse (6’11”), and Dain Dainja (6’9”) are the team’s largest rotation players, but the three have combined for only 12.25 rebounds per game over the team’s last four games. Dainja, the team’s leading rebounder, has failed to record more than 5 rebounds in a game since Memphis’s December 21 loss to Mississippi State. The lack of interior toughness from his team’s bigs left Hardaway frustrated after the game:
“We’re showing these guys after games, ‘Hey, you’re not boxing out. You need to start boxing out [or] this is gonna be a problem.’ Now, you give up that many offensive rebounds to Temple—a team that doesn’t have as much talent as you, but just out-toughed you to beat you. That’s very disheartening. It doesn’t make sense to me at all.”
Hardaway’s message echoes what he said about his team following their 68-64 win over North Texas on January 5, a game in which the Tigers managed to hold off a furious second half rally from North Texas and were outrebounded 30-21.
Penny Hardaway On Fixing His Team’s Problems
Penny Hardaway got candid with reporters about how his team needs to improve moving forward:
“It’s gotta be player-led, whatever’s going on,” he said. “It has to be unified energy on winning the game the right way. And that’s with physicality and toughness.”
Hardaway also noted that his team has to remember that there’s a target on their back in the AAC, saying that every conference opponent they play against is aiming to knock the Memphis Tigers down a peg:
“Everybody’s best game comes at us, and we know that. But that’s what happens when you’re the hunted… If we’re not tough from this point forward, every game is gonna be tough.”
The Memphis Tigers’ next opportunity to solve their rebounding issues will come in a January 19 road game against the Charlotte 49ers (7-11, 0-5 AAC). The 49ers have lost their last 6 games and rank last in the AAC in rebounds per game. Tip-off is at 3:00 P.M. eastern standard time, television coverage will be provided by ESPN2.
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