Fun name of game at banquet
Tigers throw lighthearted jabs at regular-season-ending party
Carolyn Witherspoon was urging her son, University of Memphis senior forward Wesley Witherspoon, to take it easy on senior teammate Preston Laird before the two exchanged gag gifts at the Tigers’ annual team banquet at the U of M Holiday Inn on Sunday.
Turns out, she probably should have warned Laird, too.
With Witherspoon’s trusty backpack having reached legendary status over his four years with the program, Laird decided to replace the backpack, which Witherspoon donated Sunday to a silent auction, with a miniature, Marvel Comics backpack filled with goodies.
“I see where this is going,” Witherspoon told a crowd of around 500 boosters and supporters who got to enjoy a night of laughs with the players.
In addition to some razors and shaving cream Laird had inside Witherspoon’s new backpack to take care of the “peach fuzz” on Witherspoon’s chin, Laird had some light — make that heavy — reading for his teammate in the form of two books.
The first was “Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader,” a perfect gift, Laird said, for Witherspoon’s extended stays in the bath-
room during their time as roommates on the road. The other was “My Bad: The Apology Anthology.”
“Wesley, let’s not call him a troublemaker. We won’t say that,” Laird said. “But he’s known for rubbing people the wrong way and making some poor decisions from time to time. What this book is is pretty much every public apology every politician, basketball player, coach has ever said. “I thought this could help him in some way.” For the second straight year, coach Josh Pastner elected to have the players exchange gifts instead of handing out individual awards. With Memphis playing its best basketball of the season going into this week’s Conference USA Tournament at Fedexforum, Pastner wanted to keep the focus on the team rather than individual play.
“It’s about the players. People get to know them,” Pastner said. “People hear me enough in the press conferences. So it’s good to let them hear about the players.
“It was a light evening, but we also understand that (today) we gotta get back to work and get focused on doing a job.”
Junior forward Ferrakohn Hall gave sophomore guard Joe Jackson a talking Build-a-bear so Hall wouldn’t have to listen to Jackson drone on and on at night.
“He talks a lot. He just keeps going on and on about his problems and how many points he scores. Sometimes you get tired of it,” Hall said to a roar from the crowd.
Junior forward Drew Barham might have had the most appropriate gift of the night. Barham pointed out that while junior forward D.J. Stephens is good at takeoffs for his high-rising dunks, he’s not so good on sticking the landing, often coming down on his back or backside instead of his feet.
“So in order to have a safe landing, I got him a little hat with a helicopter (propeller) on top of it ,” Barham said.
This time last year, the Tigers (23-8, 13-3 in Conference USA) where in a position where they had to win the Conference USA Tournament to assure themselves of a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
This year Memphis, which Pastner pointed out Sunday had the highest team GPA in the program’s history for the fall semester (2.8), enters this week’s C-USA Tourney as the C-USA regularseason champion and the No. 1 seed. Unlike last year, the Tigers are in solid position to earn an atlarge bid to the NCAA Tournament, though they have no intention of making an early exit in this week’s conference tournament.
Memphis opens quarterfinal play Thursday at 6:30 p.m. against Wednesday’s Utep-houston winner.
“There’s three seasons. We’ve got the first season that we just completed. We’ve got the second season, which is this week. Then the third season, which will be the postseason and the NCAA Tournament,” Pastner said. “We’re ready for the second season. We’ve enjoyed the regular-season championship, but we know we have to get back to work starting (today). We’ll be ready.”
— Jason S mith: (901) 529-5804