Houston, TX – Everyone knew Aubrey Coleman was bound to put on a show despite his bum leg. All 900 Houston fans that showed up tonight got their dollars’ worth. Deep threes? Fade-away jumpers? Acrobatic layups? Cougars’ fans in attendance at Hofheinz Pavillion wanted it and they got it. Coleman led the Houston Cougars (14-13, 6-7 C-USA) with 34 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field in a 92-75 thrashing of the Tigers (20-8, 10-3 C-USA).
Prior to tonight’s 34-point performance against the Tigers, Coleman is averaging 25.4 ppg while only shooting 31% from three. He has scored 30 points or more six times this season, including the 32 he dropped against Memphis at the Forum last month. Tonight makes 7; two of them against the Tigers.
Although Wesley Witherspoon led the way for the Tigers with 18 points, the sophomore guard struggled shooting the ball, hitting only 6-of-15 from the floor (all of which came from inside the arc). Also struggling from the floor was sophomore guard Elliot Williams. He finished the game with a season-low in points (6) on 2-of-9 shooting while turning the ball over five times. The Tigers turned the ball over 16 times as a team.
Behind Witherspoon, Angel Garcia (13), Roburt Sallie (12), and Doneal Mack (10) were the only other Tigers to score double-digit points. The telling point of this stat is that the majority of Angel Garcia’s 13 points came in the final 11 minutes when the game was already out of reach. Essentially, the Tigers did not show up on the offensive end of the floor; finishing at 42.2% from the field (27-of-64) and 26.3% from three (5-of-19).
Defensively, the Tigers simply did not show up. Houston broke down the Memphis defense starting with the drive, opening up jumpers while leaving Memphis’s defenders to scramble and over-pursue. These lapses caused even more open driving lanes that resulted in wide-open looks and easy dump-down passes. Many of the foul problems for the Tigers came from the constant struggle to get back into position.
Burdened with foul trouble for much of the game before eventually fouling out, Witherspoon was an obvious liability on the defensive end as Houston repeatedly got the ball to Maurice McNeil and Kendrick Washington in the post. Together, McNeil and Washington totalled 27 points and 15 rebounds. Washington also chipped in 3 blocked shots. Houston finished the game shooting 50% from the field (30-of-60) and shot 34 free throws.
Moving forward, tonight’s loss to the Cougars essentially ends Memphis’ chance of earning an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament. The only guaranteed way for the Tigers to secure a bid would be to win the Conference USA Tournament. A sweep of the regular season and an appearance in the championship is not enough to rescue Memphis from the lackluster resume spotted with bad losses and absent of meaningful wins against teams in the top 100 in the RPI. Currently sitting at #62 in the RPI with a strength of schedule of 108, the Tigers will now have to set all eyes on Tulsa in hopes of participating in March Madness.
The Tigers will be at home on February 27th when they go up against Southern Miss at 7 p.m.
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