Tigers want to ‘bring the punch first’ and that starts vs. Lane
Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway disclosed Friday a very specific set of expectations for last week’s exhibition game.
“I wanted to see us be more in the gaps. I wanted to see us kinda shrink the floor a little bit when the ball we swung,” he said. “Just all the little things we’ve been working on defensively. Offensively, spread the floor and just play.”
That blueprint produced some mixed results against Christian Brothers University. Sure, the Tigers won the game (69-60), but their perimeter offense and defense were lacking. CBU was 9-of-22 beyond the arc, while Memphis was just 2 for 19. The rebounding battle was a little too close for comfort for some, as the Tigers edged the Bucs 44-40 in that department.
This week — as Memphis prepares to face Lane College (1 p.m. Sunday) in its final preseason tune-up before the season opener at Vanderbilt (7 p.m., Nov. 7) — Hardaway wants his players to narrow their focus. He wants them to concentrate less on mechanics and more on the mechanism.
“I want to see us just be tougher,” he said. “I want to see the energy from the beginning to get the crowd into the game and keep it at a high level. We can’t go into any game feeling like it’s not important.”
The importance of doing just that Sunday isn’t lost on senior forward Chandler Lawson. The former East High star hasn’t forgotten how dire things got for the Tigers late last season when almost every game was a mustwin situation thanks to a flurry of slipups that resulted in bad losses to the likes of Ole Miss, Georgia and East Carolina.
Lawson believes avoiding a repeat of such circumstances is a process that can’t start soon enough.
“I feel like we’ve got to go on ahead and bring the punch first this year,” he said. “We don’t want to be the team fighting for spots at the last minute. We, for sure, gotta tighten things up, because the season is right around the corner. We’ve gotta knock things out early. Get it rolling quick.”
Last week, for a variety of reasons, Hardaway rolled out a starting lineup of Kendric Davis, Alex Lomax, Jayden Hardaway, Deandre Williams and Malcolm Dandridge. On Friday, the fifthyear coach reiterated the starting lineup won’t be the same, in part, because he’s still getting a feel for how certain combinations work together. But, there may also be some more practical reasons.
“Yeah, got some knick-knack injuries, man,” Hardaway said. “I just, it’s happened all summer. We haven’t had a full team on the court, man, maybe one or two times. Maybe. And when that happens, somebody gets like an ankle (injury) or an old injury happens or something.
“So, it’s been a little frustrating, but the guys are working hard to get back on the court.”
Lane College, coached by former Tigers star Andre Turner, is coming off a 10-18 season. The Dragons faced Memphis in their lone exhibition game a year ago, falling 88-49.
Sunday’s game will not be televised nor live-streamed. The radio broadcast will be carried on 98.1-FM.
Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.