Pastner has timing down

Tigers again hit stride at right time

I’VE FIGURED OUT this whole basketball coaching thing. It’s not about wiles or strategy or otherwise out- coaching the other coach.

Oh, there’s a little of that , sure. But mostly — let’s say, 99.9 percent — it comes down to this: Can you consistently get your team to play the “right” way (i.e., hard and smart).

From there, it comes down to talent and the way the ball bounces that day.

Play hard. Play smart. Play “right.”

It’s what we talk about when we talk about whether Josh Pastner can coach, isn’t it?

It’s why we’re seriously considering the notion that Pastner, at age 34, at the most crucial stage of a most confounding season, has finally figured it out, has finally broken through as University of Memphis coach.

Has he? Honestly, I haven’t the foggiest. I thought he figured it all out last March, but I was wrong then. I was caught up in the momentum that got Pastner a big raise and his team a consensus top -10 ranking to start this season.

I wrote the lead headline for our Nov. 13, 2011, preseason special section: “No Joshing — with roster and staff in place, it’s time for Pastner’s Tigers to win big.”

Then came the botched opportunities, the dispirited efforts, the inexplicable turns, the desperate stunts.

So are we just being teased again? Or is this the real deal? It sure looked real Saturday afternoon, in the Tigers’ dominating 78-66 victory at Tulsa for the Conference USA regularseason championship.

It sure has looked real, lately — ever since after that home loss to a UTEP(ID) team that hadn’t won a road game all season.

You remember how Pastner reacted. He had the players’ names removed from the back of their jerseys, an act (file under: “stunt, desperate”) that was the strongest evidence yet that while Pastner may not have his players’ total attention, he’ll try anything to get it .

But they’re undefeated since then. They’re conference champs. They’re playing their best basketball — read: hard, smart, “right” — in the month of March.

If the guy hasn’t totally mastered this coaching gig, give him this: He’s got impeccable timing.

Or maybe he’s just been paying attention to the job the local NBA coach has been turning in the last couple of seasons.

The Grizzlies’ Lionel Hollins — now there’s a guy who can seriously coach.

He doesn’t have a bubbly personality. He sometimes seems as if he’d just as soon coach in a closed gym, with no media to pester him and no fans to cheer for Hamed Haddadi. But think about it: He’s convinced a collective of NBA players to do — on a consistent basis — what NBA players supposedly hate to do: win with hard work, hew stubbornly to a plan, and listen to one voice: his.

That, sports fans, is coaching.

And it seems to be catching.

To reach Sports Content Editor David Williams, call (901) 529-2310 or e-mail williams@commercialappeal.com.