The #18 ranked Tigers fell to the Temple Owls 88-81. This marks the 4th loss for the Penny Hardaway led Tigers, their first in conference, and brings their record to 13-4.
Despite a 21-point performance from PJ Haggerty, Memphis was simply outplayed by the Owls.
Both of these squads got off to a slow start. By the halfway point of the first half, the score was only 15-16 in favor of the Temple Owls.
Tyrese Hunter hit his second 3 of the game minutes later to cut the Owl's lead down to 2.
Temple answered with three triples of their own, and following a last second Dain Dainja bucket, Memphis went into halftime trailing 30-36.
The Tigers were out rebounded 12-22 in the first half, an indication of things to come, and shot 3-11 from behind the arc.
So far this season, the Tigers have been able to shoot the ball well consistently, 40%. Even in games when the shots were not falling for Memphis, their defensive effort and rebounding has kept them in it. That was not the case tonight.
It was the Owls who shot 40% in the first half, and controlled the paint.
Behind quick points from Nick Jourdain and PJ Haggerty, Memphis had cut the advantage down to 5. In the following 3 minutes, Temple went on an 11-1 run. The scoring mostly came from the foul line and under the basket. This gave them a 15-point lead, the largest of the game.
This did not end the Tiger's night, as they started to heat up from the perimeter and minutes later trailed by 6. With 5:57 left to play, Haggerty split a pair of free throws to bring the score to 65-63.
The following minutes saw both teams trade buckets, and it became clear that the first team to capitalize off a stop would take this one home.
The Owls stop came by way of an empty trip to the foul line from PJ Haggerty, with just under 2 minutes to play. Following the misses, Temple would get a quick dunk, and extended their lead to 6.
After multiple more misses at the foul line for both units, the score sat at 82-75 with 50 seconds left to play.
There was not enough time for the Tigers, and after late game free throws, they fell 88-81.
Memphis finished the game shooting 27-60(45%) and 6-21(28.6%) from the perimeter. Conversely, the Owls shot 40.9% from the 3 point line. Memphis also shot 21-31 from the charity stripe, something the Tigers needed to do better in order to win tonight's game.
Alongside the errors at the foul line, Memphis was out rebounded 25-49. 22 of the Owls 49 rebounds came on the offensive glass and resulted in 19 second chance points.
The Tigers only turned the ball over 10 times and even had a positive assist to turnover ratio with 14 assists. Temple turned the ball over 18 times, 10 of those being steals by Memphis.
This was another concerning loss for the Tigers. It was just two days prior last year that the 2023-2024 Memphis Tigers fell to USF and proceeded to lose 3 games in a row after an impressive start to their season, a scary coincidence.
The Tigers were could not overcome the rebounding differential tonight and did not play their best game, offensively or defensively. Rebounding, especially when there is not a big height advantage, is an effort stat. There is no excuse for losing a rebound battle 25-49, especially not when Temple's leading rebounded was Shane Dezonie, their 6ft 4 guard, who finished with 13 rebounds.
Memphis will look to course correct and prevent a mid season skid as they travel to Charlotte to take on the 49ers, who are 0-5 in conference play. Tip off is set for Sunday Jan 19 at 2.p.m.
