The No.19 Memphis Tigers escaped Houston with a 86-83 victory over the 11-10 Rice Owls. The Tigers led by 8 with 45 seconds to go, but allowed the Owls an opportunity to win the game in the final moments.

Five minutes into the game, Memphis led 13-5. PJ Haggerty started off hot, scoring 14 points in the first half. PJ Carter finished with 19 points and shot 5-7 from beyond the arc.

After Tyrese Hunter made his first shot of the game at the 9:48 mark Memphis led 28-18.

Then, the Owls took advantage of the Tiger's turnovers and strung together an 11-0 run that gave them the lead. Up until this run, Memphis was playing clean basketball, but ended up with 9 first half turnovers.

Transfer guard Dante Harris course corrected the Memphis offense and hit back-to-back triples. Memphis was able to improve their lead to 44-39 going into the locker rooms.

The Tigers kept the advantage for the remainder of the game. However, they did let the Owls cut it to 1 with 12:40 to go. Rice caught fire in the middle chunk of the half, shooting 5-11 from the perimeter, and Memphis struggled to keep up.

Tyrese Hunter and PJ Haggerty made up for the cold spell themselves, scoring 26 of the 42 points in the second half. PJ Carter also contributed 10 points.

Hunter scored 5 in a row just before the 8 minute mark and gave Memphis a 69-61 lead. The following possession, PJ Carter hit a 3 to advance the margin to 9.

With 2:53 remaining, PJ Haggerty converted on an and one that put the Tigers up 11. This felt like the dagger in the heart of the Owls. However, they did not throw in the towel.

The following 2 minutes, Rice outscored Memphis 11-2, dominating the Tigers on both sides of the ball, including a 7-0 run spanning from 35 seconds to 12 seconds. To cap the run off, Rice sunk a 3 with 12 seconds remaining to cut the deficit to 1.

PJ Haggerty converted on both of his free throws pushing the score back to 84-81. Memphis fouled Rice on the following possession in order to prevent them from making a 3 to take the lead.

Both teams traded trips to the charity stripe, until Rice was called for a 5-second violation with 4 seconds remaining. The Tigers also turned the ball over during their inbound, but the Owls failed to get a shot up because they were on the opposite side of the court.

Memphis finished shooting 33-60(55%) from the field and 11-21(52.4%) from 3. Once again, the Tigers ended with a positive assist to turnover ratio, with 20 assists and 16 turnovers.

The Owls did capitalize off these takeaways and finished with 23 points off turnovers.

MVP goes to PJ Haggerty. Coming off an 8-point performance vs Tulane, the Memphis star put up 26 points(11-18), 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals.

Memphis has now won 5 games in a row, and retains sole possession of the top of the American. The Tigers will return to the FedEx Forum Thursday when they host the 9-13 Tulsa Golden Hurricanes. This will be the first time PJ Haggerty has faced off against his former team.